Beats: or how marketing triumphs science and engineering

[kyuu]

Try playing KEF Blades and JBL Partybox 710s to 100 random people. Do you think the Blades will win?

Yes, in a blind listening test I absolutely think the Blades would win. Although JBL is hardly comparable to Beats, even with consumer-focused products like the Partybox, so I'm not sure why you chose to make that comparison.

 

[Paul7777x]

I was given a pair of over -ear Beats free with an iPad back some many years ago.

Superb for the gym and strolls.

The bass helped the nc cancel a lot of noise especially the gym grunt wankers, and the ‘look at me’ bellends who like to slam stacks.

Loved them.

 

[Somafunk]

One more time:
Nothing Beats a good story. The world evolves around them.

Yeah, nothing can easily beat “Beats”

 

[Ruediger]

The smartest guys are the ones who sold Apple that headphone brand in my opinion. Maybe it was even made for that or such a deal. They matched the overpriced mediocre pods (and the company) perfect.

 

[PristineSound]

Reminds me of the 90's car audio system. Cars with 4x 15" subs, it was a symbol of cool, though it does help to have rumbling bass. I was very much into it, although my car never had subs, but damn, it was a very cool teenager thing to have. Same with these Beats, it was a very cool teenager and mid 20's thing to have.

And how did it become cool in the first place? Someone had to manufacture the culture, Beats did that, they manufactured a new culture.

Similarly, McIntosh also manufactured a culture. The blue meter, the green tubes, used in Woodstock, pictures of celebrities owning McIntosh and the forever service life. And bam a culture has been manufactured.

 

[phoenixdogfan]

And get LeBron to be videoed wearing them with a really drip outfit as he walks out of the bus to the arena.

 

[sam_adams]

with the same disdain we reserve for Bose.

Say what you will about Bose—and I know all of you will—but any company that has a speaker system like this:

deserves a tiny bit of respect.

 

[kemmler3D]

Used to have to compete with Beats. Very difficult as they had invested enough in brand recognition / recall to essentially secure the sale before the customer landed on Amazon. We subscribed to a tool where you could see what people searched for on there, and IIRC about 80% of headphone-related searches went to Beats, Bose, and Sony. Everyone else was left to fight over the remaining 20% - a desperate battle.

Beats was sort of lightning in a bottle, though. It's not just that they spent a lot on ads... I think it really hinged on Dr. Dre's reputation as a producer. Not many producers are household names, really he's in a league of his own in that regard, probably because he also raps. And he cashed in on his name just as the demographic that would have been listening to his stuff in the 90s-2000s (millennials) hit the age where they had enough money to spend on "nice" headphones. The smartphone listening trend was also taking off at the time, making headphones a bigger category than it had been in years past.

I think we also have to give them credit for industrial design. They don't look like much today, but they were a lot more fashion-forward and fashion-oriented than almost anything on the market at the time. Nobody else was making 10 different colors of the same headphone.

While there was certainly something like a sound quality hoax going on, that was far from the only reason they succeeded.

This confluence of advantages, PLUS a buttload of ad spending, worked incredibly well. I think it would be hard to replicate their success even with unlimited resources, because I don't think there's anyone else with the same KIND of reputation that Dr. Dre had / has. Or if there is, they're a Gen Z/A phenomenon and I'm too old to know about them.

Rick Rubin is almost as famous, but I doubt he could pull it off. Devin Turnbull is the closest thing to Dre in the market today (a fashionable dude pushing overpriced audio equipment with uncertain bona fides) and the Ojas stuff is about 1% as mainstream as Beats was.

 

[EJ3]

This video talks about the history of Beats headphones. How they came from nothing, did no research, optimized their product to deliver a bass heavy response (because that made music sound more exciting) and then invested a lot of money into marketing. Sales exploded and the company became so valuable that Apple paid $3 billion for them. Unlike Apple's other acquisitions (e.g. Siri and Q.ai), Beats had no proprietary technology, all they had was their brand name. Yet Apple still saw fit to pay billions of dollars for the company. For context, Samsung paid $8 billion for the Harman Group - a company that has a dozen smaller brands under its umbrella, wrote the textbook on speaker and headphone engineering, and it actually has patents!

As the video points out, most serious audiophiles regard Beats with the same disdain we reserve for Bose. We KNOW that it's cheaply made and inaccurate. We cling to our Sennheisers, Beyerdynamics, AKG's, and Dan Clarks. But look where those companies are: AKG belongs to Samsung as part of the Harman group, Sennheiser is up for sale, Beyerdynamic has been acquired by the Chinese (for USD$140 million!!), and DCA is an absolute minnow.

There is a difference between enthusiasts and audio companies. We are in it for the sound. Audio companies are in it for the money. As an enthusiast, it boggles my mind that Apple paid $3 billion for basically an empty shell created out of nothing through the power of marketing. But then, those Apple guys are much smarter than I am. Or maybe more cynical. I guess the consumer gets what they deserve.

So all you guys who care about compliance to the Harman target: you're all wrong. Sean Olive was wasting his time. If you want to make money, forget the Harman curve and forget science. Go find yourself a rapper, get a product designer to give you a cool logo and cool looking headphones, invest all your money in marketing, and make bank. History tells us that perception trumps reality, and it trumps it big. To the tune of $3 billion for Beats.

Many years ago, I had the early beats owners sitting 2 rows in front of me on an airplane flying between Tokyo and Detroit. And they had a couple of their early headphones with them, discussing the design. I had already heard the abysmal sounding 'Beats' somewhere & mentioned to them that their sound wasn't close to as linier as my Sennheiser's. They just looked at me with distain and did not verbally acknowledge that I had said anything, continuing with whatever their focus was on in their headphones.
I guess that I was right, but they where coming up with their plan and made it way bigger than the more correct sound that I listen to. I'm not much of a head phone user but their crud damn near killed the 'correct' sounding head phone market.

 

[Talisman]

Yes, in a blind listening test I absolutely think the Blades would win. Although JBL is hardly comparable to Beats, even with consumer-focused products like the Partybox, so I'm not sure why you chose to make that comparison.

Because I don't think so at all, that's why, they are not passionate users, or even simply trained, and I don't believe at all that between the two a victory for the KEF would be certain. Just like, in my own small way, my friends are impressed by my partybox 120 in stereo, but not so much by my R3s.

 

[kemmler3D]

I don't believe at all that between the two a victory for the KEF would be certain. Just like, in my own small way, my friends are impressed by my partybox 120 in stereo, but not so much by my R3s.

Level-matched in proper placement the Blades would win IMO. Regular people respond really strongly to bass and overall loudness, and if they don't notice a difference in those attributes they will listen for "clarity", which means something different depending on who you ask. Good stereo imaging also helps even if they don't name it. Blades would win on bass, stereo, and clarity, and if not using a hyped preset on the partybox they should be close on loudness.

I know what you're getting at here and I don't broadly disagree, but I think the Blades are strong enough in the "layperson" SQ categories (by virtue of being strong across the board) that they'd win despite the partybox over-emphasizing those traits.

 

[Talisman]

Level-matched in proper placement the Blades would win IMO. Regular people respond really strongly to bass and overall loudness, and if they don't notice a difference in those attributes they will listen for "clarity", which means something different depending on who you ask. Good stereo imaging also helps even if they don't name it. Blades would win on bass, stereo, and clarity, and if not using a hyped preset on the partybox they should be close on loudness.

I know what you're getting at here and I don't broadly disagree, but I think the Blades are strong enough in the "layperson" SQ categories (by virtue of being strong across the board) that they'd win despite the partybox over-emphasizing those traits.

I don't rule it out, but honestly, I'm not even sure; we're obviously discussing the sex of angels.
Even I, who have a certain education in good sound, am impressed by the Paryboxes in stereo. While they're not perfect, they emphasize and spectacularize the response in a way that's hard to ignore, especially if you listen to pop, dance, or electronic music. Clearly, the castle falls if you listen to an orchestra, but realistically, the average person doesn't listen to symphonic music, but rather Lady Gaga. For this reason, despite everything, I'm not convinced that the KEF would win.
This is why I say that Beats have provided an EQ setting that, while having nothing to do with high fidelity, is very pleasant to listen to for a large segment of users across many mainstream music genres. They've given many people what they wanted. I consider what we find in our field much more "empty marketing," with disproportionate costs compared to outright marketing lies based on pseudoscience and users' lack of awareness of their own biases.

 

[beeface]

This confluence of advantages, PLUS a buttload of ad spending, worked incredibly well. I think it would be hard to replicate their success even with unlimited resources, because I don't think there's anyone else with the same KIND of reputation that Dr. Dre had / has. Or if there is, they're a Gen Z/A phenomenon and I'm too old to know about them.

Rick Rubin is almost as famous, but I doubt he could pull it off. Devin Turnbull is the closest thing to Dre in the market today (a fashionable dude pushing overpriced audio equipment with uncertain bona fides) and the Ojas stuff is about 1% as mainstream as Beats was.

Although Dr. Dre's strength is undoubtably his production (as a performer I think his delivery is good enough to be effective, and I'm not bothered that he uses ghostwriters), I feel he's done enough as a performer to be more than just a "producer who raps". Straight Outta Compton, The Chronic and 2001 alone make him 12x RIAA platinum as a performer, plus he's done a Superbowl halftime show. I just don't think his hits for Snoop Dogg, Eminem and 50 Cent are enough alone to make him a household name; NWA, the solo albums and guest features did a lot to raise his profile.

Diddy, Timbaland, Pharrell Williams and Kanye West come to mind as others who started out primarily as producers but became famous as performers.

The most famous strictly-producers of the last two decades are guys like Mike Will Made It, Mustard, Metro Boomin (accidental alliteration) who raised their profile with producer tags, appearing in videos, and releasing albums, but are still nowhere near the level of Dr. Dre, probably because they don't perform vocals.

 

[iGmole]

I've use a Sony WH-1000XM2 already for many years. With the Wavelet app I apply a Harman-target EQ profile, and in my opinion it clearly improves the sound considerable. However, I almost never leave it at 100% strength. Most of the time I run it around 60%, and sometimes even lower, because (probably regarding the mastering) that's what sounds best to me.

Perhaps you've done it already, but you may want to check for clipping, if your EQ setting boosts something. The latest version of Wavelet has an auto attenuator, which does negative gain to compensate for boosts so you don't clip. You have to manually enable it though.

Or maybe you just like it at 60%, but this thing just came to my mind.

EDIT: should look like this

 

[Snarfie]

Perhaps you've done it already, but you may want to check for clipping, if your EQ setting boosts something. The latest version of Wavelet has an auto attenuator, which does negative gain to compensate for boosts so you don't clip. You have to manually enable it though.

Or maybe you just like it at 60%, but this thing just came to my mind.

EDIT: should look like this
View attachment 539426

Thanx will have try an compare. I use amount of EQ linear as .gif below it gradually manage the amount of EQ for now i did not found this functionality in any EQ/DSP app than Wavelet.

https://imgur.com/Qa89SX5

 

[Joe Smith]

I looked at the first part of this. Thanks for posting. The surprise to me is that Apple paid that amount of money for a simple concept they could have re-interpreted and executed themselves. $3 billion would have paid for the small amount of engineering and production involved, and then just wait for the money to flow in. Did they truly need the cachet of the Beats brand, or was it just to, in effect, shut down a competitor? At any rate, it's done now, and the Beats legacy of boomy base lives on...

 

[EERecordist]

My opinion is that the Beats acquisition by Apple is an outlier. It was post-Steve Jobs. There is no Apple logo, the Beats logo remains. Looking at the Apple website they are doing co-branding with Nike on earbuds, as they have done with watch.

When they were bought, Beats was about 1 billion annual revenue and Apple paid 3x revenue, which is reasonable.

It appears that Beats has about 50% market share in the US and it is estimated their bill of materials is very small, so they are very profitable.

With the acquisition, Apple got a new customer base and Beats got manufacturing and distribution. When they update the product, I wonder what they decide on frequency response, compression, and distortion?

 

[kemmler3D]

Although Dr. Dre's strength is undoubtably his production (as a performer I think his delivery is good enough to be effective, and I'm not bothered that he uses ghostwriters), I feel he's done enough as a performer to be more than just a "producer who raps". Straight Outta Compton, The Chronic and 2001 alone make him 12x RIAA platinum as a performer, plus he's done a Superbowl halftime show. I just don't think his hits for Snoop Dogg, Eminem and 50 Cent are enough alone to make him a household name; NWA, the solo albums and guest features did a lot to raise his profile.

Diddy, Timbaland, Pharrell Williams and Kanye West come to mind as others who started out primarily as producers but became famous as performers.

The most famous strictly-producers of the last two decades are guys like Mike Will Made It, Mustard, Metro Boomin (accidental alliteration) who raised their profile with producer tags, appearing in videos, and releasing albums, but are still nowhere near the level of Dr. Dre, probably because they don't perform vocals.

Yes, totally agree. He's someone that would have been about as famous as Snoop or any of the NWA guys just for rapping, (so - pretty famous, as mainstream as a rapper really gets) PLUS he cultivated a reputation as a producer, often within the lyrics themselves. You can contrast this with Kanye West who also produced a lot of his own stuff, but didn't drive toward the "studio guy" image in the same way. Somehow his brand just isn't quite as good a fit for headphones. (And I don't mean now, post-Nazi-turn, I mean even in the good old Gold Digger days.)

Timbaland might have been the closest contemporary of Dre who might have launched a headphone brand, but he's not really on the same tier in terms of sheer name recognition, even though I would personally consider him equally credible as a "golden ear" or whatever.

I looked at the first part of this. Thanks for posting. The surprise to me is that Apple paid that amount of money for a simple concept they could have re-interpreted and executed themselves. $3 billion would have paid for the small amount of engineering and production involved, and then just wait for the money to flow in. Did they truly need the cachet of the Beats brand, or was it just to, in effect, shut down a competitor? At any rate, it's done now, and the Beats legacy of boomy base lives on...

IMO The $3B had nothing whatsoever to do with the engineering, it was 100% for the brand name and distribution. Anyone with the title "Audio engineer" in any headphone factory that produced its own designs could do what they did.

I am not sure WHY Apple needed the Beats brand, only to build their own headphone brand (AirPods) also, but it does give them access to the entire mainstream headphone market, from $20-$800 or however much their new ones cost.

 

[PristineSound]

Beats got manufacturing and distribution.

Beats got engineering capabilities as well.

 

[SKBubba]

Apple also acquired Beats Music streaming service as part of the deal. Apple Music launched shortly thereafter, replacing Beats Music.