Hey everyone! Welcome to Lachlan Likes A Thing, the show where I take a thing and see whether
or not I like it. And the thing we're looking at in this video is the Beats Studio 2013.
And I know a lot of you have been waiting for this video after my unboxing video that
was maybe a few months back, but I have spent a long time with these now and I'm ready to
give my opinion on them. This is a bit of a funny video because no matter what I say,
there are some people who are going to be upset that I'm even looking or listening at
a Beats product. But I think given how many headphones Beats now sell and their market
share in the premium headphone market, it's really important as a reviewer that you actually
listen to what a lot of people ARE listening to. So you've got to keep an open mind about
these things otherwise what's the point of doing the review? So in that spirit I got
a pair of these for $280 from Dick Smith Electronics and I actually think, spoiler alert, sorry,
spoiler alert, that these are good headphones, but there are 3 things that kind of make me
hesitate about recommending them. So, you know, let's go through it. Firstly in terms
of design, I know a lot of you might not like this fire engine red colour. I think it's
a bit snazzy. Personally I would have loved to get the matte black version but unfortunately
I couldn't find those for sale. The kind of glossy plastics used in the design are quite,
you know, quite nice overall. The build quality of this headphone is quite nice. We have soft
touch plastics on the inside of the headband, really soft cushions on the earpads. I can't
speak as to the long term durability of the hinge mechanism. I I do feel like that is
a possible failure point of the headphone, you can hear it kind of creaking when you
twist it. That said that's probably always going to be a problem with any sort of headphone
with a folding hinge. As far as the cable goes, we have actually a really nice cable.
It doesn't really have much strain relief to it but it's very thick in terms of the
cable sheath and overall this is a nice cable with a 90 degree angle jack, nicely compact,
nicely made. You also get another cable in the box with an iOS device cable, and also
a charger, etc etc. With the Beats Studio 2013 you also get a carrying pouch., and what's
nice about this hard pouch is that it's compact but it's not so compact that you have to readjust
the headband every time you put the headphone in. So it will accommodate the headphone with
the headband slightly extended. Now one thing I don't like about this pouch is that there's
no inner lining for you to put the cable into so it doesn't kind of hang around inside the
case, and there's no inner lining for extra cables or that kind of thing. I think that's
a bit of an oversight, but not really a big deal. Overall it's a nice little package.
In terms of comfort the Beats Studio 2013 is a really comfortable headphone. That's
one of the biggest selling points of this headphone for me. Maybe particularly just
for my ears, but I find the earpads are very soft, once you put them on your ears it is
an around-ear fit. The headband is actually very, you can see here just on my particular
forehead, the headband actually touches most of the way across the top of my head, so the
fit is very stable and very snug, and as you can see, you know, it's one of the better
headphones I've experienced in terms of comfort. One thing about this headphone though is that
the clamping force isn't particularly tight, but the earpads are quite soft and pillowy
and I don't think the synthetic leather that they're using is going to be particularly
breathable in hot weather. So over time you might find your ears getting a bit stuffy
after a few hours of wear. Now we'll move onto the first thing though, speaking of the
earpads, that I don't like about this headphone. Especially since it's a $280 headphone. And
that is these earpads are not replaceable. You cannot actually remove the earpads from
this headphone. And you know, for a lot of people, such an expensive headphone, this
is going to be the only headphone they ever use. And once the earpads go you're going
to have to get serivcing from Beats, or get something done, or you know, you're going
to have to do something about the earpads, you can't simply just swap them out with another
replacement pair. And that's a real shame because this is an expensive headphone and
the earpads that are the first thing probably that is going to wear and go on these headphones.
The second thing, when you put this headphone on, the first thing you'll immediately notice,
is the hiss from the noise cancellation, because there is an in built noise cancellation feature
on this headphone. Now while the noise cancellation feature is really good and I really appreciate
it while I'm out in the city and it really does quite work in letting you listen to your
music a bit more, the hiss is actually very very loud, and it sounds like basically an
old transistor radio where there's just this constant kind of fuzz noise. Now if you're
listening to music in a noisy environment there's no problem because the background
noise is actually going to cover up that hiss. But if you're in a quieter environment and
you're listening to quieter passages of music where there's not much happening, then you
will hear that hiss and it will be constant throughout. And the thing about the Beats
Studio 2013 is that you cannot turn off the noise cancellation. And that's another, the
second really big issue, well, the third really big issue, because the second is the hiss,
but the third big issue is that because you cannot turn off the noise cancellation, you
can't turn off that hiss, and if the Beats Studio 2013 runs out of battery life, the
headphone stops working. There is no sound out of this headphone. That's really unfortunate
because you're kind of stuck with a $280 piece of plastic if the battery runs out while you're
using it. Now the thing with the battery running out is that this headphone doesn't automatically
turn off if you aren't wearing it. Like there's no way for it to tell, unlike the Parrot Zik
model that I looked at earlier where it had that sensor to be able to tell when it was
against your head, and therefore it would turn off if it wasn't in contact with your
skin. The Beats Studio 2013 doesn't have that kind of feature. So it will just go run itself
flat unless you turn it off. And basically the way that you can guarantee that you turn
it off, is that you pull out the cable, and then the headphone will turn off about 10
minutes. So that's the safest way I've found. There's also another way where you can just
kind of press this power button and the headphone should turn off. In practice I've found, I
don't know, maybe it's because I'm forgetting something, but it's quite unreliable. And
basically if you accidentally put this headphone down, forget to take the cable out, next time
you pick it up, the next morning or a few hours later, it's flat. So unless you are
in a good habit of making sure to pull out the cable after every single time you use
it, you end up, and this happened to me repeatedly, you end up disappointing situations where
you can't enjoy the music because the headphones don't work. So we'll move onto the sound now,
and this is probably a really positive point about this headphone. Apart from the constant
hiss I actually think the Beats Studio 2013 sounds a lot better than it's predecessor.
It's definitely still got an elevated bass level, but the bass is punchy, it's quite
tight, overall the sound has this kind of mid forward note to it. It's quite dynamic
and lively. There's a certain mid forwardness to the lower treble so some people as honky
kind of sounding, a bit like trumpets or kind of a brassy sound to it. I think the overall
balance is definitely not neutral, it's definitely tailored in a particular way. And I suspect
because of the fact that this headphone does not work without power that a lot of the sound
of this headphone is due to some kind of electronic, digital, DSP being applied, some kind of equalisation
being applied in the headphone itself. But overall the sound I think is quite punchy
and dynamic and it works really well with kind of modern pop, and you know, modern kind
of musical genres. But again the hiss makes it really difficult to enjoy some other genres.
Particularly any kind of music where there are softer passages because when there's silence
instead of silence you'll just get this hiss. And essentially that means you're going to
have a huge chunk of dynamic range removed from this headphone. And it's funny because
we talk nowadays about 24 bit audio and having more dynamic range can the human ear can technically
kind of hear, and yet you have this very popular headphone which basically probably only has
a 12 or 13 bits of dynamic range because a massive amount of it is just being thrown
away because of that constant hiss. So that's really a bit of a downer. As far as alternatives
to the Beats Studio 2013 I think the Logitech UE 6000 delivers a lot of what the Beats Studio
delivers at a lower price. The Logitech is not quite as punchy and it's not quite as,
overall in terms of sound quality, I would say the Studio delivers the same kind of sound
but just a bit of an upgrade overall. But the plus side of the UE 6000 is that it actually
works with the noise cancellation turned off. So that's a really big plus, and the other
thing about the UE 6000 is of course it's about a third of the price. If noise cancellation
isn't a huge thing for you then basically there's a lot of other good portable headphones
out there that I would probably recommend over the Beats Studio just on the basis of
the number of drawbacks with this headphone. So like the Sennheiser Momentum, the Sennheiser
Amperior, all my favourite portable headphones. I think the KEF M500. So if you're interested
in alternatives I recommend you have a look at my list of recommended portable headphones
on my channel. So overall I think the Beats Studio 2013 is an better headphone than it's
predecessors. I think this is a headphone where a number of people are really going
to like these because a lot of the drawbacks that I found with this headphone don't apply
to certain genres of music, don't apply as long as you remember to pull out the cable,
etc etc. But for me I think the lack of replaceable earpads, the fact that it doesn't work without
batteries, and the fact that there's that constant hiss really kind of put a downer
on this headphone for me. I do like this headphone, I do like the sound of it, and it came very
close to something that I would recommend quite wholeheartedly but just those little
things really put me off it. But I really do recommend that you go out and have a listen
to these, even if you don't want to buy them, just to know ow strong the competition is
now getting in the headphone market, where even Beats can't rest on their laurels anymore,
and they at least have to put out a product that sounds quite decent. Anyway click the
like button if you found this video helpful, and you can subscribe to my channel for more
reviews. Thanks to all my regular subscribers, I'm looking forward to your comments! You
can talk to me on Facebook at facebook.com/lachlanlikesathing or on Twitter @lachlikesathing - and happy
listening!