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I'm sure it works fine and does exactly what you need it to do, but I still can't take that brand seriously.
 
Are these beats pills better than sonos? Audio quality wise? Can it stream high quality music or FLAC or anything like that?

2 different use cases:

Sonos is a collection of home-based speakers/components that can be built into an integrated system that just happens to be wireless (except for power cord). Competitors in this space include Bose Soundlink, Polk Omni, and Denon HEOS.

Beats Pill and its competitors in the portable bluetooth space are discrete speakers that extend the capabilities of internal speakers of a phone/tablet/computer. Some can be combined into groups of 2 to allow for stereo separation, but they generally speaking are used independently. Competitors in this space include about every imaginable electronics manufacturer (that is not to say that they are all bad quality sound).
 
Oh Apple, you're adorable when you try to break into new markets.

JBL's portable speakers not only sound better than Beats but cost less. The recently released Flip 3 and Extreme are amazing and give you a lot more boom for the buck.

They don't just cost less, they cost LESS THAN HALF!

Beats Pill, the boombox for Millenials.
 
UE Boom is still the best Bluetooth speaker

Luckily, I bought my UE before Apple purchased Beats. So I was able to get the honest feedback from the Apple Retail guys just in time. Been happy ever since...enjoy the 2 speak ability sheeple.
 
I wonder how these compare to the Soundlink Mini II speakers from Bose. It doesn't sound like a technological advance in sound and i like the output of the Bose Speakers without having to buy 2 of these for a "stereo" effect.
 
I use a regular Pill for my iPad and it's great for music and movies. It does sound pretty good for its size so I'm happy with it.

This is new Pill+ is interesting now that it has lightening charging, a dedicated app and the ability to use two at once but it's an expensive proposition. I'll just hold onto mine for now.
 
I'd love to understand how a lightning port on the Pill would help me charge my iPhone.
I guess your not familiar with the Beats Pill XL. It had the same feature.

The lightning port charges the speaker. The USB port can charge your iPhone with a separate lightning cable.

The Beats Pill+ runs on a 12 hour battery. Your cell phone could charge in 2 hours or so during the Beats Pill+ usage.
 
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Can't believe no AirPlay on Apple's first released speaker...I mean, think how cheap a wifi device is...just bought the new Chromecast for $35 yet they can't get AirPlay in a $230 speaker? wtf.
 
Look, we all know that nobody buys Beats-products for the sound quality och great value for money.

People like the brand and think Beats make cool product.

So all the whining about how much they suck is quite pointless, since the target audience don't care.
At all. :)
 
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But you haven't even heard these speakers yet and you already formed an opinion on them?

Actually I haven't. I'm planning on buying one, in fact. As a music mixer, it's important to know what your mixes sounds like on different types of speakers and systems, so I've obtained a wide variety of popular playback devices to check and be familiar with how they sound. Because I do this, I have come to learn that when it's a Beats product, it's safe to assume that audio quality will be very poor for the price. This is absolutely a commonplace opinion amongst anyone with a trained ear and experience evaluating listening systems. It's not voodoo, it's not mythical, it's the sheer fact that a $300 pair of Beats headphones cost about $17 to make, using extremely inexpensive, low quality, analog components. Beats invested their money in marketing and design. Other companies - such as Sennheiser, Focal, even Bose - invest much more in sound quality, often at the expense of marketing and design. Choose whichever brand caters to your desires!
 
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Look, we all know that nobody buys Beats-products for the sound quality och great value for money.

People like the brand and think Beats make cool product.

So all the whining about how much they suck is quite pointless, since the target audience don't care.
At all. :)

Amen. Sound quality is simply not the ultimate priority with Beats, as well as essentially all consumer-oriented audio products.

But that truth certainly won't stop any marketing agencies from doing whatever they can to make people think a product "sounds good".
 
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This is actually an attractive product. It gives us an insight into what Apple is doing with Beats' hardware division.

I like the it has a Lightning connector but it's a missed opportunity that Apple left out AirPlay. Apple doesn't have to pay itself licensing fees so they could've made quite an affordable AirPlay speaker. I would've bought a couple of these to add a bathroom and the patio to my AirPlay network.

By now, Beats should be well on its way to integrating into Apple's product line and culture but it seems late on this. They still have far too many products, a mistake that John Sculley made and Steve Jobs corrected when he returned to Apple. Steve always said that he was proud that Apple's entire product line could fit on one table.

I mean, what the hell is this thing?

the-pills-red-accessory-O.png


There are way too many products in the Beats brand alone. There should be 1 wireless speaker, 1 set each of bluetooth headphones and plug in pro headphones, 1 set each of bluetooth earphones and wired and that's it. Sell each line in different colours but keep the product line simple. As it is now, I have no clue how many things Beats sells and what makes them different from one another.

Apple has a lot of work to do in simplifying the Beats line. The Apple line up itself is getting too complex with older products remaining as a cheap alternative and some remaining for no apparent reason.
 
It looks like it's 2 amps feeding their own crossover, both of which output to a tweeter and a woofer.
If you're interested, lookup active crossover on Wikipedia. The whole purpose of using an active crossover is to drive higher frequencies with one amplifier and lower frequencies with another. I built my own active crossover for a car stereo. One amp drove two 15" woofers, the other drove an array of midranges and tweeters.
 
I'd love to understand how a lightning port on the Pill would help me charge my iPhone.

The lightning port charges the speaker. The USB port can charge your phone (with a cable, obviously).

The lightning port charges the speaker. The USB port can charge your iPhone with a separate lightning cable.

To clarify, it looks like you now just need a single standard Lightning cable (USB to Lightning). The new Beats Pill+ can charge the phone when you plug your Lightning cable into the Pill+'s USB port, and you can plug the same cable into the Pill+'s Lightning port to charge the speaker. Photo here.

Currently I have to carry around a micro-USB cable in order to charge my original Beats Pill, so this upgrade is a good thing.
 
Actually I haven't. I'm planning on buying one, in fact. As a music mixer, it's important to know what your mixes sounds like on different types of speakers and systems, so I've obtained a wide variety of popular playback devices to check and be familiar with how they sound. Because I do this, I have come to learn that when it's a Beats product, it's safe to assume that audio quality will be very poor for the price. This is absolutely a commonplace opinion amongst anyone with a trained ear and experience evaluating listening systems. It's not voodoo, it's not mythical, it's the sheer fact that a $300 pair of Beats headphones cost about $17 to make, using extremely inexpensive, low quality, analog components. Beats invested their money in marketing and design. Other companies - such as Sennheiser, Focal, even Bose - invest much more in sound quality, often at the expense of marketing and design. Choose whichever brand caters to your desires!

I own a pair of Sennheiser's and Polk audio's. My kids have Beats and I demoed some Bose's. I'd say the Beats/Bose sound worse than the other two. With Beats edging out the Bose slightly.
 
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