Dr Dre "beats" claim to have HD sound?

[tokenasianguy]

Sadly some people will buy these things and tell you your equipment is inferior to theirs.

Their loss.

But what can you do? It's not like with HD video where the image is blatantly better, and you can also back it up with the facts.

With sound, it's so subjective, people claim to be able to be able to hear the difference, and you can't really argue that they can't.

My best friend bought $100 monster RCA cables and claims he can hear the difference...And since I say I can't, of course that means I'm wrong

Although I've told him that I've seen reports on comparisons between cheap and expensive HDMI cables, and they proved that there's no difference by hooking it up to a machine that gave a visual reading on the signal and proved there was no degradation.

[tokenasianguy]

They're not bad headphones... they are just over priced. I don't get why everyone rips on people who buys them. It's their money, they can do what they want with it. If they want to wear something for the brand, then why not let them do it? Its the same reason I wear Ray Bans instead of $5 knock offs that probably look almost identical.

The reason it bothers me is because it drives up the prices.

I would be interested in their product if they cost about 75% less.

But the fact that they made it up just gets me every time I see them.

Same with Apple...I think they're great products, but when I look at their prices, I say to myself "it's not that great..."

[DJSigma]

It's just marketing to exploit people who don't know any better. They've obviously chosen the term "HD" because people are aware of the superiority of a HD image compared to an SD one and some people will make the same comparison between "HD" and "SD" sound in their minds, even if there is no comparison to be made because the term has no meaning when applied to audio.

They're trying to build a premium brand using snake oil salesman tactics and some people fall for it. When people have paid over the odds for something, they often don't want to admit that they've been had, even if they eventually realise that they have been. Others are just innocent "victims" and are basically conned into buying things like $150 HDMI cables by salesman who are lying to them as they're on commission.

I would never buy anything from Monster. Lots of companies tell white lies and bend the truth with iffy marketing terminology ("retina display"? Fuck off!), but Monster are full on Billy Bullshitters.

[tokenasianguy]

they arnt lying as such, its just marketing. "HD" is just a matter of perspective tbh. As far as TV's go it was coined anything above 720p (720p being the standard). The sound will be HD for pretty much all the people that buy the products as they will be used to the likes of the stock ipod headphones. to me, when i see people wearing beats it just shows that they put no effort whatsoever into actually researching headphones before they bought them, so imo they deserve to be ripped off. I struggle to hold my tongue when i meet people and we get talking about sound/music and they start telling me about their dre beats as if they are the best headphones created.

But that's what I mean, 720P video is quantifiable and measurable.

"Sound" to some degree has often been subjective. You can't quantify sound in the same way as to say "720P" or "High Definition".

[Alex Wild]

But that's what I mean, 720P video is quantifiable and measurable.

"Sound" to some degree has often been subjective. You can't quantify sound in the same way as to say "720P" or "High Definition".

Sure you can, it's just harder for the lay person to tell the difference. Also digital audio has got to a point where it's hard to notice the difference in new advancements.

Bits and sample rate are just as quantifiable as pixels per inch.

[tokenasianguy]

It's just marketing to exploit people who don't know any better. They've obviously chosen the term "HD" because people are aware of the superiority of a HD image compared to an SD one and some people will make the same comparison between "HD" and "SD" sound in their minds, even if there is no comparison to be made because the term has no meaning when applied to audio.

They're trying to build a premium brand using snake oil salesman tactics and some people fall for it. When people have paid over the odds for something, they often don't want to admit that they've been had, even if they eventually realise that they have been. Others are just innocent "victims" and are basically conned into buying things like $150 HDMI cables by salesman who are lying to them as they're on commission.

I would never buy anything from Monster. Lots of companies tell white lies and bend the truth with iffy marketing terminology ("retina display"? Fuck off!), but Monster are full on Billy Bullshitters.

Last time I was at Future Shop I saw $250 HDMI cables and HDMI cables "with ethernet" The best part was when I asked the guy what that meant and he had no idea. I went home and looked it up, apparently HDMI cables are now capable of sending an Ethernet signal, but there's no technology to support it anyway lol.

[Era 7]

yeah i've tried to tell that to someone once that there is a point where your cable can't get any better. in the end your typical RCA cable does nothing but sending a signal though a copper wire. unless your wire is made of gold there is nothing that can justify the price on these things.

[DJSigma]

Bits and sample rate are just as quantifiable as pixels per inch.

They are, but there's a clear distinction with video. People generally consider anything that's 720p and above to be HD. Displaying a HD image requires a screen that has at least a resolution of 1,280 x 720.

What does "HD" mean with audio? What sort of headphones do you need to hear HD audio? What's the difference between "HD" headphones and "non-HD" headphones? You don't need a particular pair of headphones in order to listen to music at 192 KHz/24 bit for instance, but if you want to display video at 1080p you know that you need a screen with at least a 1,920 x 1,080 resolution.

[Alex Wild]

Hang on, we've already discussed and cleared that point up. See my earlier post.
I'm just saying that audio isn't purely subjective and unquantifiable.

[mostapha]

Short version: HD literally means "crap."

Long version:

HD never meant anything good. Not even when it comes to video.

1080p means progressive scan and a resolution of 1920x1080. Progressive scan doesn't matter, it just means that they're finally fixing a shortcut that TV broadcasters made dozens of years ago to save on bandwidth.

The resolution is the scary part. 1920x1080 is:

• barely 2 megapixels.
• lower than the resolution I used on my 17" Trinitron CRT in 1998.
• exactly twice as wide and high as an iPhone 4 screen, which means that 1080p is gorgeous if your screen measures about 8" diagonally.
• lower than the effective resolution of movie or still film that was being used as early as the 1940s.
• lower than the effective resolution of film movie projectors from decades past.

"HD" is an arbitrary standard made up by a coalition of marketing departments to sell shitty cameras, make everybody replace their DVD players and TVs, and stagnate technology because they can't figure out how to build bigger CMOS/CCD sensors and have them still be profitable so that maybe one day digital video/photo will catch up with where film was >50 years ago.

So, yes, I believe wholeheartedly that the Beats by Dr. Dre headphones are HD. They're even FullHD if you want to one-up the sales guy. The problem is that people haven't figured out yet that HD literally means "crap."




Side note: composite video, sVGA connectors, and S-Video tend to each give higher resolutions than HDMI. That's worked on every display I've tried it with. Unfortunately, it doesn't make HD videos look any better, but at least it means that it can display desktop backgrounds and photos at something approaching a real resolution.

Side note 2: to my eyes, displays start getting wonky if they're not higher resolution than about 200dpi. Unfortunately, this BS digital revolution completely ruined that on anything but the iPhone4. I've made my peace with it, but the reason is because I don't spend more than $100 on any TV or computer display…because it doesn't matter how much you spend, they always look like crap to me. Thanks, HD. You've made screens ugly for the coming decades. At least I don't have to get glasses. If I had them, I'd remember how ugly my MBP display is compared to the Sony monitor I bought 13 years ago.

Side note 3: unlike the digital vs. analog video debate, when it comes to images…analog (chemical) processes just produce better-looking results than anything digital has come up with, at least when it comes to recording or displaying images…digital still wins processing, but it's basically trivial to move between digital and analog representations for that stage…it just costs money for a drum scanner and a film printer.

side note 4: I'm really not kidding. I honestly think that Apple Cinema Displays look like shit. Just like every other LCD I've ever seen besides my iPhone 4 screen.