Beats by Dre: iBeats

kevincaz

Hi

Just saw the ibeats in HMV for 90 bells.

Was wondering has anyone got these and if so are they any good.

I need to get rid of my icrap headphones i got for the iPhone.

Cheers

Brian

kevincaz wrote: »

are they any good

Nope.

Seaneh

kevincaz wrote: »

Hi

Just saw the ibeats in HMV for 90 bells.

Was wondering has anyone got these and if so are they any good.

I need to get rid of my icrap headphones i got for the iPhone.

Cheers

Bit like the full beats cans, if they half the price they'd be a good buy.
Way over priced though.

Brian

I agree. They don't sound terrible. They sound terrible for the price.

fishtank5

any one any positive feedback ? seems not..

just ordered an ipod shuffle and was thinking of changing head phones,

only got it for jogigng and looks like the i Beats would fall out easily..

seems to be just a big marketing scam

Custardpi

Any headphones you get to replace the ones Apple supply you with will be an improvement. If all you've heard is the iBud quality stuff then there's probably no point in spending oodles on a new pair as you won't properly appreciate the difference (ie: it'll obviously be miles better but €90 better or €20 better?). Spend €30 - €50 on some Sennheisers in HMV or wherever & that should do the job nicely.

Seaneh

Also, buying expensive headphones and then plugging them into an iPod is pretty much retarded. the .m4a format is, basically, ****, and you don't have a whole lot to work with to necessitate expensive cans/buds.

Any half decent pair at around 30-50 will be grand for an iPod.

Unless you are using them for sound editing/gaming/watching movies from a tv/comupter with a good audio card, you don't need expnsive ones.

JustAddWater

I got a pair of marshall majors €99 (HMV) €89 (harvey norman) and I have to say they are excellent. The guy in Harvery's told me (he had a pair on beats on his neck!) that the beats are appalling for live music and tend to give a better sound to rap/hiphop tunes

You can plug your own iPhone/pod etc into the headphones in any harvey norman and have a listen for yourself

Personally though my majors are perfect for me and the quality is just amazing! Well worth the investment

Brian

What other headphones have you used besides the Majors?

cnocbui

Seaneh wrote: »

Also, buying expensive headphones and then plugging them into an iPod is pretty much retarded. the .m4a format is, basically, ****,

Absolute tripe.

If .m4a is encoded at decent bit rates - 160 kbps or greater - then the results are indistinguishable from the original uncompressed source track, for the vast majority of material. The output from most decent PMPs is as good as that from a decent CD player. So, playing high bit rate encoded .m4a on a PMP is perceptually as good as listening to a CD in a good CD player.

There is no such thing as headphones or speakers that are too good for a decent PMP. I use fairly high end cans with my iPod and the resulting sound is fantastic.

Brian

cnocbui wrote: »

There is no such thing as headphones or speakers that are too good for a decent PMP.

Well, you would have a hard time driving something like HD650s or K701s straight from an iPod. They wouldn't sound half as good as they actually are, because they just need more power.

cnocbui

Ok, conceeded. I meant the underlying sound quality/fidelity as opposed to dynamic capability.

Scubadevils

Baza210 wrote: »

Well, you would have a hard time driving something like HD650s or K701s straight from an iPod. They wouldn't sound half as good as they actually are, because they just need more power.

I'd love to know if I'm missing anything from my HD650s as I am not using an amp to drive them - they sound great but for all I know they could be even better... I have them running straight off the headphone jack on a Marantz CD52 MKII - very old CD player but still works perfectly, I only need the volume at approx 1/3 of the way so assumed I wouldn't need a headphone amp. Could they be even better with an amp?

Sorry, off topic!

Brian

Don't really know anything about living room sources like CD players, sorry. It sounds nice though, how much did you pay for it?

cnocbui

You don't need an amp. You only need one if there isn't enough volume, with a bit spare, to drive the headphones at the listening level you want. A CD separate is mains powered so they usually have no shortage of oomph. Battery powered devices don't have that luxury.

Scubadevils

Baza210 wrote: »

Don't really know anything about living room sources like CD players, sorry. It sounds nice though, how much did you pay for it?

The Marantz is a very old CD player, I think it was around 200 punts back when I bought it around 1994 or so. It has continued to work so I've seen no reason to replace it!

cnocbui wrote: »

You don't need an amp. You only need one if there isn't enough volume, with a bit spare, to drive the headphones at the listening level you want. A CD separate is mains powered so they usually have no shortage of oomph. Battery powered devices don't have that luxury.

Ok cheers, I kinda figured that alright but anytime I read reference to higher-end headphones people always mentioned amps being required, clearly though it's due to the lower powered mp3 players etc as you describe.

Brian

I'm sure they'd benefit somewhat, but not like they would when amping from a portable source.