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

[ericschmerick]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cdbn_pmxFic

Great video, spot on.

It's unbelievable that people pay $200 for beats headphones or IEMs. I've tried 4-5 different beats models, and they all sound really mediocre. Not terrible, but not worth $200 - basically for $50 (or less) you can get similar or the same sound quality.

If you really want good sound, I'd strongly recommend spending another ~$100 and get something like the Westone 3. That is truly a different, amazing listening experience - and you'd never want to go back to "regular" headphones.

Beats = marketing.

 

[Mums]

Am I the only one that's totally surprised by this? Seems pretty random. And pointless IMO.

It's called legal money laundering. It's been plaguing the art market for decades. Apple is nothing but another megacorp now to be used as a cash cow by the powermongers. It's all a game of monopoly to them. Quality means little to the Monopoly Men. Beats is a marketable brand, despite its poor quality products.

 

[iOrbit]

i liked the aesthetics of beats headphones, but i'd rather they were made of aluminium.

anyway, the only sense i see in this acquisition is the streaming service, i think some of the ideas behind the beats service is really quite good, probably needs a lot of tuning up, but its a great start, and more appealing to me than spotify. so i could see apple getting that out of it - maybe Beats have patents on those algorithms?

then there is the possibility of apple getting into the headphones business, which i would appreciate quite a bit really. but buying Beats for their headphones business -i agree- is bad, they aren't good quality or worth the money at all.

i don't want to see beats branding on my apple laptops or macs, and i wonder where dre's branding fits into all of this.

 

[XboxMySocks]

Try out Bose's noise canceling headphones. The sound is better, as well as filtering out outside noises. Beats are known for their 'swag' and heavy bass.

Apple on the other hand is a luxury brand. I can't see swagalicious luxury go hand in hand.

Trust me, I've tried out almost every brand of headphones there is bose is just as bad for 'sound profiles' as Beats are (i.e. EQ'd, curved response instead of proper flat profiles). Beats are just legendarily bass-heavy and high-forgetting.

Your last sentence is right on the money, however.

Bose is a billion times better than Beats

Not at all.

Most people who hate on Bose can't afford them or they here this bandwagon about how bad they are.

A silly postulation, since most Beats are just as expensive/more expensive than Bose.

I've owned many Bose, and I must say that for me, the sound quality has been great

The sound quality on Bose is laughable for the price.

 

[808?]

Just Beat it.

 

[throttlemeister]

Beats a premium brand?

Rrright....

I'll stick with my AKG's thank you very much. Not an audiophile snob, but I do appreciate quality. Both in sound and construction.

 

[lewismayell]

Noooooooooo, please ****, no

 

[ThunderSkunk]

The only reason to buy them is because they're making money. Apple could design better headphones in their sleep. A 7th grade kid in shop class could build better headphones with a band saw and elmers glue.

But I'm sure the money looks great on their balance sheet, so Apple has to have them.


Then they can sell big cheap crappy headphones to play whatever lossy content actually makes it into their horribly dysfunctional iTunes app. Then everything can be terrible together, hooray!

2014, and 140 billion in the bank, and Apple still can't write an app as functional as bloody Winamp was 15 years ago. I can't imagine how many people need to be terrible at their jobs for this to be the case.

 

[HD303]

This is an Onion article, right?

 

[SirLance99]

Ive is excited.

 

[travis64]

so iphones will come with crappy beats now

only really good thing beats has made is the beat box

 

[apolloa]

I have to say, one thing I've never found my MacBook Pro's needing was better audio from the speakers?
Strange acquisition?

 

[spencers]

Apple Beats

clever..

 

[mtneer]

I think everyone is missing the point. Its probably more so for the monthly music service that anything else.

Edit: HouD has his head in the game.

If that's the case, then why not pitch for Spotify? They have a bigger established base and are not tied to AT&T.

 

[tbrand7]

Beats may be where the money is, but I’d prefer that Apple acquire Sennheiser.

 

[Yojimbo007]

Am I the only one that's totally surprised by this? Seems pretty random. And pointless IMO.

No you are not !

 

[nungesser]

I think folks are overlooking how widespread the Beats audio brand is. It's in laptops, cars, and mobile devices. That, combined with their really excellent streaming service, makes this a smart purchase (if it's true).

 

[Zerilos]

Am I the only one that's totally surprised by this? Seems pretty random. And pointless IMO.

This isn't about the headphones, it's about having a music service on every major ecosystem. This will allow apple to sell music on a samsung device and will allow people to access their itunes library on android. Itunes on Android fails hards, Beats Music (owned by Apple) on the other hand has potential.

 

[scottsjack]

This makes no sense. Beats makes low-quality headphones. The music service is a separate entity with a separate investor group, so I don't think that would be part of the deal. This is completely baffling.

I think low-quality Beats are perfect for low-quality iTunes downloads. People who want music played accurately use neither of them.

 

[dazed]

It must be for the streaming, it can't be for the crap overpriced headphones.

 

[moeafg]

I'll take my Bowers & Wilkins any day of the week

I have the A7 and it's just WOAH

 

[dampfnudel]

If it's true that Apple wants to acquire Beats, we now know the "killer feature" for the iPhone 6s, sound by Beats. It would also tempt some current Galaxy/Android users to jump ship for Apple. Imagine an iPhone 6s with a 4.7" screen and sound by Beats!!!

 

[gazmac]

Bought some Beats solo headphones and they fell apart. Badly made and overpriced. Apple what are you doing? If you want to get in on streaming then buy spotify! Absolute madness. Let's hope the deal collapses.

 

[26theone]

I prefer beats

It would seem a lot of these posts are by people who have not used the actual products. I have bose headphones and the kids have beats. I actually prefer to use their beats. I just like the fuller sound they give. Im not a audiophile snob though. I invested in an inexpensive nuforce headphone amp and it does make a difference but it gets back to your source files. Unless you are getting into lossless audio I don't understand the point of spending a great deal of $$ on a set of headphones to plug into your iPad.

Regarding streaming I use both iTunes Radio and Rhapsody. I dropped Pandora One as it didn't give me anything extra I needed. iTunes radio has much better song selection/randomization technology that Rhapsody. But Rhapsody lets me not only select any song I want but I can create playlists and download the whole playlist that I create to my iDevice. Then I can listen to them while driving through areas with poor/no signal. Also the sound quality after downloading is much better.

So if the beats acquisition gets the Rhapsody features I need in ITunes I will get to drop Rhapsody and just use ITunes. Sounds like a win for me.

Now if Apple will get on with it and offer full file storage (aka dropbox, google drive, one drive) they could have my money for that too.

 

[apolloa]

Isn't Shure American? If so they should buy them, but alas they don't have the branding Beats do, despite making headphones artists wear on stage let alone sell great consumer headphones.