Beats Studio3 Wireless
Great functionality let down by so-so sound
These are Beats’ premier full-size wireless headphones. Beats’ build quality has been criticised over the years, but seems perfectly good here. Most of the frame is plastic, and the pads are soft synthetic leather; real leather would have been nice at this price, but ultimately doesn’t matter much. More importantly for Apple fans, the Studio3 Wireless feature Apple’s W1 chip so that connecting them to your iPhone is brilliantly straightforward.
The headphones’ Pure Adaptive Noise Cancelling (Pure ANC) appears designed to avoid distortion caused by cancellation of louder sources. It doesn’t solve a big realworld issue, however: wind whistling around the pinhole microphone creating more noise. These headphones are slightly more susceptible than some to this.
The tech is reasonably effective though, making cities less stressful, stopping engine noise ruining your music, and avoiding the need to raise volume in noisy places. Yet the Active Noise Cancelling in Bose’s QuietComfort 35 is significantly better. Pure ANC leaves the Studio3 Wireless with a slight low-mid frequency noise bed. Some ANC headphones sound like digital tinnitus, whereas these are more like a record player.
Sound isn’t overly bassy or juvenile. There’s width similar to some of the best portable headphones, with a quite forward presentation. This makes key parts of a mix seem close to your ears, ensuring sound isn’t too relaxed. Relatively conservative low bass is one potential surprise. Sennheiser’s Momentum 2.0, for example, are more aggressive here, making kick drums stand out and seem more powerful. The treble on the Beats seems slightly stifled, too. Middling mids There’s a thickness in the upper bass and low mids, rather than a sub-bass gut punch. In many situations it works well. Podcasts aren’t underpinned by bass rumble, but voices sound robust. With vocal-led music, particularly a gravelly crooner such as Leonard Cohen, this is imperfect; it stops music sounding properly separated, and can seem abrasively resonant with certain songs.
We’ve heard this from Beats before, and it can make the soundstage seem constrained. It’s largely absent in alternatives, most damningly Urbanista’s Seattle Wireless (£99). These Beats sound better in other respects, but that something a third of the price has more coherent mids is not good.