Beats Electronics and Monster Part Ways
Beats Electronics has partnered with Monster for almost five years. However, the contract between the two is set to run out later this year, and when it does, Beats reportedly won't be renewing it.
Beats by Dr. Dre was founded in 2008 by Dr. Dre and Interscope-Geffen-A&M Records chairman Jimmy Iovine as an attempt to ensure the quality of the music they recorded and produced wasn't being compromised by sub-par audio equipment. Since the company launch, Monster Cable has had the exclusive license to sell Beats by Dr. Dre products. However that will change at the end of this year.
According to BusinessWeek, Noel Lee, the chief executive of Monster Cable Products, has spent CES 2012 preparing his company for a Beats-free future as a result of bad feelings between Monster and Beats. Meanwhile, Beats, whose technology can already be found in phones, laptops, and cars (and soon TVs), is ready to move on with majority stakeholder HTC.
So what happened? The story goes that neither company was particularly happy with their share of revenue, nor could they agree on who should get the most credit for the Beats line. BW reports that Lee believes Monster played a huge role in the birth of Beats by Dre. Aside from the fact that his company helped design the headphones and manufactures them, Lee says that the whole headphones idea was his in the first place. "They wanted to do speakers and I said, 'The new speaker is the headphone,'" he's quoted as saying.
However, with Beats accounting for a whopping 53-percent of the $1 billion headphone industry and audio products, mostly Beats-branded, making up 60-percent of Monster’s revenues and profits, Monster can't really afford to leave the audio/headphones business behind. As such, the company is aiming to start its own line of headphones, this time targeting the kinds of people who aren't already buying Beats or other similarly expensive headphones, namely athletes, women and business professionals.
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monster should get the credit. the cable accounts for 80% of their product price.
thank god. no more overpriced d-bag crap. for now.
I can't help but laugh thinking about how many people buying these expensive headphones are probably listening to their songs in a 128 bit mp3 format
If these head phones are decent then it won't really matter because most people don't listen to CD's/lossless audio...
Think someone should check the numbers again. There's no possible way that they account for 53% of the headphone industry....maybe 53% of Monster's headphone business....but it's impossible for Beats to account for 53% of the headphone industry.
Quote me as saying this: "Wireless is the new headphone."
Now I demand money!!!!
Screw 'em both. We all know how greedy monster is, the fact that Dre would ever partner with them is enough for me to never buy Beats products, even when they are no longer associated. Noel Lee is a bigger thief (taking advantage of stupid people intentionally is theft in my book) than Apple, and that's saying something.
I can't help but laugh thinking about how many people buying these expensive headphones are probably listening to their songs in a 128 bit mp3 format
If these head phones are decent then it won't really matter because most people don't listen to CD's/lossless audio...
Big thumbs up.
But come on, it is a style/status item for the most part. This is not to say they do not sound good, they actually sound pretty good.
beats and bose = garbage just shows that it takes good marketing
Monster Cable Headphones?? MSRP 1 BILLION DOLLARS...
Some of the Beats line of headphones are some of the worst sounding most overpriced 'phones that you can buy. Yes, Dre is an awesome producer, but apparently, the way he likes to listen to his music is not the way anyone who cares about sound quality would listen. Monster should focus on making more phenomenal sounding headphones like the Monster Turbine Copper Pros if they want to appeal to the folks who can actually appreciate quality sound as opposed to overwhelming low-end bass, or heavily boosted mid-bass, since things aren't working out with Beats by Dre. Even my wife loves her Non-Beats by Dre monster headphones, and notices how much better they sound than her old skull candy models, and she doesn't know the first thing about sound quality.
And the headphones in the pic above appear to the the Beats Solo; they are the absolute worst sounding headphones in the entire Beats line.
I bought a length of zero gauge analog HDMI monster cable for listening to my mp3's. I don't keep the volume up too loud in case the phone book guy makes a surprise visit. I want to be ready in case that happens again. I advise you do the same.
I would rather spend my money on a quality pair of sennheiser headphones.
audio technica for me
My Bose QC2 sounds much better than headphones that naturally bloat bass.
@amuffin: I'm with you bro. All headphones in the house are Sennheiser save for my wife's Logitech headset at her computer (she uses that mostly for Skype, so great sound quality isn't needed). My headset is a Sennheiser PC 350 of course.
How is it almost five years if it was formed in 2008???
@wizloa me too...i use the ATH-M50's and a few DJ's swear by them. I think they reference music better. IMO
To the guys talking about bitrates, is 320bit mp3 almost as good as lossless audio?
To the guys talking about bitrates, is 320bit mp3 almost as good as lossless audio?
To an average person with average speakers / headphones there is likely no discernible difference.
To an audiophile with high end sound reproduction equipment, there is a definite difference,
Good riddance M*nster. Maybe Beats will finally be affordable.
Was a loyal M*nster customer until they started suing everyone who used the name M*nster in their company/product name. Have left M*nster unspelled in this posting to avoid the potential of being sued!
the bowers-wilkens p5 headphones! FTW. i have them... while the the slightly veiled sound disappears, they have great IMO bass and natural sound. of course not as great (natural sound) as the shure 535's but the p5's are a lot cheaper.
320 mp3 is worst than 320 or 256 AAC(mp4)... lossless has the soul of music that AAC loses somewhat. MP3(256) make my ears hurt after about 30 seconds. when listening to lossless vs 256(itunes) it is a toss-up to what i prefer when i listen on the bus, background music is enough, so i prefer the "straight-ahead" soundfield that the itunes version seems to provide. or the crappier the headphones the harder it is to tell the difference between lossless and 256AAC(itunes)
Thanks for the knowledge guys.
I think about getting high end speakers, and then I remember it's only going to magnify the problem of my low quality audio. That's the problem with going audiophile, in my opinion. There doesn't seem to be enough lossless music.I'll convert when I can get convert my entire library to lossless.
Mr. Lee has expensive tastes in exotic cars an luxury items... so the headphones, and the $10 cable made in China and sold here for $200 is a requirement to feed his lifestyle.
My Shure 530's are better than this stuff.
Monster is just overpriced garbage.
Think someone should check the numbers again. There's no possible way that they account for 53% of the headphone industry....maybe 53% of Monster's headphone business....but it's impossible for Beats to account for 53% of the headphone industry.
Agreed...
I didn't even know they were related until now...I'm actually not surprised now. Overpriced shitty headphones + overpriced shitty cables makes a lot of sense.