Monster Cable, the makers of cable, just sent the new Beats by Dr. Dre, a pair of noise cancelling “studio” headphones aimed at the mid-range audio consumer. At $349, these are priced at exactly the same point as the Bose QuietComfort 3, these headphones closest competitor. I’ve been wearing them for the past hour and found them on par with the QC3s in terms of noise reduction. They have very crisp tight bass and a nice separation as well.
Best of all the, the Beats use AAA batteries instead of the QC3’s battery pack, which means you’re not stuck if you forget to recharge. I’ll be taking a flight tomorrow and I’ll bring these along to test – I’m just about sold on the QC3s when it comes to noise reduction but I’m game to try these out in a real-world scenario.
The ear cups are quite nice and isolate the ear well and the styling is slightly younger and cooler than other massive headphones out there. Monster is entering a wireless age and they have to excel at stuff that doesn’t get electrons from point A to point B just to survive. In my brief testing, I’m willing to give them the benefit of the doubt on these.
