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On a sort of off topic note, I listened to Michael Jackson's Xscape last night, "Mastered For iTunes deluxe edition", through my Beats and it sounded phenomenal.

I will admit there is a lot of snobbery from perceived audiophiles regarding Beats.

My Beats in ear 'phones are great, far better than the EarPods that's for sure!

I honestly don't own anything other than Apple iPhone earbuds/pods (whatever they call them) and a pair or RocketFish Bluetooth Headphones. But I also went to too many rock concerts in the late '80s and early '90s, so my hearing is trashed anyway. I doubt I could really tell great vs. mediocre headphones.

Two things to remember:

1. It is generally accepted that over the ear headphones deliver better or at least can deliver better sound than in ear, granted I'm sure there is good and crap in both kinds.

2. "Audiophiles" will also argue for FLAC or Lossless or whatever other format they feel best reproduces the true sound, blah blah blah. And while I am not an audiophile and they may most certainly be correct, by percentage there are very few of us who bother with anything other than MP3 or AAC compressed audio. When I was a kid we had dual tape decks with high speed dubbing. It made a copy of a tape fast, but I seriously doubt it made an audiophile quality copy.
 
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I'll just use a mirror. Did you have a point? :D

Yes. And you missed it quite a while ago. However, a mirror is a paradox of revelation and actually assists delusion. There are multiple variables that invalidate the image.
 
Yes. And you missed it quite a while ago. However, a mirror is a paradox of revelation and actually assists delusion. There are multiple variables that invalidate the image.

Could you assist in connecting the dots so to speak, instead of bringing up Schrödinger's cat.
 
Could you assist in connecting the dots so to speak.

Did you look up the album cover?

http://981freefm.ca/files/2013/09/pink-floyd-ummagumma.jpg

The cover artwork shows the members of the band, with a picture hanging on the wall showing the same scene, except that the band members have switched positions. The picture on the wall also includes the picture on the wall, creating a recursion effect (i. e. the Droste effect), with each recursion showing band members exchanging positions. In the CD release, the recursion effect is seemingly ad infinitum.
 
Now everyone in upper management is going to have to take Ebonics courses so they can understand Dr. Dre. because he OBVIOUSLY can't learn how to speak the English language.

Cook has lost his mind. I don't think buying Beats was in Jobs' 5 year plan that he left behind.
 
Yeah, same here. If people are using this forum thread to mention their favourite album covers then...
[url=http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/4/40/Def_Leppard_-_Hysteria_(vinyl_version).jpg]Image[/URL]

Who said favorite? That's a 3 way tie.

The original Appetite for Destruction cover, Live's Secret Samahdi (black on black mask), and Pearl Jam's Vs.

And while I think DL is a good call, I personally would pick Pyromania over Hysteria if the criteria is artwork. But again that is simply my opinion. Are you getting it?

https://forums.macrumors.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=471784&stc=1&d=1399714677
 

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On a sort of off topic note, I listened to Michael Jackson's Xscape last night, "Mastered For iTunes deluxe edition", through my Beats and it sounded phenomenal.

I will admit there is a lot of snobbery from perceived audiophiles regarding Beats.

My Beats in ear 'phones are great, far better than the EarPods that's for sure!

And I wonder if the Beats packaging will be refined under Apple ... the size of the box my in ears came in was ridiculous lol.
"audiophiles" are generally listening to really good masters that are either the high quality vinyl pressings or the higher quality 24/96 or something along those lines, etc. through VERY high quality systems and they are looking for sonic accuracy, etc. Beats headphones are tailored for those that listen to music that's HIGHLY compressed (audio compression), that's been eq'd to death and are typically hiphop, etc. music that has NOTHING to do with capturing acoustic instruments in a good sounding room to be listened to where the listener wants the best sound quality. Beats headphones aren't designed and they don't cater to that market. The problem with most kids growing up is they don't really listen to acoustic instruments, but rather synthesized instruments or heavily processed instruments where sonic accuracy is not the important aspect of the recording. Michael Jackson's albums are generally not recorded to be listened to on expensive systems. They tailor them to be listened to in dance clubs, and systems that are actually cheap systems. You have to understand how the recording process works. They can master a recording for a specific market by what speakers they use as their "reference" system. They typically use cheap, crappy sounding speakers during the mastering process when they create a lot of pop music because that's what MOST of their audience has, so they mix it to sound good on cheap speakers, but when you take that same mastered recording and play it back on a really nice system, you can tell that it's been highly processed and a lot of times, they have to remaster it using higher end speakers and they tailor the recording to sound good on high end systems. That's why they are releasing these better mastered recordings through companies like Mobile Fidelity, HD Tracks, etc.

For someone like yourself, you just want something that sounds "good enough" to you, but most people haven't spend much time or have the money to spend on a much higher quality system.

As time goes on, there are so many different variations of versions of the same recording and for some people, MP3/AAC is good enough, but for those that spend more money on a better system prefer a better recording/mastering of the same content.

FLAC is only ONE form that's being used for lossless. HDTracks and others sell higher res recordings in DSD, FLAC, AIFF, etc. FLAC is just one format. but FLAC and AIFF sound the same if they are at the same bit and sample rates. Just because someone says FLAC doesn't necessarily mean it's better, someone can take a AAC or MP3 file and convert it to FLAC and it may not sound any better. It all depends on the source, how it was mastered, etc. etc. etc.

Lossless is TYPICALLY better than lossy, but on cheap systems, it doesn't matter as much, on more expensive systems it matters a lot more. But don't put down those that spend more money than you on audio systems, because it just shows your ignorance and inability to care about the sound quality of what you listen to. Beats, to people that want accurate sound reproduction, are not that great headphones. Unforunately, the best headphones just so happen to cost a lot more money. I think Fostex actually makes a decent pair of headphones that aren't that expensive, but I forget the model number. I think they are around $400, which is a mid-range price for headphones. Personally, I don't like wearing headphones, but if I were to use a pair, I would prefer HD800's or something along those lines, but I would need a great DAC and headphone preamp/amp to get the headphones to sound as good as they can.
 
Dre and Iovine advising Apple on what? How to make crap headphones or wannabe Spotify service? With 3 billion you could achieve so much more...
 
Whomever brought up Monster Cables nailed it. The problem with the acquisition is that Beats are known for making a product far below the standard we expect from Apple. Go take a look at Head-fi.org and you'll find countless superior options to the entire Beats lineup.

With the long standing rumour that Apple wants to get into the premium headphone market hopefully they don't allow that Beats garbage to infect their product lineup. They would have been far better off acquiring one of the many solid headphone manufacturers like Grado, Audio Technica, Sennheiser, AKG, even Koss if they wanted to make something based on the KSC75s/PortaPros for the low end market.

The thing is that Apple goes after the sweetspot, which means, they don't always sell the most expensive, cost no object market. Sennheiser, AKG, Audio Technica make headphones, but they sell more microphones which Apple isn't interested in. Grado is just to expensive for the average person. Apple is going after a certain portion of the market that buys a decent quantity. They don't make the best audio player on the market. That goes to Astell & Kern and they sell a $2500 portable audio player that does 24/192, DSD, etc. and it seriously kicks ass for a portable audio player. The iPod is a lot notch, made for the masses player. Beasts just so happens to have about 73% of the headphone market and they have their subscription music service they recently started.

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How is buying Beats going to give macs better speakers? If you ever listened to their headphones , macs speakers will probably loose clarity and gain bass. My mac does not need more bass.

I stopped using my internal speakers in my iMac a LONG time ago since I bought an USB DAC and run it through a nice speaker system.

I listen to mostly AIFF files that I ripped from a 16 Bit CD, or downloading 24/48 through 24/192 files from HD Tracks and am also replacing some older files with more recent re-masters that are actually a lot better than the original. Some of the newer masters are getting better, but unfortunately, you have to do a lot of listening comparisons to hear these differences. AAC, MP3 I only use if it's nothing that special or if I can't get it any other way for the more serious content. There are a lot of good and bad mastering out on the market.

Some of the Mastered For iTunes aren't that bad, some are pretty decent, but for a lot of older recordings, 24 Bit is far better.
 
Thanks for the WikiAudio rundown LastQuadrant. Interesting.

Back in 2003 when I briefly worked in Apple retail (another lifetime in a galaxy far far away), iTunes and the iPod were in relative infancy. We had an audiophile of sorts come in with an iBook with a 10GB drive. He had been importing his music into his iTunes library and couldn't figure out why his laptop drive was full. He didn't have all that many songs on it. He also couldn't get them to sync with his iPod. He had imported them all in AIFF at 1411 kbps. At the time iTunes used 128 kbps MP3. And the iPod didn't support any format other than MP3. That was back before storage was cheap and large. You want to use a format like that, you better have the room for the files.
 
One more thing we now have the new "Mac by Beats" overly overpriced by the way. This mac has Dre enhanced speakers for all you DJs/producers comes with making bests software etc. then you have standard macs with supposedly beats bass system in it.

It's all about brand loyalty Apple and Beats have it Apple is going to milk it to there are no more cows to milk. TBF it seems a great move to me. Personally I'll miss it if it's just being bought for the logo' sand not what it actually does.
 
"Beats co-founders Jimmy Iovine and musician Dr. Dre are both expected to take on senior roles at Apple following Apple's acquisition of Beats Electronics"

This is getting weirder and weirder. What next..? Dr. Dre becoming CEO of Apple...?!
What a joke...
 
Am I the only one wondering when we'll hear an official announcement instead of talking heads in the rumour mill taking about something that hasn't actually taken place? Why do news outlets keep regurgitaring the same rumour with headlines claiming that purchase is definite?
 
WOW!

This thread.

As a black man reading this thread I was like: :eek:

But as a human being from this earth, I read this thread like: :(

I really do not understand this hate for this move. It is obviously not just for Beats' headphone range, it is going to be everything else that comes with it. We are not on the exec board, we do not know anything about this POSSIBLE deal. So let's chill with all the FUD

It makes me chuckle, that we are on an Apple forum, complaining that Beats' are an overpriced, hyped up, advertisement only company. Sounds EXACTLY like what Android users say about us, and end up looking stupid.

But who am I to judge. Steve Jobs would be rolling around in his grave, wouldn't he?: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=11D7p8X6UgY

Think different:apple:
 
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