Beautiful. Would love some gray-scale beats pros.
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Showing posts with label beats. Show all posts
Showing posts with label beats. Show all posts
Monday, January 11, 2016
Saturday, February 14, 2015
iTunes-Beats Music
Streaming is undoubtedly the future of music, and I think Apple knows this. That's why they bought Beats Music, and that's why we keep hearing rumors about it being included in iTunes soon.
I just don't think they understand why streaming is so popular.
Spotify has 30 million active users, which definitely indicates interest in streaming. But only 10 million are paying users. That means 2/3 of Spotify users are only utilizing the free, as supported version.
Along the same lines, Pandora is the most popular music streaming service (although they legally count as a radio service when it comes to paying musicians…), and this is due to the free nature of it as well.
But the rumors for Apple's Beats Music integration in iTunes have it pegged at being $7.99 a month.
I have two issues with this. One, it's not going to gain much increased traction at that price, because people stream mostly because they dislike paying for music. I get that they want to (need to) make sure that artists are getting fairly compensated for their music, and they don't want to bleed music like Spotify, but I'm just not sure it's going to work. Two, I can still get Spotify Premium on education pricing for $4.99 a month. Is Apple going to have a $3.99 education discount? It's doubtful.
The only solution I could see working for a paid subscription that would actually be relatively popular is having the cost of entry be $7.99/month or purchase of an album on iTunes per month. This method then appeals to users because they get an album even after they stop having a subscription to the service. This keeps iTunes afloat, download numbers up, music rights holders happy, and users satisfied in their expenditure.
I just don't think they understand why streaming is so popular.
Spotify has 30 million active users, which definitely indicates interest in streaming. But only 10 million are paying users. That means 2/3 of Spotify users are only utilizing the free, as supported version.
Along the same lines, Pandora is the most popular music streaming service (although they legally count as a radio service when it comes to paying musicians…), and this is due to the free nature of it as well.
But the rumors for Apple's Beats Music integration in iTunes have it pegged at being $7.99 a month.
I have two issues with this. One, it's not going to gain much increased traction at that price, because people stream mostly because they dislike paying for music. I get that they want to (need to) make sure that artists are getting fairly compensated for their music, and they don't want to bleed music like Spotify, but I'm just not sure it's going to work. Two, I can still get Spotify Premium on education pricing for $4.99 a month. Is Apple going to have a $3.99 education discount? It's doubtful.
The only solution I could see working for a paid subscription that would actually be relatively popular is having the cost of entry be $7.99/month or purchase of an album on iTunes per month. This method then appeals to users because they get an album even after they stop having a subscription to the service. This keeps iTunes afloat, download numbers up, music rights holders happy, and users satisfied in their expenditure.
Let me know what you think in the comments.
Thursday, December 4, 2014
The Beats by Dre Social Experiment Analysis
So, remember my post about how Beats Studio headphones are actually pretty good, even if they aren't the right fit for a true studio setting, as their name might imply? If not, it's linked above for your perusing.
In any case, while doing my normal YouTube watching routine, I happened upon this video, embedded below, which is I think worth your watching. The hosts of the show take to the streets and do blind and non-blind listening tests with random people.
It would seem as though the hosts expected people to like the Beats when they saw what headphones they were wearing, but dislike them in the blind test.
What they actually found? It turns out that in blind tests, people generally preferred the Beats headphones, while in the non-blind test they preferred the other headphones.
Now, in interest of full disclosure, the alternative headphones used, made by Philips, are not the model of perfect sound accepted by the audiophile community, or anything. They simply offer a relatively flat, studio sound, and are designed for mobile use and fashion. Because of this, they are reasonably similar to the Beats headphones, with the main differences being brand and sound signature.
The hosts want to chalk this up to the noise cancelling of the Beats headphones. While noise cancelling is certainly a factor for the average person, I think there are other factors to account for.
For one thing, the people in the test used their own audio sources, so this creates two different cases in which the Beats headphones would offer the "better" sound.
The first case is the obvious one, which is that the subjects chose to listen to pop or rap music. This isn't a far stretch, being that hip-hop/rap and pop make up nearly all of the modern top 40 music, so there's a statistically high chance that the subjects would be listening to that.
The second case is less obvious, but no less important. The subjects were very unlikely to be in possession of well-recorded lossless files, and were not using a high quality audio interface. They were likely playing lossy .mp3 files or streaming music at low bit-rate. More importantly, they were likely listening to modern music, which is increasingly mixed in compressed resolution, so that even lossless files do not sound "good" on high quality audio interfaces. The sound signature of the Beats headphones actually improves the sound of these low quality files by not pointing out the harshness like a flat, studio headphone does.
A final factor I would consider is the changing sound signature taste in America. Beats joined the subwoofer movement which began in cars (yes, that's right, Beats did not start the bass-head revolution) and brought it into pop culture. Because of this, many people expect more bass out of headphones, and bass is the defining criteria of "good" audio products.
These factors explain why people chose the Beats headphones as sounding better when they were blindfolded, but it doesn't explain why they thought the better headphones were the non-Beats alternative.
The reason behind this is likely that as much as pop culture pushes the Beats brand, pop culture also pushes that Beats sound like garbage. While this may have been true for the first generation Beats Studio headphones, the most recent Beats products have radically different sound signatures, and no longer sound "bad." The problem is, pop culture hasn't caught up with that change, because it's not easy to change the minds of the masses after they've formed an opinion. Beats have been equated with bad sound, and that's not going to be changed easily.
So, with this video in mind, are you willing to give Beats another shot? Do you own a pair of the new Studio or Solo 2 Beats headphones and take a lot of flack and have a hard time convincing people that they actually sound okay? Let me know in the comments.
In any case, while doing my normal YouTube watching routine, I happened upon this video, embedded below, which is I think worth your watching. The hosts of the show take to the streets and do blind and non-blind listening tests with random people.
It would seem as though the hosts expected people to like the Beats when they saw what headphones they were wearing, but dislike them in the blind test.
What they actually found? It turns out that in blind tests, people generally preferred the Beats headphones, while in the non-blind test they preferred the other headphones.
Now, in interest of full disclosure, the alternative headphones used, made by Philips, are not the model of perfect sound accepted by the audiophile community, or anything. They simply offer a relatively flat, studio sound, and are designed for mobile use and fashion. Because of this, they are reasonably similar to the Beats headphones, with the main differences being brand and sound signature.
The hosts want to chalk this up to the noise cancelling of the Beats headphones. While noise cancelling is certainly a factor for the average person, I think there are other factors to account for.
For one thing, the people in the test used their own audio sources, so this creates two different cases in which the Beats headphones would offer the "better" sound.
The first case is the obvious one, which is that the subjects chose to listen to pop or rap music. This isn't a far stretch, being that hip-hop/rap and pop make up nearly all of the modern top 40 music, so there's a statistically high chance that the subjects would be listening to that.
The second case is less obvious, but no less important. The subjects were very unlikely to be in possession of well-recorded lossless files, and were not using a high quality audio interface. They were likely playing lossy .mp3 files or streaming music at low bit-rate. More importantly, they were likely listening to modern music, which is increasingly mixed in compressed resolution, so that even lossless files do not sound "good" on high quality audio interfaces. The sound signature of the Beats headphones actually improves the sound of these low quality files by not pointing out the harshness like a flat, studio headphone does.
A final factor I would consider is the changing sound signature taste in America. Beats joined the subwoofer movement which began in cars (yes, that's right, Beats did not start the bass-head revolution) and brought it into pop culture. Because of this, many people expect more bass out of headphones, and bass is the defining criteria of "good" audio products.
These factors explain why people chose the Beats headphones as sounding better when they were blindfolded, but it doesn't explain why they thought the better headphones were the non-Beats alternative.
The reason behind this is likely that as much as pop culture pushes the Beats brand, pop culture also pushes that Beats sound like garbage. While this may have been true for the first generation Beats Studio headphones, the most recent Beats products have radically different sound signatures, and no longer sound "bad." The problem is, pop culture hasn't caught up with that change, because it's not easy to change the minds of the masses after they've formed an opinion. Beats have been equated with bad sound, and that's not going to be changed easily.
So, with this video in mind, are you willing to give Beats another shot? Do you own a pair of the new Studio or Solo 2 Beats headphones and take a lot of flack and have a hard time convincing people that they actually sound okay? Let me know in the comments.
Monday, August 11, 2014
Beats Studio Heaphones: Not for Studios, but Still Good
Audio snobbery aside, the equalizer on the Spotify app shows exactly why the new Beats Studio headphones are so popular, and actually not half bad.
To the right is an image that attempts to show the sound profile of these headphones. Understand that this is playing an actual song, so the sound signature isn't exactly like this, but it gives a pretty good idea. Note that this test is performed with the headphones on a microphone, so take that for what it's worth.
As you can see, the latest Studio's bump the bass, and raise the highs, leaving the mids to look a bit saggy. Audiophiles generally hate this kind of non-flat, studio, pure sound.
Let's take a quick look at the Spotify equalizer on the left, though. On the rock setting, we see this same type of sound altering, with an increase in bass and treble causing a "scooping" in the mids. Obviously, in the EQ settings, the curve is much more fluid, but it is still extremely similar to the curve we see in the headphone test. This "scooped" curve is also similar to what we see in other EQ settings like R&B, Hip-Hop, Electronic, and even Jazz and Classical to an extent.
Yes, you wouldn't want to use these to record and mix the music in a studio because they have nowhere close to flat sound, but that's not what consumer audio should do. Leonard from Kosmic Sound explains this point in the video below describing studio monitors. Watch from 0:50 to 0:58.
To sum up his point, consumer audio is about taking recorded tracks and making them sound better.
That's what Beats does with their new studios. And they also do it in style and comfort. Are they for everyone and every purpose? No. Are they expensive? Yes. But they are really good for most people and most uses.
 |
| Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GphNpU1V-zU#t=223 |
To the right is an image that attempts to show the sound profile of these headphones. Understand that this is playing an actual song, so the sound signature isn't exactly like this, but it gives a pretty good idea. Note that this test is performed with the headphones on a microphone, so take that for what it's worth.
As you can see, the latest Studio's bump the bass, and raise the highs, leaving the mids to look a bit saggy. Audiophiles generally hate this kind of non-flat, studio, pure sound.
 |
| Source: http://cdn.array.se/ files/2014/07/spotify_eq_ios_dump.jpg |
Let's take a quick look at the Spotify equalizer on the left, though. On the rock setting, we see this same type of sound altering, with an increase in bass and treble causing a "scooping" in the mids. Obviously, in the EQ settings, the curve is much more fluid, but it is still extremely similar to the curve we see in the headphone test. This "scooped" curve is also similar to what we see in other EQ settings like R&B, Hip-Hop, Electronic, and even Jazz and Classical to an extent.
Yes, you wouldn't want to use these to record and mix the music in a studio because they have nowhere close to flat sound, but that's not what consumer audio should do. Leonard from Kosmic Sound explains this point in the video below describing studio monitors. Watch from 0:50 to 0:58.
To sum up his point, consumer audio is about taking recorded tracks and making them sound better.
That's what Beats does with their new studios. And they also do it in style and comfort. Are they for everyone and every purpose? No. Are they expensive? Yes. But they are really good for most people and most uses.
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