The new Beats Studio 3 are the best noise-cancelling headphones for iPhone users (AAPL)
Hollis Johnson
It's clear that the future of headphones is wireless, and Apple has a pair of wireless headphones to everyone — if you're willing to pay.
Its latest model of headphones is the Beats Studio 3, a big pair of great-sounding headphones that go over your ears and come with a big price tag to match at $349.95.
It's the most expensive base-model pair of headphones Apple-subsidiary Beats makes.
It's also the only pair of Apple headphones with noise-cancelling that blocks out the world around you. And like most Apple products, it works best if you already own tons of other Apple gear.
Apple no longer includes headphone jacks on the iPhone, and other manufacturers are rapidly following suit. The bottom line is that unless you want to deal with dongles, your next pair of premium headphones will likely connect to your phone and/or computers over Bluetooth.
But Apple's wireless headphones are different from other wireless headphones, at least if you're an iPhone user. Last year, it introduced a chip it called W1, which allows Apple headphones to quickly and easily pair with iPhones and iPads. Pairing two devices over Bluetooth can be finicky, but newer Beats will automatically find a nearby iPhone and pop open a big "connect" button. Simple.
If you want this easy-pair experience, you're stuck with Apple or Beats headphones. But if you walk enough tech and finance offices, you'll see that there are a lot of keyboard warriors that need to block out noise to focus — and many of them are wearing Bose noise-cancelling headphones, which are typically seen as the noise-cancelling market leader.
One way to look at the new Beats Studio 3 is it's a direct challenger to high-end Bose models like the QC35. Apple wants to peel off Bose fans who need serious noise cancelling but want to more easily use them with their new iPhone 8.
So how do the Beats Studio 3 hold up? Are they worth their money? Are they for everyone or just Apple users?
Let's take a look:
Noise-cancelling
The top feature on the Beats Studio 3 is noise cancellation. Apple calls their technology "adaptive noise cancelling," or ANC.
The Beats Studio 3 are the only pair of noise-cancelling headphones Apple makes.
In a nutshell, adaptive noise cancelling uses tiny microphones to listen to the world around the headset and then "subtract" that noise from what you're hearing. Boston-based Bose is generally acknowledged as the leader in active noise cancelling headphones.
The end result is a quieter experience. When you slip the Beats Studio 3 on your ears and turn them on, you can hear everything get quieter as the noise cancelling kicks in. If you don't turn on music or other audio, you can use the noise-cancelling feature by itself.
The noise-cancelling isn't perfect. At the Business Insider offices, where I did most of my testing, it didn't create complete silence. I could hear my coworkers on the phone or laughing, although it sounded like they were far away. On the subway, I heard trains pull into the station, but my ears were saved from loud screeching.
Most sounds were definitely muffled. Wearing the Beats Studio 3, I couldn't hear my fingers typing on my keyboard, for example. It's definitely good enough if you just want a slightly better way to block out the world around you.
Unlike the Studio 3's closest competitor, the Bose QC35, Beats doesn't offer noise cancelling on the headphones' mic while making calls, which is a very attractive feature.
Sound quality
The sound quality on the Beats Studio 3 is good — certainly an upgrade over the earbuds that came with your phone, or a cheap pair of headphones, but perhaps not up to the standards of a audiophile who really cares about the equipment used to enjoy music.
I tested the Studio 3 with hip-hop, punk, and jazz songs streamed through Apple Music. Most of the time, I paired the headphones with my iPhone over Bluetooth, but at times I listened through a wired connection to my laptop.
I also listened to a few high-quality MP3s downloaded from Bandcamp. I didn't hear any difference.
The Studio 3 performed best at hip-hop — on the song "Bodak Yellow," bass was loud and Cardi B's vocals were clear. It sounded like I was hearing it played on a big sound system.
Performance was less distinguished for rock and jazz, though. The Beats Studio 3, like other headphones with noise cancelling, doesn't create a "soundstage" effect where you feel like you can hear where individual instruments are coming from.
Podcasts were fine.
Ultimately, the sound quality on the Beats Solo 3 is good-to-great. For 95% of people it will be satisfactory. For the remaining 5% who are looking for the best possible audio reproduction, I'd recommend looking at other headphones — probably without active noise cancelling.
Wireless pairing
The Beats Studio 3 has Apple's W1 wireless chip built-in. Basically, for iPhone, iPad, and Mac users, this means that pairing the wireless headphones is easier than for other Bluetooth devices.
You press the button at the bottom of the right ear cup, and you'll see a pop-up on your phone's screen: "Connect." Then you're done. To switch the headephones over to a Mac or your Apple Watch is as easy as flipping a switch inside a menu.
The increased ease of pairing with Apple's W1 is so major that I personally don't recommend non-Apple headphones to people who want to use wireless headphones with an iPhone. You just pick up your headphones and go. If you're going to be using wireless headphones on a daily basis with an iPhone, you really want to have Apple's new quick-pairing system.
For non-Apple phone users, the Beats Studio 3 can be paired through your gadgets through Bluetooth, like other wireless headphones, or plugged in through a headphone jack. But that eliminates one of the biggest reason to pick the Beats over similarly priced models from companies like Sennheiser and Bose.
See the rest of the story at Business Insider
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