Beats Audio
So I’m considering upgrading my laptop and I’m deciding between either a MBP or an HP Envy. I have an HP now and I love it so I’m tempted to stick with the same brand but anyways, the Envys come with Beats Audio. My question is this: Does Traktor recognize Beats and allow it to be used? If not, does Beats support Asio?
I’d stay away from any audio coloring or post processing of that kind for professional use. Remember audio quality is only as good as the weakest link in the chain.
Long story short, don’t buy a notebook based on software “audio enhancements”
^^^^ what he said.
i personally love my MBP. shits teh bomb.
i see this turning into another apple/pc debate. but you do get what you pay for. the macs are streamlined and pretty (but a pain to mod) whereas a pc you can replace everything and keep going.
next computer i make/buy is gonna be a desktop running OSX (hackintosh…http://www.hackintosh.com/)
I’m not trying to turn this into a apple/pc debate cause I hear enough of that with my best friend. I just want to know if anyone has experience with Beats Audio.
fair warning, last hackintosh thread got locked. lets not go in that direction.
also, i know its a bit OT but today i over heard a guy who liked that you needed batteries for the beats.
paraphrase (close to what he said though):
‘yeah its really cool, you open the side and you putt them in and then theres a button to turn them on and then the foam things that go around it, you know, they start canceling noise’
if he spoke a bit more loudly i could turn around and smack him. but he wasnt loud, so it was more like eavesdropping.
speak to xtianw, he runs a HP Envy
+1, was jus gonna suggest that. Btw he loves his.
From what i know traktor recognizes both soundcars, so u can dj with out an external card, but id still recommend one. Since its built for audio it should have pretty low latency stock, id say go for it
Coming from someone that had a HP Envy 14 (Beats Edition) to a MBP 13, I would say go with the MBP 
I had the HP Envy 14 for a month until I started fooling around with my friend’s MBP 13. I don’t wanna get too in depth cause that’s when I’ll start talking about the Mac vs. Windows OS. But simply put it “felt” faster and the screen was much more vivid and brighter than the HP Envy. Mind you they ran out of the “Radiance” display for the Envy and their “Brightview” screen is utter crap. I know the specs on the HP Envy is better but remember that the MBP 13 just got refreshed with a faster processor and bigger HD space.
Basically, if your looking for a laptop for gaming go for the Envy because it fairs better than the MBP in that department.
If your looking for reliability, efficiency, and longer life on battery (+ for college students) I’d say go for the MBP.
As far as the Beats Audio goes, do NOT put that into consideration. It is just a marketing scheme to lure in customers who thinks everything that’s branded by Dr. Dre is going to be professionally sound and amazing…Not. I’m not sure about the HP Envy 14 original line but when I had my HP Envy 14 Beats Edition there was a “Beats” logo on my “b” key which toggled on/off the Beats Audio. It basically just raised up the lows for a harder bass…
Thats it.
Besides, I’m assuming since your asking on a DJ forum you have an external audio interface… so why bother wondering about the pre-installed soundcard on the laptop? 
facts about the hp envy and the reasons i sold my 2010 macbook pro specifically to buy one.
the hp envy is crazy fast. pick any processor for it, any screen size and you’ll know that if you get the hankering to do it, you have the power to, aside from dj’ing, edit serious videos quickly, or play a lag free game of black ops if you so chose to.
the envy has dual headphone outs with a second set of opamps on each of them. the output is STRONG. at least that of an audio 2, imo its better. definetly better than the output of a vci 300. a godsend for smaller parites,. if youre a vci-100 guy, that means less stuff to carry, and less stuff to worry about. 1 headphone for cue, the other out to speakers.
3 usb ports on the 14" envy. 1 of them doubles as an esata port. that means one more usb device without a hub (macbook pro’s only have 2 except for the 17"). the esata port means FAST external hard drives that use little to no cpu overhead for that speed.
hdmi and mini display ports standard. hdmi is what i care about when using an external monitor.
2 years premium warranty standard on every envy with us based tech priority tech support if you need it. there are also more hp service centers than any brand out there. so if you have a problem, getting it to a tech to get work done under warranty isnt a problem whatsoever.
windows 7. yes im going to put that here because it kicks ass. it has more software for it than any other platform, and no matter what you need to do. it runs traktor great, the s4, midi fighters, you name it. if you ever decide to play a game, you can walk into any store and see hundreds of them ready to play. for the mac, there might be 8 or 9. and you already played those games 2 years ago.
dont buy an envy to hackintosh it. there are better laptops for that. they finally got quartz extreme running under full hardware acceleration. but the broadcom ethernet port and intel wifi are currently not supported. so if you do it, no internet. not the best laptop for that. acer’s and asus laptops are better at that.
the extra battery gives 12 hours of battery life when installed. the envy’s extra battery on the 14 also fits the bottom footprint of the entire laptop. so nobody can tell youre even using one. it looks sleek as hell.
sadly yes, the radience ips like displays they used to put in envys are no more. the company that hp sourced them from went out of business sadly. but the brightview is good. ask jesc. when i setup at his sunday night gig, he actually had to ask me to turn down the brightness on my laptop because it was so bright that it was like having a light on in the dj area.
also has an aluminum body.
laptops are computers. i honestly think its silly to buy a laptop “just” for dj’ing. but then again, the way mac extensions get so out of hand and kext files run broken, i can see why with a mac, you kind of have to dedicate it to just one thing. if you do more than that without regular maintenence (something most mac users dont know how to do which is silly, 1 app does it all for them with 2 mouse clicks). you can do more with an envy. more applications, more games, more software, fantastic performance, for about 300-500 dollars less than anything apple would sell you.
if you do buy a macbook, buy it refurbished from apple. all internals and the screens are all brand new on their refurbs. the only thing they reuse is the case and apple direct refubs all come with the same 1 year applecare warranty that their new laptops do. theres almost no reason to buy new from the apple store because of it. unless you like throwing money away.
good luck, enjoy your new computer when you get it
Watching this thread for fanboy nonsense, lets keep it civil.
Okay thread pretty much ends with this. All u need to knwo right there
Thank you very much…the price definitely factors in and I just wanted to get an opinion from an actual Envy owner. I know many people will recommend a MBP but I think the Envy is a better deal.
I do but I just wanted a specific review from those who use their laptops in the same way I do, not just a basic and generic review that I can find anywhere.
Well, a couple things. this thread has made me feel like a retard, because I own an envy 14 beats, and didnt realize that esata port could fit a regular usb plug (its quite possible I am dumb).
I use my envy exclusively for gigs, as I play out 4-6 times a week between the bars/strip club/nightclubs/raves I play at, and the envy is a champ. The backlit keyboard comes in more handy than you would think, and its way lighter to carry around than my previous laptop (alienware m-15x). Windows 7, ableton, games etc all run amazingly well on it. The mac option gets you a nicer screen and a nicer trackpad, with much lower hardware specs for a much higher price imo.
As far as beats audio/two headphone outs goes, I couldnt for the life of me figure out how to get traktor pro to route them as seperate channels, and as a mild audiophile, pretty much all onboard soundcards are junk and shouldnt really be considered by someone who is serious about djing. I bought the beats edition because it was black with red keys, didnt have a light up logo on the front, and didnt have the weird etched floral design the regular envy has.
The Envys caught my eye in PC World, sexy little gadgets.
Xtianw, did you have to do loads of tweaking to get it ‘right’ with the S4?
one will show up as headphone, the other as headphone and mic. assign to your liking in the audio section in traktor pro.
@OP
if youre going to buy an envy, buy it from the microsoft store. they have a standard policy of optimizing all computers they sell for free, they also have a no tolerance policy when it comes to trialware being installed on any computer they sell.
So when you take it out of the box, its lean, mean, and ready to rock.
if youre a student, and happen to be near one of their retail stores, they will match apple’s student discount. thats the same one i have. i paid 899 for it.
I also own an envy 14 i5, and I would say go with the mac. I have been waiting over a month for asio drivers for my Rane 68. If I was running mac os I would not be waiting. The envy has good build quality and nice features, but let’s face it 99% of DJ are using Macs.
As far as hackintosh goes with the envy it’s not a good platform to use, because of audio drivers, and “hp” using their own parts. If it was easy to hackintosh I would say save your money and do it, but it’s not an easy thing.
xtianw- thanks for the info on the dual jacks, I had no idea, and yeah the envy comes loaded with some serious bloat wear.
Check out the envy forums, theres a few SIMPLE processes that will get rid of all the garbageware that comes preinstalled, though I do rather like photoshop on there for free.