Malcolm Owen
The long-rumored Beats Studio Pro has become a reality, with the over-ear headphones providing Active Noise Cancellation and bringing the AirPods Personalized Spatial Audio to the Apple subsidiary.
Repeatedly appearing in leaks through early 2023, the Beats Studio Pro are the latest headphones to emerge from the Apple-owned Beats by Dre. Rather than in-ear devices like the Beats Studio Buds+, the Pro instead offers a similar package of features in an over-ear headphone configuration.
Beats Studio Pro
Somewhat reminiscent of the Beats Studio3 headphones, the Beats Studio Pro have leather ear cushions and metal sliders. Measuring 7 inches long and 7.1 inches high, the headphones are lightweight in comparison to the AirPods Max, weighing in at 9.17 ounces.
Inside each of the earcups is a custom 40mm driver, which is supposedly capable of near-zero distortion, even when used at high volume, for high audio quality. Using a new integrated digital processor, it will also work to create as balanced a sound profile as possible.
The onboard processing will also provide many of the features AirPods Pro users will be familiar with, including Active Noise Cancellation and Transparency Mode. These are switchable by a dedicated button on the side of one of the cups.
Spatial audio with dynamic head tracking support and Dolby Atmos is also included. There is also Personalized Spatial Audio, which can create a personal listening profile using an iPhone with a TrueDepth camera.
Beats Studio Pro in SandstoneAll this processing is being performed using Beats' own proprietary chip, allowing it to continue providing support for Android users. Features like Google Fast Pair, Audio Switch, and Find My Device from the Studio Buds+ make an appearance here.
For iOS users specifically, there's one-touch pairing, Find My support, and "Hey Siri."
A big selling point of the Beats Studio Pro is the battery life, which can provide weekend-long entertainment. Up to 40 hours of listening time are available with ANC and Transparency off, or up to 24 hours with them enabled.
Beats Studio Pro caseFast Fuel charging allows the headphones to get up to four hours of playback from a ten-minute charge.
Offered in a choice of deep brown, sandstone, navy, and black colorways, the Beats Studio Pro retail for $349 and are available to purchase from B&H and Amazon.com.
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16 Comments
Yaiks….pricy
I guess time will tell how this compares to the Sony MX5's.
I'm not really a fan of the Beats brand per se, but at the same time, getting most of the features/advantages of the AirPods Max at a few hundred dollars less is appealing.
But the typical knocks against Beats products in general (durability and sound quality) have yet to be seen.
MX 5's sound terrible. Very unbalanced sound profile, bass heavy that even eq can't fix/
Anyone know what features are missing when compared to the Apple AirPods Max? How you think the sound will compare? I like the look of these Beats Studio Pro better and definitely like the price better. Thanks