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00:00Hey what's up? MKBHD here. Beats by Dre. What comes to mind when you hear that name? It
00:08might have been a while. Maybe you think of large overpriced headphones with way too much
00:13bass or maybe you think about like small sleek earbuds for sports maybe. Either way, whether
00:20it's one of those or something in between, the arc of how we got from these to these
00:26is fascinating. So one of the earliest videos I ever did about Beats by Dre was called
00:31The Truth About Beats by Dre. And you know, I know, pretty juicy headline. But this was
00:36back in 2014 when Beats had a very different reputation of high fashion, a very different
00:42set of products, and a very different position as a company. This week, Beats just announced
00:49these new studio buds. And while I don't personally think they're perfect, they're absolutely
00:53not the best at anything, they do feel way more in line with the rest of the headphone
00:59world now. So what happened? A little history. Beats started up in 2006, right? So the first
01:07eight years or so of their existence, they built up a certain reputation with their audio
01:12products, mainly their headphones, which were a stylish, super cool, borderline fashion
01:17accessory. And if you did use them as headphones, well, cool. They had plenty of bass, but audio
01:21fidelity was not the number one concern. But these were the days when Beats would
01:25get their headphones on as many of the heads of the most influential celebrities and athletes
01:31and pop stars as humanly possible. They were the kings of this, which made them super cool
01:35to anyone who followed them or look up to these people. But it was also pretty ironic
01:39because there's almost no chance anybody who mixed and made music actually used Beats by
01:45Dre at any point in that process. They just didn't sound that great. Well, I should clarify,
01:49they didn't sound that good to audiophiles or people who actually cared about sound
01:55quality or accuracy. But to most people, to most people, the boomy bass-heavy profile
02:03of these was actually a feature because they're listening to bass-heavy music anyway and they're
02:07just listening for fun. And so people were actually very willing to pay extra for headphones
02:12this cool that sounded like that. And extra money they spent, because this was the main
02:17subject of my Truth About Beats by Dre video, but clearly Beats spent way more on marketing
02:23than they did on R&D and it paid off because they were able to charge a lot. They were
02:28selling two, three, four hundred, even five hundred dollar headphones and that allowed
02:33them to capture something like 70% of the high-end headphone market, which is wild because
02:38Beats buyers, they'd never spend 500 bucks on any other pair of headphones. But Beats
02:44had just created this commanding buying power, this alert to them, which was super powerful.
02:49Kind of like how Tesla today can get people who are never really into cars to spend way
02:54more than they normally would to get one. So Beats is eating up premium market share.
02:58They're making tons of money. This is around the time that they get on Apple's radar. And
03:02so Apple at this point had not made any wireless headphones at all. Just the earphones that
03:08come in the box with the iPhone. So after some weird dances with HTC and Monster Cable,
03:15Apple ended up buying Beats for $3 billion, which today is actually their still largest
03:21acquisition ever. So since that moment, I've kept an eye on Beats and the stuff that they've
03:27kept making because Beats has continued making stuff. Because you know, any number of things
03:31can happen when one huge company swallows up another with an acquisition. Sometimes
03:36they do it for the talent. Sometimes they do it for the portfolio of products or the
03:41technology or just the name. With the case of Beats, it was a couple of things. One,
03:46they essentially turned Beats Music streaming service into Apple Music. And two, they started
03:52making wireless audio products. They introduced AirPods in 2016, then AirPods Pro and HomePod
03:59and HomePod Mini and AirPods Max. But curiously, as you've probably noticed, Beats kept making
04:06Beats headphones. They kept the name, they kept the logos and everything, and they kept
04:10sort of running the company Beats by Dre as if it's sort of now just working closely
04:14with Apple. And it actually makes a lot of sense. Beats was making a lot of money. They
04:18were making about a billion dollars a year with headphones when Apple bought them in
04:232014. And you don't just throw away all that revenue, all that brand cachet. Apple's not
04:27stupid. But once Apple started making headphones, they made sure Beats didn't directly compete
04:33with AirPods like some of the other clones that I've made a video on, link below. They
04:38more lived alongside them as a high fashion alternative type of thing. And it would be
04:43fine if customers picked Beats by Dre on the shelf next to the Apple headphones because
04:49they're all, it's all Apple. Beats success is Apple success. So if you followed Beats
04:53headphones since then, they've slowly toned down their image a little bit. And they've
04:59actually toned down their pricing a bit too. But they've definitely Apple-ified their
05:06headphone lineup. So their headphones started switching to charging with lightning ports
05:10instead of USB to match the iPhone. They started adding W1 and then H1 chips to instant pair
05:16with Apple products. And they started integrating more natively into the iPhone's audio control
05:20features. Basically, they became better and better alternative headphones for the iPhone,
05:26which is cool. More options is always better. But they definitely lost a little bit of their
05:30character a bit. So that brings us to this week when Apple announced these, the new Studio
05:35Buds, these wireless earbuds. And these to me, these are the most interesting headphones
05:41that they've released since that Apple acquisition. Because of course, there's more features and
05:46things and tech has gotten better since 2014. But with these, suddenly, they're trying to
05:52be dual native and work just as well on Android as the iPhone. So right off the top, Android
06:01users are overall a bit more price sensitive. So guess what? Their pricing has gotten even
06:05more competitive than ever. These will go for $149 with active noise cancellation. Now,
06:11that's not cheap, but that beats AirPods Pro, that beats Sony's Mark IVs and a lot of others
06:16with ANC. So that's a pretty good price for earbuds with ANC. Now, there's definitely
06:20still some downsides. I'll get to those in a second. But overall, I think they've done
06:23a pretty good job. And then there's actually even a couple pretty big changes they've made
06:28for Android users that I didn't expect. Number one, they switched to USB-C on the case. Like
06:33I said, they were on this streak of lightning chargers, but this makes sense, of course,
06:37for the Android crowd. And the case itself is pretty compact, which is something I can't
06:42say about some previous Beats earbuds. So this is getting down to just be a little bit
06:47bigger than AirPods. And I do like this matte red here, though you can also get them in white
06:52or matte black. But then number two, these headphones actually don't have Apple's H1 chip
06:58in them. So like I said, they're trying to be dual native and feel the same on either iPhone
07:04or Android, right? So a lot of these H1 chip Beats in the past would work amazingly well for the
07:10iPhone. They'd have all these features, they'd instant pair, but then they'd be missing a bunch
07:14of those features when you tried to Bluetooth pair them to an Android phone. So these still
07:19instant pair with the iPhone and plug into iOS's native audio controls, but they lack the iCloud
07:25connected switching. So if you're someone who is switching headphones between an iPhone and a Mac
07:31and an iPad all the time, these don't do that. So these probably aren't for you. But now they have
07:36an equally awesome and equally quick pairing process on Android, which is very much appreciated.
07:42So they connect to the Beats app, then you get all the same controls, you have your access to
07:46Google Assistant, the same control over noise cancellation versus transparency mode. It's
07:52great. These are the first Beats in a while that I feel like I can actually recommend for Android
07:57users. And yes, I did say noise cancellation. These studio buds use their mics to deliver
08:02active noise cancellation that at this price is not super common and it's decent. Of course,
08:08it's best with white noise, but it is not as strong as AirPods Pro or Sony's XM4s,
08:14but I believe it is better than Samsung's attempt with Galaxy Buds Live. So a more popular newer
08:19feature you're seeing on noise canceling headphones now is transparency mode. So using those
08:24microphones that were used for noise cancellation to actually mix in real world sound. So I can long
08:30press on the button here to switch between noise cancellation and transparency. And the
08:35transparency mode on these is okay. Basically, AirPods transparency mode is so good that it
08:42could literally fool your brain into thinking you're not wearing headphones, like you just
08:46hear everything. And so everything else kind of just looks bad in comparison to those. But
08:50by comparison, these sound just a bit muffled. So voices aren't quite as clear and clean as you'd
08:56like them to be. It's not terrible. I mean, you still hear your environment. So if you're out
09:00walking in the streets, you can hear cars or bikes coming up behind you. If someone were to
09:05call your name, you could definitely hear it, but it's just not quite as good as AirPods if you've
09:10ever heard those. Nevertheless, battery is eight hours with ANC off, five hours with ANC on. So
09:16that's pretty decent. And then the case gives you an extra 10 to 16 hours, and it'll also fast
09:20charge the buds and give you an hour of listening time in five minutes if you're nearly dead. So how
09:26do they sound? How do the latest Beats by Dre in 2021 actually sound? I mean, they sound fine,
09:36but they definitely still have the classic Beats by Dre sound signature they've always had.
09:42Basically, even to my non-audiophile ears, they're not the best sounding earbuds I've ever heard,
09:47but they are crisp and still have plenty of bass and highs, but are much lighter on the mids,
09:53especially where vocals tend to be. Basically, it's not my preference for sound profile. It works
09:58well with some genres of music like hip-hop, but it does feel like big chunks of the middle are
10:03missing for a lot of other types of music. They stay in my ears fairly well though, thanks to the
10:07silicon tips, and they create a nice seal. I gotta have soft tip earbuds for them to stay in my ears.
10:12I would not trust these to stay in my ears for working out though, like I would trust things
10:16with wingtips for example. Wingtips always just thousand percent stay more snug in my ear.
10:21Le truc amusant c'est qu'à chaque fois que j'oublie une chanson, ou que j'attends l'assistante, ou que je fais quelque chose
10:26qui implique de cliquer sur le bouton extérieur de l'outil, j'arrive également à les pousser un peu plus
10:32loin dans mes oreilles, ce qui est peut-être un bonus inattentif, mais aussi parfois dégueulasse.
10:38En tout cas, je dirais que je suis basiquement satisfait de la basse avec ce qu'ils ressemblent.
10:43Je les laisse avec ANC sur tout le temps, donc c'est un peu sympa. Ça réduit un peu la batterie,
10:48bien sûr, comme je l'ai mentionné, mais c'est comme ça qu'ils ressemblent le mieux. Ils ont aussi IPX4
10:52de résistance à l'eau, donc si je travaille avec eux, il n'y a pas de soucis d'être un peu
10:56doué ou de marcher dans la pluie ou quelque chose comme ça. Donc, ce ne sont pas les meilleurs en général.
11:01Je donnerais ça à Galaxy Buds Pro pour le package meilleur en général ou à Sony WF-1000XM4 pour
11:11juste la qualité de son, mais ils sont plus chers et ils sont plus compétitifs que jamais
11:16avant. Mais c'est vraiment ce qui s'est passé, c'est que la compétition s'est réveillée. Donc, oui, pour
11:21tout le monde qui a regardé les produits Beats au cours des dernières années, c'est juste
11:26un très intéressant, c'est une chose fascinante à faire, de faire un produit qui fonctionne juste
11:32aussi bien sur Android qu'il le fait pour l'iPhone. Comme pour une entreprise d'Apple, c'est assez bizarre,
11:38mais c'est plus compétitif pour nous tous et c'est mieux pour Beats et c'est mieux pour nous.
11:44Et donc, c'est les nouveaux Beats. Ils savent le nom des Beats. C'est toujours grand, mais il n'a pas
11:50presque le même poids dans le monde des headphones qu'il l'a fait il y a dix ans. Comme les gens ne sont pas
11:55prêts à sortir et passer 400 dollars sur des headphones lourds et clonqués qui ne sonnent pas si bien
12:01en 2021. Comme il y a des revues YouTube maintenant, ils seraient appelés rapidement,
12:07mais ils sont toujours parfaitement prêts à envoyer un paire de ces Lebron James et
12:11vous savez, c'est pour l'achat de l'achat. Ils sont certainement toujours en train de se mettre en mode,
12:15mais ils sont toujours là, ils changent un peu et j'aime où ça va.
12:20Mais aussi, oui, les gens ont oublié de Dre. Donc merci de regarder.
12:23Aussi, le sponsor de la chaîne Dbrand a une nouvelle peau et ouais, c'est fou. Vous avez peut-être vu
12:31ça sur la PS5 ici. C'est appelé Damascus. Donc, en gros, vous savez que si vous débloquez
12:36tout dans Call of Duty Warzone, la peau finale que vous pouvez débloquer est cette
12:41chose qui ressemble à du bois Damascus. Il y a quelques vidéos YouTube assez folles de
12:46débloquer ça. Eh bien, cette peau est basée sur ça. En plus, il y a quelques couleurs différentes.
12:50Il y a un rouge, il y a un vert, il y a un triple noir, bien sûr, et un warzone bleu,
12:56lequel je vais dire, je pense que j'aime juste autant que le mat black. Et ils sont tous sur
13:00ce nouveau matériau holographique fou qu'ils ont conçu à la maison. Il change de couleur
13:05à chaque fois que vous le gardez à différents angles, ce qui est assez fou, ou dans le cas de la PS5,
13:08à chaque fois que vous le regardez de différentes parties de la salle et de différentes lumières,
13:12c'est fou. Donc, vous pouvez le vérifier sur le lien ci-dessous, en même temps que leurs casques
13:14Airpods de nouveau, mais c'est tout. Laissez-moi savoir ce que vous pensez de ce nouveau look Beats
13:19par Dre si vous acheteriez des headphones Beats pour votre téléphone Android aujourd'hui en 2021.
13:24C'est tout. Merci d'avoir regardé. Je vous revois bientôt.