Beats By Dre – Does the price justify the quality?

So the other day my iPod earphones finally gave way after 3 months of continual use. To be honest, I enjoyed the earphones and they only cost me $3 from eBay. In my hunt for new earphones I decided to give the Dre Beats a spin after hearing about them for so long. There are a wide selection of products from http://www.beatsbydre.com ranging from headphones to earphones to speakers. All of these will set you back anywhere between $120 and $400. So does the price you pay justify the quality that you get from your music? 

I first took myself down to some electronic goods stores and hooked my iPod up to the various demonstration models they have on offer. I went through a few songs on roughly 5 models within the headphone and earphone category. I didn’t notice anything too much that was different, so I found some friends who had various models and borrowed them to use. So for 1 week, I listened to a select 100 songs from different genres of music: metal, rock, rnb, hip hop, hardstyle, house, etc. My overall reaction was disappointing. Also just to mention, these aren’t crappy rips from YouTube that have a low bit-rate, we’re talking high bit-rate, high quality music fresh from cd’s and iTunes. 

Because I didn’t buy the products, I was more susceptible to a true opinion. I know people who have tried their hardest to justify their spending on these products and you can see the anguish in their eyes as they have buyers bias. But what exactly do I feel about the price? Does the price justify the quality? Very bluntly no. Although you can hear deeper bass and drums, more crisper vocals and instruments, it wasn’t anything different that a $35 pair of Sony earphones I had lying around from 3 years ago. Nothing is really different. Even the noise cancelling headphones I dislike. If you wear them in public, sure you get to listen to your music without blowing your eardrums out, but if you’re really that anti-social in public, then you’d probably get hit by a car that has lost control and people are yelling and screaming at you to get out of the way, but you’re too busy with your $250 headphones that cancel out background noise, and your volume is turned up so you can enjoy your music.

Some people try to say that they’re more designed for drum n bass and electronic music, but if you really want to spend that much money on earphones or headphones that deliver the same performance as a $30 to $40 pair, then by all means go ahead. I guess you could say that Beats By Dre are the Mercedes Benz of the audio world; it’s great to own them, but you can get the same functioning and audio experience for at least 10% of the price.