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back to article Master Beats: Why doesn't audio quality matter these days?

Returning from a school trip to New York, my son handed back most of the $350 spending money we’d given him. Yes, I too thought it was a lot of dosh for a four-day tour but then I have no experience in the matter. When I was a kid, a school trip involved walking up to the pond to catch tadpoles for biology class, not …

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    2. Stuart Castle Silver badge
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      Re: Audiophile....

      Expectations seem to have dropped considerably, the only plus side seems to be that less people are now satisfied with truly awful bargain basement headphones.

      No, seemingly they are happy to pay a small fortune for truly awful bargain basement headphones that have been blinged up a bit.

      BTW, although I have always been sceptical about Beats headphones and other Monster products, when I last bought a proper home pair of headphones, I did test a selection of headphones (including various beats models) with various kinds of music. The Beats headphones ranged from £90 to over £200, and did well on hip hop, but awfully on everything else.

      Eventually, I settled on a £70 pair of Sennheiser DJ headphones that did a good job on all the music (and, IMO, beat the Beats on hip hop as well). Yes, I did include classical music in the test, and all the music was from Audio CDs.

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    3. Frank Bough
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      Stop

      Re: Audiophile....

      Have you bothered to look at the specs for modern phone DACs / audio hubs? They're bloody impressive. Go have a poke around the Wolfson website for a start.

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  2. Nagy, Balázs András
    Thumb Down

    Sad realities

    although I'm a bit younger, I do have to agree, wholeheartedly. Audio quality has gone down the drain in the last decade or so, in portion thanks to these fashion cans, and also to Apple's dumping. Mobile phones in themselves are another source of this trend, as they are generally whoefully inadequate, compared to earlier, goond quality dedicated music players.

    I'm thinking of my good old, retired half brick iRiver H-340 that still beats every mobile I've had as another reviewer in my grasp, at least in terms of quality, but sadly, the days of these beastly masters are nigh over, as is that of the wired remote that I could operate blindly.

    What do we get now? I have to fish out the phone to change albums or tracks, or get a bluetooth can that has its own battery life, sub-par audio, connection issues and all the other things that you really don't want to deal with.

    Quantity over quality.

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    1. Anonymous Coward
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      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Sad realities

      The problem with the iPhone is they moved to Cirrus DACs from Wolfson to save money. IMHO Cirrus are garbage. Hence I still have my trusty old nano. The DAC in your iRiver should be a NXP UDA1380TT; one of my friends has one still going strong at what must be coming up to 10 years old - how long did the HDDs on iPods last?

      As for headphones, I have a pair of AKG451, bass is a little overpowering but at £50 they're as good as you'll ever need for a phone/mp3 player. The real pain that Beats have bought to our lives is that all other manufacturers are going for bass at the expense of clarity; and let's not forget that Beats were originally made by Monster, who have form in the audio industry, and are now HTC.

      Beats are, however, just a brand. Like Red Bull, you're paying a massive premium for a name. If you have that kind of money to blow I would suggest Grado, then the Germanic companies like Sennheiser, AKG, BeyerDynamic, etc.

      There is also the sad factor that music is more frequently being mastered for MP3 and to be lound (c.f. Nick Southall's article on compression).

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      1. Loyal Commenter Silver badge
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        Re: Sad realities

        The mistake you've made there is to think that Apple products are high quality, rather than just shiny and ubiquitous. Even when the original iPod came out, it wasn't the only MP3 player out there, and it certainly wasn't the one with the best audio quality. What it did have was the best product designers and marketing.

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        1. Anonymous Coward
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          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Sad realities

          "The mistake you've made there is to think that Apple products are high quality, rather than just shiny and ubiquitous."

          This site seems to disagree:

          http://www.kenrockwell.com/apple/iphone-5/audio-quality.htm

          Do you have any actual, measurable justification for thinking that the audio quality of Apple products is bad? Or are you just annoyed by Apple's success?

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        2. k9gardner
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          Re: Sad realities

          I know what you're trying to say, and a lot of people have said it before, but it's really not true. Apple ~does~ make exceptionally high quality products, which I've been using for years. This is not to say that they've always done, or that they're now flawless - nothing is - but they are insanely great, from concept to industrial design to software standards to execution and beyond (they're even designed for recyclability after they're spent!). C'mon, man, life is short. Enjoy the good stuff that's out there. You know as well as I do that the reason the iPod trounced all the other PMPs out there was that it was so much better than the rest. It's not just the creature but its biosphere too. It all worked, and it worked much better and easier and more intuitively than everything else.

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          1. paulll
            Reply Icon

            Re: Sad realities

            "concept to industrial design to software standards to execution and beyond"

            Vis a vis the original ipoo ...

            Concept - wasn't new

            Industrial design - 'orrible, imo. Matter of opinion

            Software standards - LOLOLOLOLOL itunes? HEHEHE

            Execution - Locked-up battery that shat and died, no usb, fussy interface?

            "(they're even designed for recyclability after they're spent!). " It's not meant to be SPENT! Nobody else thinks these are disposable items.

            You know as well as I do that the *only* reason the iPod trounced all the other PMPs out there was that it was so much better-advertised than the rest. Ok, and shinier, I'll grant.

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        3. Frank Bough
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          WTF?

          Re: Sad realities

          Just fuck off. Look at a fucking iPhone teardown and learn a thing or two.

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      2. Anonymous Coward
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        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Sad realities

        That's interesting - I have a Nano and a 4th Generation Touch, and I've always thought the Nano sounded much better...Thanks for the explanation!

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      3. Dave 126 Silver badge
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        Re: Sad realities

        >The DAC in your iRiver should be a NXP UDA1380TT; one of my friends has one still going strong at what must be coming up to 10 years old - how long did the HDDs on iPods last?

        Er, the same amount of time?

        The iRiver H1xx and 3xxx series used the same Toshiba HDD as the iPods at the time... and indeed the same Li-ion batteries. (I had a H320 that I dropped a few times onto concrete, the HDD died so I replaced it with one from a broken iPod - happy again until someone stole it)

        Before having a HDD-based music player, I had a MD recorder- strange that not many MP3 players could record audio like the iRivers or MD-recorders could.

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      4. FutureShock999
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        Re: Sad realities

        TOTALLY agree on the Beats influence. Pah. My current headphone of choice is the AKG K701, which is a tad analytical, but very revealing. I demoed a pair of Beats White Tuxedos today in a store, just because I had seen someone endorse them recently. ARGHGHGHGH! That heavy, smeared bass nearly did my head in. Then I realised that they were perfectly suited for playing pop and hip-hop, and probably dance club music of all types.

        Currently I am listening to Donald Fagan's "The Nightfly" on 180g vinyl via my hot-rodded Pro-Ject Debut III turntable through a Creek Evolution 2 amp into the AKG cans. Bliss...and as near as I can afford, the way music was meant to sound.

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        1. Random Handle
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          no static at all

          >Donald Fagan's "The Nightfly" on 180g vinyl via my hot-rodded Pro-Ject Debut III turntable through a Creek Evolution 2 amp into the AKG cans

          These days I couldn't tell the difference - 25 years of headphone use probably a serious factor.

          ....... does the vinyl really compare favourably to the digi remastered Nightfly - it's in 5:1 DTS - existence of which is a further reason to eschew headphones.

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      5. squizzar
        Reply Icon
        Flame

        Re: Sad realities

        I've still got my multiply-resurrected IHP-140. It's on it's second incarnation (blew one up when I accidentally plugged in a car adapter for one of those dodgy FM transmitters), second HDD (well the one from the first that I blew up), second battery (replacement higher capacity ones are awesome), and second OS (Rockbox).

        Having the little remote pod means I can bury the brick in the bottom of a bag with the remote attached to a shoulder strap. All in all a brilliant little device (not that little anymore though!). It will get replaced one day - does anyone have a suggestion for something suitable though? That iRiver never really took off and everyone bought crappy iPods instead (smaller disks, more expensive, less battery life, crap processor that couldn't decode OGG) is one of the reasons I dislike Apple and the legion of 'ooohh shiny' people that buy their products instead of something good.

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    2. Jim 59
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      Re: Sad realities

      MP3 players did not stop evolving because phones came out. Something like a Sansa Clip is small, cheap, capacious, high quality (especially with RockBox), and if it gets crushed in the gym, you won't cry. Get you to Amazon !

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    3. Ian Yates
      Reply Icon

      Re: Sad realities

      "What do we get now?"

      Well, I have a Cowon J3, which has a superb sound and plenty of EQ controls. Battery lasts 50+ hours and I've currently got 64GB on it (32GB onboard + 32GB uSDHC card). Plus, it plays everything from classical and opera through to rock and indie without concern.

      I can't see me moving away from a dedicated music player for a long time; I don't have to worry about using up phone battery to listen to music and the device is designed specifically to play music well.

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    4. Kiwi
      Reply Icon

      Re: Sad realities

      I got one of those 20Gig HDD Irivers way back when.. 20G and 260K colour when the best apple could offer was black&white, far more than twice the price, and a whopping 8g.

      Still gets daily use. Still going strong. I did want to upgrade the HDD recently, opened it up only to find what it had inside was nothing like what I was expecting.

      Wonder if the drive is able to give me any data on its run time. I suspect the number of spinning hours will be some years. The thing's on damn near 24/7. And it still pisses me off that it could only handle 999 songs in a playlist!

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  3. Vladimir Plouzhnikov

    "Music" is the problem

    The term "audio quality" just isn't applicable to rap, house, techno, bieber, schmieber and similar. That cr*p would sound the same coming out of Aerial Acoustics driven by a Krell, as out of an arse.

    The deteriorating tastes in music and devaluing of music itself is the problem.

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    1. sabroni Silver badge
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      Re: "Music" is the problem

      The term "audio quality" just isn't applicable to music I don't listen to or understand. That crap would sound the same coming out of anything as I'm just not listening.

      Other people liking different things, which in reality are the wrong things, is the problem.

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      1. Vladimir Plouzhnikov
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        @Sabroni Re: "Music" is the problem

        "music I don't listen to or understand."

        Understand?

        Bm-tsk-bm-tsk-bm-tsk-ehehehehehehehe-Bm-tsk-bm-tsk-bm-tsk-___-Bm-tsk-bm-tsk-bm-tsk

        Mathafakabitchcrapfarkinhobitchmathafaka

        Bm-tsk-bm-tsk-bm-tsk-ehehehehehehehe-Bm-tsk-bm-tsk-bm-tsk.....

        Enjoy! :-)

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        1. sabroni Silver badge
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          Re: @Vladimir Plouzhnikov

          Yes, understand.

          Though obviously you've proved your thorough understanding of hip hop with that extract from De La Soul's "3 feet high and rising"....

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          1. Vladimir Plouzhnikov
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            Re: @Vladimir Plouzhnikov

            Thanks! With such peer recommendations I may take up a career in hip hop studies! Cheers! :-)

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        2. Triggerfish
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          Re: @Sabroni "Music" is the problem

          You know there's plenty of quality music in other genres, even if you don't like it.

          The arrangement on some quality deep house tracks can be just as impressive as other music for example, and friends who dj are just as fussy about audio quality they are playing somewhere.

          I can't see how people who call there themselves music lovers can blindly stick to just one genre and dispel others with such prejudice, and so much music shares its roots or is influenced by another form.

          You like rock, but think blues or some folk would be automatically be shit, what do you think Page and plant where listening to then?

          Being like that with music is like the comment made by audiophiles earlier its just daft willy waving.

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          1. Vladimir Plouzhnikov
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            @Triggerfish "Music" is the problem

            What you are saying would have been true were we talking about different genres of music. We are not. Not really.

            Some modern music is just primitive low quality crap. Just like with any other thing produced by humans you can usually tell if something is crap or not. But some people like crap, because they have a primitive taste. You can walk into any souvenir shop anywhere in the world and see what I mean.

            But then there is a whole different paradigm. I maintain that house, rap, dumb step etc are actually NOT music at all. They are more akin to African tribal drums, they are meant to affect totally different circuits in the brain than music. They consist of just one composition, endlessly rehashed with minute variations. They all have highly formulaic structure based on monotone repetitive rythm pattern with a "bass drop" in the middle, followed by more of the same repetitive rythm pattern. If you express it mathematically you will probably find that all of these "songs" are 99.999% identical. And it is the rythm pattern that is purpose of listening to these audio styles. They are just painless substitutes to knocking one's head against the wall as a way to induce a mild trance.

            Music serves totally different purpose.

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            1. P. Lee
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              Re: @Triggerfish "Music" is the problem

              I have to agree with Vlad on this one.

              The tunes are often there mostly to support the drums.

              The strong beat, single-level, high-volume (encouraged) and almost exact repetition seem designed to disengage the brain. It appears to be the audio equivalent of alcohol - numb the senses and blot out thought.

              While classical music uses repetition, its (usually) done with enough variation on the theme that the change stimulates the brain into registering and engaging with the alterations found through the piece.

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              1. Steven Roper
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                Re: @Triggerfish "Music" is the problem

                I also have to agree with Vladimir on this one.

                I have a very broad taste in music: glancing through my collection, I have folders for classical (Baroque such as Handel, Vivaldi and Bach; Romantic such as Mozart, Beethoven and Brahms; Bohemian such as Tchaikovsky and Sibelius), opera (ranging from Rossini and Verdi to Wagner), movie soundtracks (such as Mancini, Williams, Goldsmith, Horner and Zimmer), pop chart music from 50s to pretty much present day, 70s and 80s hair metal (from Hendrix and Deep Purple through Sabbath and Dio up to Metallica and G'n'R), emo metal (Evanescence, Nightwish), synth (Jarre, Vangelis, Eno), ambient (Kitaro, Genest, Enya etc), easy listening (Yanni, J. Galway), 8-bit c64 chip/SID tunes (Rob Hubbard, Martin Galway, Jeroen Tel), techno/trance (Oakenfold, Kai Tracid, DJ Tiesto etc), traditional folk tunes (from Europe, Middle East, Asia and Native American like Konalien and Eddy Omonte) and even military marches (Sousa and co, played by the Coldstream and Grenadier Guards bands, mostly.)

                My music collection contains works by all these and more, and I cycle through pretty much all of it regularly.

                So you can see from that lot that I have a much wider taste in music than most people. But I agree with Vladimir that rap is not music. I've tried to listen to it, I really have - I'm always eager for different music, as my wide range above shows. But it just does nothing for me. It doesn't engage my soul the way all those other genres do. Listening to some homeboy rhythmically ranting over boom-tisha-boom-erk-erk-erk, about gettin' down with ma homies, killin' da pigs, and smackin' ma muthafukkin bitch up yo muthafukka yo, isn't what I call music. Not even remotely.

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                1. Vladimir Plouzhnikov
                  Reply Icon

                  @Steven Roper RE: "Music" is the problem

                  That's an impressive collection, by all counts. But one question though - no prog?

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                2. sabroni Silver badge
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                  Re: isn't what I call music. Not even remotely.

                  So what. You don't call it music but millions of people do. And Vlad's attempt to somehow separate "tribal drums" from other forms of music just shows the ludicrous snobbery going on here.

                  What both of you seem to be saying is that you think about music, and when you think about hip hop it doesn't make sense to you (plus you only seem to have heard ganster rap, a popular genre but by no means all that hip hop has to offer). Try feeling your music instead of thinking about it. Maybe these other forms will start to make more sense to you then.

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                  1. Triggerfish
                    Reply Icon

                    Re: isn't what I call music. Not even remotely.

                    @Vladmir

                    Well I would still that not all of the dance and rap and the variants are just there to maintain a beat, not all go for repetetive compositions either, although your more likely to find that tendency out of pure dancing in clubs music (although some is more tuneful than you think) admiteddly if you arent into the music its also unlikely you'll be hearing it) since its rarely heard on the radio, and I would agree with you that I am not a major fan of that sort of dance music either because its boring to me.

                    Some of the variants outside of the club, trip hop for example has plenty of tunes and variations.

                    Also when do you define that a song has to many repetitions. What about a waltz, or some heavy metal tracks?

                    Does that not devalue the tunes of other songs for example how about something like Yngwie Malmestein (sic) track that basically is just a delivery vehicle for him to indulge in some guitar onanism?

                    @Roper

                    Rap is not all like that. I cant really identify with that get my gat macho shite either tbh, I grew up in a relatively ok part of London, drive buys with my hommies were not part of growing up.

                    It leaves me cold as well.

                    But how about something like "disposable heroes of hiphopcrisy" that rapped about things like literacy falling because everyone's watching the television, and lyrically is clever.

                    Or the Massive attack, they use rap quite a lot. There are rap bands out there that don't do all that, its just seems to be the fashion to be this over the top gangster stuff hats the problem.

                    But have noticed that in other genres, shoe-gazing indie, heavy metal that sounds like the singers vomiting into the mike (dunno what style you call that), rock with funk (chilli peppers, faith no more) etc

                    Just to be clear I am not saying you are wrong for not liking a style. Theres plenty of stuff I don't like either. But don't see the point of being so closed either, there's usually a song or two from most genres that you can turn around and go hey that's actually rather good.

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            2. kain preacher
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              Re: @Triggerfish "Music" is the problem

              Obviously you never listen to people like the roots, Outkast, Common.

              http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P0jvu4Oj108

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      2. Tom 7
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        Re: "Music" is the problem

        If your sound system is better for one kind of music than another then it is quite simply not HiFi and shit.

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    2. Anonymous Coward
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      Anonymous Coward

      Re: "Music" is the problem

      I used to think that people grew out of X Y or Z isn't proper music in the 90s. I may as well throw in an Ice T quote "I feel sorry for people who only listen to one kind of music" used to defend his rock band.

      I was sad to see the amount of people at Glastonbury who were outraged the year that Jay-Z headlined one night, people even had "Ban the (c)rap" T shirts. Exactly the same people who said that The Smiths should headline and not Hawkwind all those years ago were queuing up to say that Jay-Z shouldn't play. Anyway I went to see him and he turned out to be crap, I would have much rather seen Ice T, but at least I had me horizons broadened.

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      1. Loyal Commenter Silver badge
        Reply Icon

        Re: "Music" is the problem

        The sad thing is, I'd rather see Hawkwind on stage than The Smiths, and I'd definitely prefer them over J-Zed. At least they put on a proper show with a big robot and pyrotechnics and stuff.

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        1. Anomalous Cowturd
          Reply Icon
          Stop

          @Loyal commenter.

          Preferring to see Hawkwind over The Smiths or Mr. Zed is nothing to be ashamed of. I saw them in the late 70s, and they were feckin' excellent. The 50 odd Liberty cap mushrooms may have helped. :o)

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    3. 142
      Reply Icon
      WTF?

      Re: "The term "audio quality" just isn't applicable"

      LOL... You do know the people mix-engineering the top tracks in those genres are making £20,000 per track at a minimum? Do you honestly think record companies would pay that much if the results wen't good? You're just letting the artist's "image" dictate what your ears think they hear.

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      1. Loyal Commenter Silver badge
        Reply Icon

        Re: "The term "audio quality" just isn't applicable"

        good profitable

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        1. 142
          Reply Icon
          Facepalm

          Re: "The term "audio quality" just isn't applicable"

          True: profit's the goal - But why the hell would they waste money on an engineer if audio quality doesn't matter?They pay them those prices because of the quality of the results.

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          1. paulll
            Reply Icon

            Re: "The term "audio quality" just isn't applicable"

            But why the hell would they waste money on an engineer if audio quality doesn't matter?

            1) The boss, "producer," and, "engineer," all consider each other to be their homos, and look out for each other.

            2) Said status, cemented by appearing in the background of a photo/video with the 'posse' wearing hosiery incorrectly, makes his image marketable whether he knows anything about audio or not.

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    4. h3
      Reply Icon
      Happy

      Re: "Music" is the problem

      Not true - Techno doesn't sound right unless it is played from vinyl (Or using live using analog drum machines / synths.)

      There is certain types that sound ok with computer generated bits. But an analog drum machine I think is pretty essential.

      One of the main parts of the sound is the action of 2 records playing at the same time.

      House the sound quality totally matters. (Even awful examples of it sound much better in a Nightclub that is acoustically designed so the room goes properly with it)

      (Only problem with house is the choices of which examples of it to play in UK NIghtclubs and the people who are present there).

      (I listen to modern classical solo piano / electro / 1800's classical / techno if I am out (And I can which is getting rarer).

      I like stuff to sound like it is supposed to but I am not really an audiophile. (I do know one though with the Meridian reference system and all the speakers built into the walls of a well designed room - it does sound divine).

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  4. Phil W

    Tinny shit

    Mr Dabbs, I would contest your opinion that all music sounds like "tinny shit" on a laptop.

    Certainly this is true for the most part, and as someone who enjoys both good quality heavy weight vinyl pressings and 320kbps MP3s through a fairly nice Wharfedale 5.1 system, I agree that no laptop can compete with a proper Hi-Fi system.

    That said, try listening to some music on a Dell XPS. I have a Dell XPS 15 (L501x) which has some of the best audio quality I've ever encountered in a mobile device on the right side of £1000. This is probably due in part to the dedicated bass speaker in the bottom of the laptop.

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  5. djstardust
    Paris Hilton

    Beats are trash ....

    I gave my son my spare pair of Sennheiser HD25MkII when he was 5. He is now 10 and has great fun going round Currys plugging his device in to the Beats display and telling everyone how crap they sound. The Sennheisers were around £150 ten years ago but worth every penny.

    Apple are partly to blame here ..... the iphone music quality is flat and dreadful. Add to that the really poor earbuds and kids don't actually know what good music sounds like any more.

    Paris ..... because here music is shit too!

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    1. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Beats are trash ....

      As above, it used to be better, but for profit there was a shift to Cirrus DACs. Beats just emphasise bass which, codec dependant, can be the most lossy-compressed part of the audio stream.

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      1. jonathanb Silver badge
        Reply Icon

        Re: Beats are trash ....

        I always test out the bass of any speaker or headphones with this track - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rUsrMm7BaU4

        If you listen to it on Beats headphones, as I have done in PC World, the bass is just completely missing. I guess the main difference between my test track and a lot of tracks is that the bass is a 32ft bombarde playing a tune rather than a percussion instrument.

        The Beats headphones weren't the worst, but they weren't particuarlly brilliant. I found no correlation whatsoever between price and sound quality in their headphone range.

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    2. Frank Bough
      Reply Icon
      WTF?

      Re: Beats are trash ....

      I've had enough of this.

      Every mobile phone I've ever bought came with a pair of earbud 'phones. THEY HAVE ALL BEEN SHIT. Nokia were the absolute shittest, Ericsson next, then Sony then Apple. Yes, the shitty white Apple earbuds were the best bad earphones I've ever had.

      I like listening to music on my iPhone, so I have a pair of Audio Technica M50s. The lead is irritatingly long, but the sound and comfort more than make up for it.

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  6. Frankee Llonnygog

    There's a lot of audio gear designed to 'pump' music

    It has over-emphasised, distorted treble, and one-note bass boosted by tuned ports or similar techniques. Beats are in that category

    I had a quick informal listening comparison recently between some Beats and B&W headphones. The Beats were like having your ear canals scoured out with a bog brush. The B&Ws in comparison were like warm honey being slowly dripped into your ears through a velvet-lined funnel by Fenella Fielding dressed as the vamp from Carry On Screaming (plain Egish - the Beats sounded horrible, and the B&Ws were gorgeous)

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    1. Loyal Commenter Silver badge
      Reply Icon

      Re: There's a lot of audio gear designed to 'pump' music

      +1 for the Fenella Fielding reference.

      My parnter saw her on a train once, but was too shy to say hello. Later regretting it, she wrote her a letter and had a lovely reply. It's a shame that more actors aren't nice people like Fenella.

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  7. Dave K
    FAIL

    The music itself is the problem

    The problem isn't so much the equipment, but the actual music quality itself. The music industry hasn't cared about the sound quality of what they produce since the mid 90s now. It's all about loudness instead.

    So, the volume is turned up to 11, drums get squashed until they're muffled and distorted, all the finer details of the music are obliterated, and all you have left is a solid wall of 100% volume with gratuitous clipping and digital distortion everywhere.

    And once the original music is butchered in this way, no headphones or hifi out there can undo the damage. Maybe if the music industry started to care about quality instead of just volume, maybe a decent pair of headphones would matter.

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    1. meanioni
      Reply Icon

      Re: The music itself is the problem

      Yeah, as my grandma used to say: "the music's too loud and you can't hear the words"!!! :-)

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      1. Sparkypatrick
        Reply Icon
        Coat

        Re: "the music's too loud and you can't hear the words"

        That wasn't your grandmother, it was The Members. Now that was proper music...

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