Be sure to test each respective headphone model out for yourself if you can before settling on a final purchasing choice. Users can also sync these headphones with their ‘’Find My’’ tool on their iPhones, to help locate them if they’ve been lost or stolen. The Beats Solo Pro headphones deliver a consistent signal across the frequency spectrum, with the low-end being especially weighty. No excessive clamps or wires are protruding from the headphones, which inevitably adds to their durability.
The arms fold into thirds to collapse down but the thick ear cups means they do not get quite as small as I would like for travelling. They ship with a soft recycled-felt case for protection but they feel robust enough to just toss in a bag. The £269.95 Beats Solo Pro blends the design of the firm’s existing Solo with the wired EP headphones for an attractive, modern and fairly sleek design. The call quality was noticeably better on both ends when I switched over to the Bose 700.
A new button on the bottom of the left ear cup toggles between three listening modes — noise cancelling, transparent, and extended power. Pressing the button toggles noise canceling, and double-pressing it turns it off. At $152 beats solo pro wireless off, Beats Solo Pro headphones have never been cheaper. They feature active noise-cancelling, an advanced acoustic system and up to 22 hours of battery life. They’re also available in Dark Blue , Ivory , and Red for $149.
The audio is crisp, though it still has some typical Bluetooth fuzziness around the edges. The mic’s signal is also strong, avoiding the common pitfall of faint signals from Bluetooth headphone mics. Before that, I was PCMag’s lead audio analyst from 2006 to 2011. Even though I’m a freelancer now, PCMag has been my home for well over a decade, and audio gear reviews are still my primary focus. Prior to my career in reviewing tech, I worked as an audio engineer—my love of recording audio eventually led me to writing about audio gear.
If you prefer another virtual assistant, you can press and hold this button summon it. All of these controls are physical button pushes as opposed to touch controls, and they’re very reliable. The other control is a single button on the bottom edge of the left earcup, and it flips between ANC and transparency mode. It also puts the headphones in pairing mode if you hold it down. We do want to note that while our reviewer was impressed with their sound quality, they did find that they had a tighter fit, so long-term comfort and wear weren’t really feasible. Now, with a pair of $300, that’s an understandable deal breaker.
The lows are powerful, and they don’t distort at top, unwise listening levels. At moderate levels, they still pack a punch, and the highs are quite sculpted as well, so things are balanced out. The AKG N60NC on-ear noise-cancelling headphones are nothing new, but the recent price drop to $100 makes them a tempting alternative. Listeners who aren’t bothered by the micro-USB input and dubious pivot points, should save a buck and go with AKG. Its headset is much cheaper than the Solo Pro and is more comfortable than Beats headphones too.
You can pair your headphones using the app – it will show battery level when you turn them on in a little on-screen pop-up and manage various settings. Sherri L. Smith has been cranking out product reviews for Laptopmag.com since 2011. In that beats flex review time, she’s reviewed more than her share of laptops, tablets, smartphones and everything in between. The resident gamer and audio junkie, Sherri was previously a managing editor for Black Web 2.0 and contributed to BET.Com and Popgadget.
In the chart above, the higher up the line, the quieter a given frequency range. For instance, high-pitched sounds at 10kHz are attenuated more than 40dB, while 150Hz frequencies are hushed ~12dB. It may not sound like a lot, but decibels follow a logarithmic scale. This means a 70dB sound is 10-times louder than a 60dB sound. It’s really hard to get ANC on-ears to work this well because they don’t passively block noise well, by nature of being on-ear, rather than over-ear, headphones. You need the foundation of good passive isolation before you can achieve good active noise cancellation.
Unfortunately for Beats, these compete directly with another Apple product, the AirPods Pro, which costs less ($250). Yes, the Solo Pro sound better and have more effective noise-canceling. beats flex review But while the tiny AirPods Pro also don’t plug into an in-flight entertainment system, they’re a lot easier to carry around, and I’d rather drop $250 on them than $300 on these.