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Apple in Talks to Acquire Beats Electronics for $3.2 Billion [Updated]

I bet most of the Beats haters haven't listened to them. Overpriced? YES. Horrible? No. I have Beats Studios, Pros, the Executives, a pill and my wife has the solos. I also have a vintage pair of Senmheisers and a pair of Etomics (sp) IEMs. I used to own a pair of Bose NC headphone as well. Luckily I didn't pay for any of the Beats stuff but I would rank the pros very close sound wise to my Sennheisers. Not better but close. The executives blow away the Bose I owned. They are/were targeting the same audience. (Frequent flyers)

Get over all the hate. Would I buy them? Probably not, but I didn't buy the Bose either. The only ones I paid for were the IEMs and the Sennheisers.
 
I actually think this is a great idea for Apple. Those Beats headphones are popular among the young and old. Plus this can give Apple an edge among their products. Just my thoughts... :)
 
osofast240sx said:
Beats had come a long way in terms of audio quality not B&W quality, but can easily be improved by a Apple acquisition.
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I said in an earlier post. Audio isn't the hardest thing to do. Apple isn't even bad at it - my iPhone, EarPods and Macbook all sounds pretty good. I hardly see how a staggering $3.2bn purchase of nothing more than an overpriced fashion accessory is meant to help? Give me a few grand and a couple of months and I'll build you something that sounds the same as them. If Apple wants to improve audio quality why not spend just a fraction of that money on hiring some talented audio engineers and paying for better quality speakers? Would be far better and cheaper in my opinion. $3.2bn is still a lot of money even if it's Apple we're talking about.
 
Oh. I saw that Beats was related to Monster Cables and went "hmmm." So then I saw a picture of Iovine and went "uh oh." Some quick background research confirmed my suspicions. I can't put up what I found here as I'd be banned, but all the dots connect. This could never have happened under Jobs. Jobs was aware of what I'm not allowed to post. I'm signing off this thread. Good luck Apple.
 
iLog.Genius said:
Bose isn't audiophile tech but they do make some good equipment. Overpriced? Sure but in comparison, Beats doesn't do anything well other than marketing. I never understood the hate for Bose. I don't think you can say Bose sound terrible. You just don't get what you pay for but once in a while they will have a good product.
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No Highs...No Lows...it must be Bose.
 
Chrisedge said:
I bet most of the Beats haters haven't listened to them. Overpriced? YES. Horrible? No. I have Beats Studios, Pros, the Executives, a pill and my wife has the solos. I also have a vintage pair of Senmheisers and a pair of Etomics (sp) IEMs. I used to own a pair of Bose NC headphone as well. Luckily I didn't pay for any of the Beats stuff but I would rank the pros very close sound wise to my Sennheisers. Not better but close. The executives blow away the Bose I owned. They are/were targeting the same audience. (Frequent flyers)

Get over all the hate. Would I buy them? Probably not, but I didn't buy the Bose either. The only ones I paid for were the IEMs and the Sennheisers.
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People are forgetting that Beats in the ear headphones are pretty awesome
 
SCOLANATOR said:
I said in an earlier post. Audio isn't the hardest thing to do. Apple isn't even bad at it - my iPhone, EarPods and Macbook all sounds pretty good. I hardly see how a staggering $3.2bn purchase of nothing more than an overpriced fashion accessory is meant to help? Give me a few grand and a couple of months and I'll build you something that sounds the same as them. If Apple wants to improve audio quality why not spend just a fraction of that money on hiring some talented audio engineers and paying for better quality speakers? Would be far better and cheaper in my opinion. $3.2bn is still a lot of money even if it's Apple we're talking about.
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I still think this is a great decision by Apple. Way better than buying nest. People smarter than you and I thought long and hard and ran over all the numbers, this jwasn't a decision by Mr. Cook alone.
 
Apple aren't stupid. Whatever company they buy, they will have their reasons.

Oh, and Bose aren't miles better than Dr Dre headphones as some people have been saying.

I've had many variations of each and there is no clear winner.
 
Does Beats electronics include Beats Music? I hope not.

----------
SMIDG3T said:
Apple aren't stupid. Whatever company they buy, they will have their reasons.

Oh, and Bose aren't miles better than Dr Dre headphones as some people have been saying.

I've had many variations of each and there is no clear winner.
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Nobody thinks Bose is better than anyone. Their both crap compared to Audio Technica, Sennheiser, Shure,....
 
moeafg said:
Why? Beats is terrible at audio. If it was Bose/Bowers & Wilkins then I wouldn't be so surprised.
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While I don't have any experience with Beats headphones, I can say that any headphones associated with the name of a performer / rapper are aimed at a small segment of the population. Those who think rap is music are mistaken. Headphones for rap probably won't make music sound as it was intended, either.

timbloom said:
Oh, please, no.

Worthless acquisition.
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The people who might buy a rapper's name headphones might have a lot of money to spend. Personally, I could not think about parting with that much money for headphones - especially when they are associated with a rapper.
 
Chrisedge said:
I bet most of the Beats haters haven't listened to them. Overpriced? YES. Horrible? No. I have Beats Studios, Pros, the Executives, a pill and my wife has the solos. I also have a vintage pair of Senmheisers and a pair of Etomics (sp) IEMs. I used to own a pair of Bose NC headphone as well. Luckily I didn't pay for any of the Beats stuff but I would rank the pros very close sound wise to my Sennheisers. Not better but close. The executives blow away the Bose I owned. They are/were targeting the same audience. (Frequent flyers)

Get over all the hate. Would I buy them? Probably not, but I didn't buy the Bose either. The only ones I paid for were the IEMs and the Sennheisers.
Click to expand...

If you like them then that's great. But I personally think they are overpriced junk that's vastly inferior to many headphones that cost 50% less!
 
Tim Cook is clearly desperate to release a product all on his own. So since he's not a visionary to actually make products, he buys one already in existence. :rolleyes:
 
Sheesh, again, it's not about headphones people! It's about music and access, for the same reason Beats bought MOG. Beats brings the top streaming service across the biggest spectrum of users. Yes, Pandora and Spotify may have more users, but MOG was greatly preferred by the paying user and knows to have the highest quality. Apple can move their streaming programing ahead by years by writing one check.

Add the licensing portfolio Beats has and it's not hard to see why.

As to the headphones, I am wondering how many posting here have actually listened lately vs having heard a set of the Studios some time back or even worse just going on what is said about them. I listened to the original model some time back and was appalled, but recently, I put on a few of their newer models while in BB and some of them were not awful. I haven't listened, but i've heard that their in ear models are pretty damn good. I know some say they have no real tech, but getting big bass from basically an over ear can is an impressive feat.

For the record my personal headphones are Etymotic ER4P, B&W P5, and an old set of Sony XD400's.
 
aliensporebomb said:
Great! So we can get HIDEOUS thocky plastic hard sounding headphones that are trendy fashion accessories.

It instantly takes any mix you throw at it and makes it sound like a overcompressed horrific plastic thocking sound.
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I'm not sure I know exactly how you feel about this. :p


First thought was it is awesome to see a company who basically overcharges for everything buy another company who overcharges for everything. It seems fitting.
 
doctor-don said:
While I don't have any experience with Beats headphones, I can say that any headphones associated with the name of a performer / rapper are aimed at a small segment of the population. Those who think rap is music are mistaken. Headphones for rap probably won't make music sound as it was intended, either.



The people who might buy a rapper's name headphones might have a lot of money to spend. Personally, I could not think about parting with that much money for headphones - especially when they are associated with a rapper.
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That is a very uneducated statement and Rob is something you do to a gift. Hip-hop and R&B is a genre of music. And as a musician you have to appreciate all music to truly love music.
 
PatriotInvasion said:
The audiophiles are hilarious. Completely crap all over every mainstream brand that has been pleasing people for years and want you to piece together a bunch of mismatched components from companies you've never heard of. They'd prefer you to be drowning in speaker wire and instruction manuals so you can hear a small guitar chord in the background if you sit there and try really hard to hear it.
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This ^^^ to the infinite power!!!

LMAO!!!
 
peterdevries said:
Sorry, but you seem to be missing the point. I'm not arguing marketing over quality at all. Where did I say that? I know that it is fashionable to think marketing is bad and product quality is most important, but people that think that are grossly misunderstanding how a business like Apple (or any other for that matter) works.

Sure Apple could very well design their own headset and do it quickly. But Beats is currently the headphone brand that matters and Apple does not have brand credibility in that market. That means that it will take time before Apple would grow in that market to become a viable competitor and it will cost them hundreds of millions in marketing to achieve that.

An understanding of market dynamics is important to see why acquisition is better than self-production in this case. The headphone market is maturing or already mature. It is still growing, but most innovations are incremental (connectivity through NFC / BT, Noise cancelling).

A lot of players produce headphones but fail to establish large market shares. Look at Sennheiser which has products in all categories and price classes, but fails to make a dent into Bose and Beat's market shares. The excellent B&O headphones are not much more expensive than the top of the line Beats and yet they fail to become truly relevant in the market. What this all means is that even with good products and marketing it is difficult to establish a market presence that will add significant revenue to the bottom line (talking from a business point of view here, not what the customer wants).
So businesses of the magnitude of Apple will engage in strategic acquisitions to grow in mature markets. It is the only way to become relevant quickly and to earn large amounts of money. I just learned that Samsung will introduce a new headset. We can talk again in 3 years and discuss how well they have done. Their headset (never mind how good it is) is confined to the fringes of the market.

I'm sure you will come back with "what about the iPad and iPhone etc". These were also mature markets where Apple entered with a disruptive innovation. Totally different situation where a completely new product can very quickly take over the market. Unless Apple thinks of something really different in terms of headphones, this will not happen when they make their headphones themselves.

Overall this looks to be a good acquisition:
-A well performing music streaming business with the possibility of taking some new contracts and technology with it.
-The best performing headphone business in the market. A complementary product line to Apple's current product line.
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yep
 
wtf mate

the beats branding
the beats name
the beats designs
the beats logo
the beats products

It's all so stupid... Hell, I love Dre but how his whole "Beats" operation got so big is beyond me.
 
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