Beats Solo3 Wireless First Impressions

[Kisey]

Well, I exchanged for another pair, and the light on the left cup of the new pair also doesn't light up. I don't mean the light in the power button. On the other cup, you'll see there's a small hole where the silver (or whatever color you got) plastic meets the white interior plastic. On the Solo 2, this is in LED that lights up when the headphones are in use. It doesn't light up on either pair of the Solo 3's I've had.

Are you talking about what I've taken a photo of? Mine doesn't light up.

 

[damiensmunki]

Are you talking about what I've taken a photo of? Mine doesn't light up.

Yep. On the Solo 2 wireless, that's an LED that's always on. I've sorted out the hard way that it's something else on the Solo 3. Thanks for confirming!

 

[AustinIllini]

So are these actually noise canceling or no? I have the old school studio beats with the button that turns them on and also turns on the noise cancelling feature. It's

They call it "noise isolation", but it's passive. It will block out most noises with music on, but any droning higher pitched noise will come through.

For example, I work in a computer lab. The whirring of servers is completely blocked out, most conversation between people with normal voices is blocked, but a booting server can bleed into your sound.
[doublepost=1475123535][/doublepost]After 12 hours of listening, I still have 85% battery. It's insane. Not quite worth $300, but still really impressive.

 

[michael31986]

They call it "noise isolation", but it's passive. It will block out most noises with music on, but any droning higher pitched noise will come through.

For example, I work in a computer lab. The whirring of servers is completely blocked out, most conversation between people with normal voices is blocked, but a booting server can bleed into your sound.
[doublepost=1475123535][/doublepost]After 12 hours of listening, I still have 85% battery. It's insane. Not quite worth $300, but still really impressive.

Thanks. Nice to know. I wonder how it would work in an airplane noise

 

[mickeydean]

Do these clamp your head and hurt your ears like solo 2?

 

[AustinIllini]

Do these clamp your head and hurt your ears like solo 2?

They do not hurt my head, personally, however they are EXACTLY the same as the Solo2 in terms of design, so it can be assumed anything you feel using the Solo2 will be the same on the Solo3

 

[AppleRobert]

Do these clamp your head and hurt your ears like solo 2?

Use the box that they come in as a headphone stand, that will loosen them up. When I first got the Solo 3 I could not live with the tightness, much much better now.

 

[mickeydean]

They do not hurt my head, personally, however they are EXACTLY the same as the Solo2 in terms of design, so it can be assumed anything you feel using the Solo2 will be the same on the Solo3

Yeah battery life was not my problem with the solo 2.
Wireless range was so so.
Sound quality was quite average.
The design was crap and felt cheap. The clamp on my ears was seriously uncomfortable for study sessions.

 

[lillumultipass]

Ah great thanks, I was looking for some review of these headphones, but did not found that many.
A few questions though :

1. Is the on-the-fly switch seamless? Meaning, say, I am listening to something on my iphone, and then I want to watch a movie on my iPad. IS it as simple as selecting the Beats on my iPad and it will deconnect them automatically from the iPhone ?

2. what about phone calls ? Have you tried them ? I am asking this because I own the Parrot Zik 2, and people say that the sound is pretty awful when I am calling someone in the street or the subway.

thanks a lot !

 

[AustinIllini]

Ah great thanks, I was looking for some review of these headphones, but did not found that many.
A few questions though :

1. Is the on-the-fly switch seamless? Meaning, say, I am listening to something on my iphone, and then I want to watch a movie on my iPad. IS it as simple as selecting the Beats on my iPad and it will deconnect them automatically from the iPhone ?

The transition IS seamless from iPhone to iPad or Mac. As expected, if I'm listening to music on my iPhone and I switch to my iPad, the music stops when I disconnect from the iPhone and switches to iPad.

2. what about phone calls ? Have you tried them ? I am asking this because I own the Parrot Zik 2, and people say that the sound is pretty awful when I am calling someone in the street or the subway.

thanks a lot !

Honestly, the call quality is not great without the cable attached (which isn't really an option on my iPhone 7 Plus without that adapter). I've done it once or twice wireless, and it's fine if you need to get a quick message across, but in that case you're better off using Siri to send a text message.

 

[lillumultipass]

Thanks for the quick reply! The 1st point is great, and one of the main reason I was looking to buy the Beats, but the 2nd point is a bummer. I have an iphone 7+ as well, so I need the adaptater as well.

So, what do you do when you wear the Beats and receive a phone call?
Because, almost the only way I am making phone calls is while walking in the streets wearing a headphone...

 

[sammy2066]

I was looking at a nice, non-noise cancelling pair of on the ear headphones for work. The non-noise cancelling and the over the ear are key, because to block out noise is to appear as though I am unavailable in a job where teamwork is commonplace. My current headphone arsenal includes a pair of Powerbeats2 for exercise (mostly for walking dogs, as I have three) and a set of Bose QC15s from when I traveled for work some years ago. Other than those, earbuds (Apple and otherwise) are coming out of every drawer, cabinet, or moderately large crack in the wall of my house. Overall, the Solo3 Wireless offer a good fit between my noise cancellers and my earbuds.

The positives of the Solo3 Wireless are many. In a room with moderate noise with your iPhone volume medium to medium-high, the headphones shine. Mainstream pop and hip hop sound just as intended. Listening to Beats 1 on Apple Music on the Solo3 Wireless is like completing a complex puzzle. Pop and Hip Hop and their affinity for high high and loud lows lend themselves perfectly to these headphones. In comparison, a more balanced electronic attack a la Tame Impala sounds a little like something is missing. As an armchair bassist myself, the bass emphasis is almost refreshing compared to a number of the speakers on the market, but I can understand how this could be off putting. To me, compared to other devices, the bass was just a great fit for me, but your mileage may vary.

Beats describes the noise mitigation in the Solo3 Wireless as “passive noise isolation”. For the lay person (read, non-audiophile), this means at a reasonable volume, most pedestrian noises wall to the background. For example, when I tried these in the Apple Store, they completely failed to cover up the crowd noise of 100 people in the Domain store. However, later that day in a thunder storm, the noise isolation was more than enough when the headphones were at the right volume. The isolation lives up to its name: the Solo3 manages to isolate your experience.

None of this is new though. The Solo2 and Solo3 sound the same. The Solo3 Wireless separates itself in its new pairing technology. The Apple W1 chip, which basically circumvents the headaches of pairing through bluetooth, behaves exactly as advertised. After powering on the device for first time use with my iPhone about 2 feet away, the pairing dialog appeared immediately. Clicking “Connect” not only paired the headphones, they also added “(NAME)’s Solo3 Wireless” to all of my devices under “bluetooth”. My iPad, iPhone, and Mac all connected seamlessly simply by choosing the device from the list of bluetooth devices. The only hiccups were software related. When pairing between devices, iTunes on my Mac didn’t play into the solo3 after pairing and I had to specifically output to Solo3 in iTunes (Ugh, iTunes).

As is tradition on any Beats device (as far as I can tell), Apple has blessed us with a case that is ALMOST too small for product storage. The box includes the aux cable (which doesn’t work with my iPhone 7) and a USB cable. Of course, getting all the parts into the case is as annoying as imaginable and I feel like the bag, the headphones, or some combination of both are going to break when I put them in my bad. Minor gripe, but come on, for $300, the case should be much better than it is.

Which segues into the absolute worst feature of the Solo3’s.: the price. These things are EXPENSIVE. Almost embarrassingly expensive (ALMOST…). My QC15’s were $300 new in 2012, but they included active noise cancelling. Buying them at the Apple Store without talking to anyone almost felt wrong because they were $300.

I still have not been able to take these to work, so I plan on updating this review some after more use. For work, these will likely work for me, which will be great, and while they were steep, I really do like them, I like the way they feel on my head, and the quality overall is significantly better than any of my other headphones.

Great review - I was in a similar situation last week. I decided to go with the revised Bose SoundSport Wireless earphones to use at work, and also for running. Unfortunately, I wasn't very impressed with the design (very bulky), and the fit wasn't great either - they kept falling out of my left ear, so going to return them. Ordered the Jlab Epic2s this morming after some more research - the Verge seems to recommend them as the best earphones for running. Will post my initial impressions next week once I get them.

Great to see a fellow Illini here - I-L-L.

 

[AustinIllini]

Great review - I was in a similar situation last week. I decided to go with the revised Bose SoundSport Wireless earphones to use at work, and also for running. Unfortunately, I wasn't very impressed with the design (very bulky), and the fit wasn't great either - they kept falling out of my left ear, so going to return them. Ordered the Jlab Epic2s this morming after some more research - the Verge seems to recommend them as the best earphones for running. Will post my initial impressions next week once I get them.

Great to see a fellow Illini here - I-L-L.

I-N-I

Yeah, my Bose experience has kind of made it out to be that Bose are great headphones for when you're not moving around, but they are just silly when we move.

 

[Kjh007]

Well, I exchanged for another pair, and the light on the left cup of the new pair also doesn't light up. I don't mean the light in the power button. On the other cup, you'll see there's a small hole where the silver (or whatever color you got) plastic meets the white interior plastic. On the Solo 2, this is in LED that lights up when the headphones are in use. It doesn't light up on either pair of the Solo 3's I've had.

Hi. My SOLO3 left LED doesn't light either. I actually found this question from googling it. Any updates about it ??

 

[DotCom2]

Well, I exchanged for another pair, and the light on the left cup of the new pair also doesn't light up. I don't mean the light in the power button. On the other cup, you'll see there's a small hole where the silver (or whatever color you got) plastic meets the white interior plastic. On the Solo 2, this is in LED that lights up when the headphones are in use. It doesn't light up on either pair of the Solo 3's I've had.

I just bought the Solo 3 wireless today and mine doesn't light up either. Maybe that's the way they are now???