Leaf&Core

Beats Solo Pro Headphones Review

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Beats Solo Pro HeadphonesI mentioned this briefly in my AirPods Pro review and the first look I posted about my Beats Solo Pro headphones and AirPods Pro headphones, but my Beats were not long for this world. Or, rather, they weren’t long for my apartment. I expected Apple would host an event at the end of October for the new AirPods Pro and new MacBook Pro. However, the last week of October came without an announcement, so I assumed Apple would not release their in-ear headphones until next year at the earliest. I instead bought Beats. I needed noise cancellation, had heard Beats sound has improved dramatically, and they look incredible. So I preordered them. Just a few days later, Apple revealed the AirPods Pro, and I preordered them too.

I tried to return the Beats Solo Pro headphones before they shipped, but had just missed the opportunity. They arrived on the same day as my AirPods Pro.

Initially, my plan was to take the unopened box to the Apple store and return them. But, looking at the box, I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. What do they sound like? Are they comfortable? What do they actually look like? I had to know. So I opened it up and tried them out.

I was surprised. I loved them.

However, they are $300, and I just couldn’t justify the expense, especially since they do have a few flaws that, while making them imperfect, might not have been enough to warrant a return otherwise. But I had just gotten AirPods and now Beats, and, frankly, I knew I had to return them before I had a massive credit card statement.

So I did. But not before taking enough notes to write a review!

Sound Quality

Beats are known for being everything these headphones are not. They’re known for being muddled and good for nothing but bass. These are crystal clear, with incredible detail in the highs and mids, and actually lack thumping bass. I was shocked at the detail I could hear in vocals, even hearing the subtle mouth sounds the artist was making while singing. Truly, the definition these have across the board are fantastic. Even bass had incredible detail.

However, the bass lacked “punch.” It feels less impactful, almost subdued. I felt like I was studying what a bass drum sounds like, rather than feeling that thump. These are 40mm drivers, there’s more than enough size to create a good thumpy bass. There’s plenty of detail here, but not the kind of heavy bass you’d expect from Beats. I was actually a little disappointed.

Overall, the sound quality is incredible. The detail is just fascinating. I was slightly disappointed by the lack of feeling in the bass. Make no mistake, there’s a lot of feel to the songs, and I totally got up and danced around my apartment looking like a fool. However, I had hoped for a little more representation in the bass. They sound great, and are going to reveal details in your songs you didn’t even know were there, but if you love heavy, impactful bass in your music, you’re not going to completely love this sound.

Noise Cancellation and Transparency

I needed noise cancellation for a noisy office. I already struggle to focus on anything, but when I can shut out external noise, I can focus much better. Nothing makes a software engineer more productive than a lack of distraction. The ability to quickly transfer to transparency mode is nice, but less important than it is with something like AirPods. It’s not as though I was going to walk around wearing these often, especially given that I wear a helmet when skating, and tend to skate as often as possible. Still, I tested both features, while testing the same features on the AirPods Pro.

Noise Cancellation

The Beats Solo Pro headphones have a padded leather earcup. This presses up against your ear, shutting out sound nicely. However, these headphones also come with both internal and external microphones, which allow them to shut out noise with anti-noise, sound patterns made to counter sound waves and silence them. I found this works better than it does on the AirPods Pro, likely because it can create a better seal around your ear and put more hardware between your ears and the rest of the world.

One of the most important parts about noise cancellation is isolating your ears. Without a solid barrier, sound can leak in and the effect won’t work. However, this is tricky with on-ear headphones. Ears are wildly different shapes and people have obstacles that can make it difficult, like glasses or piercings. The thick earcups help, and Apple’s software accounts for sound leaks. The result is a constantly adjusting headphone that has surprisingly great noise cancellation despite the design limitations of on-ear headphones. I tested these with glasses, putting my hair in the way, and moving them around, and found the sound isolation remained shockingly good.

Transparency

Because these provide a complete seal over your ears, they’re better at noise cancellation than the AirPods Pro headphones, but not as good with transparency. Make no mistake, they work well enough to even watch TV or have conversations with people, but the sound is more artificial. You can tell you’re not supposed to be able to hear everything, and the sound is less natural. This is because the headphones are better at isolating sound than in-ear headphones. They work fantastically, but only slightly worse than the AirPods Pro.

Controls

The AirPods Pro have a pressure sensitive stem. You control them with a series of squeezes. The Audio Technica ATH-ANC700BT QuietPoint have a touch sensitive surface that reacts (poorly) to gestures. Do you know what the Beats Solo Pro headphones have? Buttons! Fantastic, glorious, functional buttons! It’s perfect, you can just press the earcup where the buttons feel like they should be, and that’s exactly where they are. It’s intuitive as it gets. On the other earcup, there’s a lone button for activating transparency mode, noise cancelling, or turning them both off. It’s simple, it works every single time perfectly, and it’s refreshing to see something so user-friendly from Apple.

Seriously, everyone, stop over-complicating user interfaces. If a user has to think about your UI, you made it wrong.

Connectivity

Apple purchased Beats and has largely improved the company since then. They’re made out of better materials, they sound better, and they benefit from Apple’s proprietary Bluetooth chip. Just like AirPods, you can easily sync them with all of your Apple devices with a few taps. After that, you can jump between your iPhone, Apple Watch, Mac, or Apple TV with ease. No Bluetooth headphones from any other company come close to matching the ease and reliability of these connections.

Hey Siri and Microphones

Like Apple’s AirPods, the Beats Solo Pro headphones also have “Hey Siri” support. I had no trouble activating Siri with this.That’s thanks to having the same wireless chip as the new AirPods Pro, along with fantastic microphones. I found that these performed as well as Apple’s AirPods. Sound quality is good, voice is clear, and you can ask Siri to do anything on these that you can with your connected device.

Unlike AirPods, you would mostly buy the Beats for the sound quality, form factor, and looks. However, if you find yourself wearing them and need Siri, or needing to have a conversation with someone on the phone, you’re in luck, it works perfectly every time.

Appearance

Beats are iconic. Simple lines and geometric shapes, along with clean branding, functional parts and padding, and, with the Beats Solo Pro, better parts and anodized exposed aluminum, make these headphones look incredible. They are certainly Beats’ best looking headphones to date. They look great on your head, they fit comfortably around your neck, and fold up into a compact shape, all while maintaining this beautiful, simple design.

We simply can’t ignore that these may be some of the best looking headphones on the market. If you enjoy more functional, classical styles, like those from Grado or Master and Dynamic, then it’s not going to be for you. Still, the Beats Solo Pro headphones do manage to look more “professional” than any Beats that came before it.

If you’re looking to wear headphones as a fashion piece as well as a tool for crystal clear music, the Beats Solo Pro headphones are an excellent choice.

Comfort

Okay, now for the bad news. Lacking the Beats-like bass is a bit of a disappointment, to be sure, but I can thoroughly enjoy the details in my music without it. But comfort? That’s a problem. I needed headphones to give me many hours of focus at work, and I’m a fan of consuming entire albums at a time, start to finish. I found that after about an hour of wearing these, they became downright painful. If you push through it, you might be able to forget the pain, but once you take them off, the sensation will return to your ears, and it’s not a good sensation. Wearing glasses? These put a lot of pressure on the frames, and it’s going to hurt your ears.

I don’t have an exceptionally large head. I wear a small helmet size, small hat sizes. Perhaps that’s why I could wear these so much longer than other reviewers. Many struggled after just a few minutes.

I was entertaining the idea of keeping these, despite the massive hit on my finances. But the clamping force was a large reason I decided it just wasn’t worth it. In fact, while writing this review, I often found myself reaching for my AirPods Pro headphones instead of these, just because they don’t cause me pain. I was avoiding testing them. That’s how I knew I couldn’t keep them. I loved the way they sounded, but they caused discomfort in minutes and pain in hours.

Wearing But Not Listening?

This is one thing I’ll address. Sometimes, you have to take your headphones off. Perhaps to put on a helmet to go biking or skating. Maybe your coworker is trying to talk to you and they don’t understand that you can hear them with transparency mode. Whatever the reason, you’re likely going to take them off and put them around your neck. And when you do, they’ll fit well, sit on your shoulders and collar bone gently, and feel very comfortable. Beats knows many people wear their headphones like this when they’re not listening to them, both to have them easily accessible and to show them off. As a result, they’re the most comfortable headphones I’ve ever had around my neck. Nothing else has come close.

It’s a shame they’re horribly uncomfortable when you actually want to use them.

Battery Life

The battery life on these is so great you likely won’t think about it much. While it’s more awkward to charge these than AirPids, they do have a Lightning cable port. Plug that in and you can get as much as 3 hours of listening in just 10 minutes of charging. Seeing as you likely won’t be able to wear these for more than an hour without discomfort, chances are you won’t mind charging them very much.

They offer 22 hours of listening and, after my initial listening session and an overnight full charge, I didn’t have to charge them again before returning them. This is because I largely only used them for an hour or so at home. I likely only spent about 30 hours of listening with them. It was tough to spend more time with them when I could just as easily use my AirPods Pro headphones for a far more comfortable listening experience.

Overall 6 / 10

In the end, I did return these headphones. I kept them for 14 days though, the most I could under Apple’s return policy. They sound great. I think if the bass was a bit better represented, I could have put up with the discomfort these headphones create. But, the truth is, they’re just far too uncomfortable to use for more than an hour or two. Only nearly perfect sound could help with that. You might wear AirPods Pro headphones all the time, for fast access to Siri, your messages, as well as music and more. But these? With the Beats, connectivity and Hey Siri are cool features, but you buy them for the music quality. Mostly because you couldn’t wear them long enough to take advantage of the other features on a regular basis.

Overall, these are wonderful headphones hampered by some really uncomfortable clamping force. Apple could have eased up on the clamping on these, or perhaps offered even larger earcups (these are already 70% larger than the Beats Solo 3 headphones), but perhaps there’s only so much you can do to fix on-ear headphones. My advice, if this sounds tantalizing, is perhaps to wait for Apple’s sequel to the Beats Studio Pro headphones. These will have a more comfortable over-ear design. Hopefully their increased size would also mean more volume in the bass, but we can’t be sure. However, if you prefer their compact size and appearance, as they are the best looking Beats ever, perhaps the discomfort will be worth it? It wasn’t for me, and I think that’s a real shame. I loved these headphones otherwise, I really did.

The Beats Solo Pro headphones look incredible, sound pretty great, are portable, easy to use, and if you have completely numb ears, you’ll love them. However, if you have nerve endings in your ears, you might want to pass.

 

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