Are Beats Headphones Really Designed To Trick You?

Last month , Beats by Dre earphone get in for a exhaustive slagging across the net , andon this here web log , on the foundation of a teardown of the flashy hindquarters . The practice , conducted by a venture capital outfit call Bolt that focuses on hardware startups , seemed to evidence that the headphones were a pretender . It work out that the teardown itself was ground on a fraud : The headphones were imitative . But as revealed by our own teardown of what we ’re pretty sure is a legit pair of Beats , Bolt was n’t wrong about the quality of these machine .

First the backstory : On June 18 , a immature engineer atBoltnamed Avery Louieposted on his company ’s blog a teardownof what he think was an old pair of the Beats by Dre Solo HD earpiece . The finish of the mail was to reveal some of the secrets to bringing manufacturing costs down . The headphones were cheaply manufactured all correctly , and if you ’re conversant with Beats ’ report for fragility that should n’t be a surprise to you . ( I ’ll bring you up to f number : They break . Often . )

Louie ’s original depth psychology , though , had one surprising claim : The Solos contained four alloy percentage that seemed to him to suffice no purpose aside from bring mass to the otherwise loud plastic design .

I ’m one of the writers whoseizedupon the detail and go steady it as an chance to pull musical rhythm apart . appear at this delusory practice ! beat are such refuse that they involve extra weight so that people wo n’t see them for the rubbish they really are ! It was an resistless story . I ’ve never been a fan of Beats and it bug me that an substandard , over - market mathematical product sell so many units when there are much better earphone to be had for the same monetary value . Before they were replaced by a heir , the Solo2s last fall , the Solo HDs were a blockbuster , move roughly 2 million units in 2013 .

All that on the strength of their fashionable designing and their tie with a hip hop ikon . The brand ’s infamous sound tilts toward overpowered freshwater bass that erases nuance and particular , not that it matter to anyone who is buying them . A wad of citizenry had gripe with Beats as well , it seems , because posts on the guinea pig exploded — mine is hovering at about one million pageviews decent now .

But over the following workweek , as the pageviews climb , the narration came under closer scrutiny , and some of Louie ’s claims started to fall apart . Were those metal contribution really only there for weight ? Louie had used a discontinued modeling of the Beats Solo headphones — how did did he get them , and were they even real ?

In a followup postpublished on Wednesday , three hebdomad after the original teardown , Louie conceded that he had indeed been duped by counterfeit Beats headphones . He conducted a teardown of two additional set , concluding that imitative beatniks are well-nigh impossible to spot without a careful heart . And even more interestingly , the real Beats contained the same weighted pieces as the fake version .

My Teardown

When his mail service went up , I ’d just finish a Beats teardown of my own . I ’d consider the claims that Louie ’s couplet might ’ve been fake , and I need to see for myself if his conclusions held up . My pick was a matte - black lot that certainly reckon legit . Since the Solo HDs are discontinued , I was squeeze to pick amongst third - political party marketer on Amazon , many of which lean specs that are completely manufacture .

It ’s easy enough to figure out how to take round apart . There are muckle of tutorials on resort online , and all you need is a $ 6 set of tiny Stanley screwdrivers to do the job . The screw are mostly Phillips , and using the tiniest flathead in my set I was capable to remove the few Torx shtup . The flathead also serves as a lovely crowbar bar for popping aside the snapped together piece . The toughened part of the dismantling was using a hairdryer to melt the glue that binds the drivers to the pinna cup .

Here ’s the whole teardown of my probably logical beat generation by Dre Solo HDs . testify the heavy metal sizer ( 1 ) , the cosmetic joiner ( 2 ) , and the alloy cover drivers ( 3 ) .

Once disassembled , I call Michael Liang , akaHiFiGuy528 , a Beats aficionado who was the first bozo to do an unboxing of this very set of headphones in matte - black years ago . He walk me through the tell - tale sign of the zodiac of a fake , and I just could n’t say from what he told me if mine were indeed legit . “ Some of them are very , very convincing , ” he say . Based on Louie ’s second analysis , I ’m confident I ’ve stick a veridical mathematical product . Like authentic Beats , the machine driver in mine are coat in metallic element . Also two of controversial alloy parting on my headphones are weakly magnetic , which suggests they ’re made of steel , whereas the fakes are made of non - magnetic Zn .

The word of why Beats are so easy to counterfeit is definitely interesting . But the more intriguing dubiousness — the matter I was on a mission to find out — was whether Beats really uses metal purely to add to the weight of its mathematical product .

Do Headphones Even Need Metal?

After his initial tear - down of imitative Beats , Louie did a survey - up with a legit pair . His conclusion was the same . In fact , he even identified unexampled alloy role in the real pair . But fake or real , he pen , those metal art object , accounting for 33 percent of the the great unwashed of the ware , are “ there to add a bit of weight and increase perceived quality with a prissy look . ” I had tear down my own duad and confirmed the existence of the alloy and plastic social organisation that Louie ’s claims were base on . The powerful metal parts were definitely there .

The metal sizers .

But find out whether they served a functional purpose was more hard . Are they really only there to add weight and enhance the feel of the headphones ? Is that really potential ?

Jude Mansilla , proprietor ofthe giant headphone residential area Head - Fi , told me that these long , thin metallic element art object are a part he conversationally calls the “ sizer . ” Mansilla explained something surprising : He cerebrate it makes sense for the sizer to be metal . “ If you think about how the force is being applied there , you ’ll see that it starts to twist at that part of the headband , ” he said . “ Doing it with plastic is very surd . ”

plausibly the large proponent of using metal in headphones is Val Kolton , founder of V - Moda , which is a kind of anti - Beats . V - Moda phone contain almost no plastic and are built to military specifications for durability . He ’s very proud of the slickhinge on the XS headphones — the verbatim competitor to Beats Solos . “ It is user - friendly , secure , light-headed - free weight and reliable , with a ‘ click tactile sound like a opulence lighter , ” he told me by electronic mail . He was n’t exaggerating . The suction stop is delicious . Both Kolton and Mansilla seemed to agree — metal is often structurally necessary in headphones , and when it ’s used right , it can even delight drug user .

But Do Beats Need Metal?

So metallic element is good , but only if you apply it properly . make up . Is Beats using it in good order ? Does this metal serve a structural intention ? Here ’s the Crux Australis of Louie ’s argumentation : The metal sizer pieces in the end attach to a fictile headband . In other words , whatever load they ’re able to carry gets passed down the chain to a crappy credit card part , pretty much negating whatever functional intent they served :

Some might assume that the metal hinges are used for affair rather than feel . At first glance this seems sensible but further disassembly give away that the metal character are actually mounted to credit card chief . Nearly all stress on the metal portion is channelise to these plastic features , which are actually smaller than the beefy alloy parts .

I went digging through my headphones for other examples of sizer parts . From a innovation perspective , the snug Beats analog I could find were the new version of theBose noise - invalidate headphonesthat are mainstay of airport couch everywhere . These headphone have an ultra - slender sizer mechanics that bends so freely I was indisputable it was plastic . It ’s really a very lightweight alloy , which runs from earcup to earcup , serving as the nucleus of the headband ’s entire social system .

This utterly illustrates Louie ’s dot : Where the Beats sizers have outsized alloy hinges that are rendered virtually useless because they ’re attached to plastic at a unaccented articulatio , the Bose sizers use metal as the central element of the headband structure . ( When I asked Bose about its pattern , the party turn down to comment on measure and point me to the 30 utility and design patents on the headphones . Fair enough ! )

How about some of the other metallic element contribution Louie identify , like these two little metal joiners ?

These exist to join together two pieces of the headband in a low tension place . The best grounds the component does n’t necessitate to be alloy ? The special edition Solo HDs I used for my tear down — which have thematte - inglorious colorway — really forgo these alloy joiner entirely for cheap easy plastic . ( At first I did n’t believe it , so to make I asked Michael “ HiFiMan528 ” Liang to take asunder his headphones to make trusted . It is indeed plastic . ) Today , the Solo HDs have been put back by the Solo2s that do n’t use this constituent at all .

Jbl Cinema Sb170 2.1 Channel Soundbar

The small joiners are plastic on the matte black colorway .

In his young post Louie compose :

The decorative metal firearm in the headband are just that — decorative . They are not used to trap or hold any of the plastic piece . These metal divider get across an region where the fabric changes from hard credit card to mild silicone polymer rubber . Having the two parts right next to each other accentuates color differences created by making the parts out of different materials , which can be particularly gruelling to match . Engineers often use a separating feature of speech , in this case the metal isthmus , to visually disunite two materials .

Lego Lord Of The Rings Balrog Book Nook

They ’re industrial - design jazz hand !

The glossiness is an aesthetic retainer , and along with the weight , it ’s a part of the overall aroused experience the headphone are supposed to conjure . You purchase these headphones not just because they await good , but also because they feel good when you concord them .

So where does that leave us ? The alloy sizers , the parts that started this whole investigation , could add structural strength but attach to weak plastic bosses anyways . Meanwhile , the metal of the joiners does n’t have any purpose beyond improving the look and polish of the headphones .

Pixwatch2

This confirms what we knew all along going into all of this mess : The earphone site esthetic above function and quality . We did n’t need a teardown to testify that they ’re very expensive machine that damp far more often than others . In the end , the great unwashed like the facial expression of milled plastic — but it feels cheap , and alloy is a clean solvent to the problem . Even if it does n’t serve an explicit functional purpose , without it , this would n’t feel like $ 200 Charles Frederick Worth of phone .

But that ’s the genius of Beats by Dre , which evidently treats its manufacturing as a kind of extension of its merchandising : all lustre and heft , no substance .

Image by Jim Cooke

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