Beats Tour Review

PerfectCreature

I was able to take home some Dr. Dre Beats Tour headphones today from work. We got a set in for display and I asked if I could try them on and see how they performed so I could be a little more knowledgeable about them.

Opening the box: From the get go you can tell that these are a more appearance bases set of headphones. The packing is very flashy. You pull the sleeve off and you have a very soft feeling case. You grab the silk like tab and pull the magnetized cover up and there you have the earbuds and a nice circle case. They are placed in a velvet covered plastic covering.
Included in the box are tons of earbuds, some earhooks and some manuals. The warranty manual says 3 years, but I guess it is now 1. They give you a booklet on their products (mostly a "hey, look what else you can buy) and a nice decibel meter that tells you what sounds=what rating with the anatomy of the ear. The pages are quality pages and do not feel like cheap paper. They could have cut costs with a no fills packaging and left the manual out. Honestly, if someone bought these, they know of Beats Audio.

The product: First of, finding a nice fit is a pain in the butt with these earbuds. It is like they just decided to toss in a handful of sizes. After an hour messing around I finally found one that fit good, and did not make my ear pop, or fall out. The fit is a little odd as well, and takes some practice to get just right. They are also not for someone who wants to be overly active. They should be able to handle aggressive walking but any type of running lets them drop out. The cord does not have a nasty plastic odor which is nice. I demoed the ones without the control talk so, no comment there. I do enjoy the flat cord, although you can see, if you look hard enough that all the cord is not wire. A small amount of it is wire, and the rest is just waste. They could have cut costs here as well using less plastic on the cord. The cord is flexible and is able to twist fairly well. The earbuds are nice feeling, though as I said it is hard to find which one is a good fit. Mine came with an L shaped connector which Is good. The build quality appears to be well done for the price. I would have liked to have seen less flash though. It is an attention getter.

The sound: The sound is not as bad as I expected in all honesty. They do have quite a lot of bass, and miss some parts of the higher spectrum, not enough to kill the music but enough to know that something faint is missing. For anyone who has never experienced the higher end headphones or anything other then in in box theater system these sound great. When I compared them to a phillips headphone I had been using for a few weeks these sounded much better. When I compared them to my home stereo setup, you could pick out parts where these did not do very well. I used an equalizer and was able to boost treble a bit and minimize bass to get a rounder sound. While it is not what I expect from a $150 headphone they do fairly well-as I mentioned I am sure they could have cut some cost if they had discarded and left out some of the flashy components. . They seem to be driven on a lower volume and can get quite loud. Enough to toss them on your shoulders and hear the music. They did not distort very much when I had it on full volume from my iphone.

Overall: The sound stage they create pulls you backwards. It is like they are trying to mimic a car setup with big subwoofers and missing tweeters. The bass draws you downwards and makes it hard to enjoy the crispness of some tracks. They do well on some songs, but not others. Keep in mind, I listened to these at "average" quality to try to mimic what other users would use. For the price, I could get a much better performing headphone for sure, but I would loose the flash that comes with this pair. These headphones are livable if you have never had anything better, and I feel that if you have had nothing better to compare these too then you may enjoy them. However, if you have (like almost everyone on this forum) then you will know what you are missing. I found after an hour or so listening I started to enjoy them. They are comfortable and I love the fact how they make my stereo sound even better then it is :cheesygrin:
I know this is not the best review, but have at it.
Comments welcome.
I hope this will help someone who is looking at these headphones decided a little easier to get them or not.

chumlie

I will stick to my Grado's. Less money, better sound.

PerfectCreature

I really would not buy them personally for $150. I have my eyes set on those Polk Audio 6000 set to come out soon.
I was not totally dissapointed in them, but I would not use these as my main source of portable music.

nguyendot

I want to try the Polk Audio 6000's as well..but honestly the marketing for the Polk headphones is starting to mirror Beats...which mirrors Bose.

PerfectCreature

I guess I never really thought about it like that. I am either wanting the 6000s, or the Klipsch Image One headphones.
Still messing around with the Beats, the ear buds are tough to get on and off as an added note. I finally figured out how to get the "right" fit. I must assume I have small ears, since they dig into the back of my ear like no tomorrow. After awhile I don't notice it, but man do they hurt a bit from the back digging in. With the better fit I hear a lot more bass which really messes with the rest of the sound. When the bass is not there, they are not half bad.

On the topic though, companies will do what they have to to move products.

decal

So, you're poking these things in your nasty **** ears on loan? Are you going to put them back on the shelf and sell them to some unsuspecting schmuck as opened package at a discount? Please tell me you're not so I can sleep tonight !!!

PerfectCreature

They will not be sold, we received several of them for demo-normally we all look at the demos, try them out so we can have the hand on experience to give a true and detailed response to questions, then send them back as damaged. Most times they just get sent back for credit and are not used. They will be cleaned, boxed up and sent back to the vendor as used/defective. No customer will ever see these unless they are sold as a refurbished unit through the Monster website.
So sleep well. I would never do something like that to a customer of mine. That is disgusting. Anything like that that has to do with any contact to the body that has been used or shows signs of use or tampering with gets sent back to the vendor and never reaches the sales floor again. I don't know of any store in my area that would place used merchandise of that nature back on the sales floor.

decal

PerfectCreature wrote: »

They will not be sold

That's nice to know.