Beats by Dr. Dre has been giving us good headphones with good sound quality for years with a very unreasonable pricing. Lots of people do buy the Beats brand because of the brand itself. We see the likes of Lebron James, Will-i-am and other famous stars wearing them in their ads or music videos giving the owners a luxurious feel when owning one. Now meet the Beats EP. Its half the price compared to the Solos and Studios but still retains the known sound quality and premium feel. I tested it for almost a month so here's what i think:
Packaging/Unboxing
The Beats EP Packaging
As expected, the unboxing experience with Beats by Dr. Dre is top-notch. It will always make the owner feel very special because of its packaging. Knowing Beats for a long time, most of their budget for manufacturing goes to the packaging which is actually not a good thing but hey it's Beats by Dr. Dre and some people do buy it for the 'b' logo. Let's all be real here! Here's some more photos of the unboxing experience:
The red box after removing the outer layer of the packaging
"Change the way you hear sound"
Inside the box revealing the headphones inside the soft carrying pouch
Instruction manuals and a sticker
Soft carrying pouch
Seeing the quality of the unboxing experience even though you haven't already opened the box you already love the product. I commend Beats for always doing this to their packaging with their headphones making it feel really premium. Just like every other Beats headphones, the EP also includes a carrying pouch but unlike the Solos and the Studios, this one specifically has a soft carrying pouch which is really feels nice and easy to put in your bag but a bit fragile compared to the carrying pouches which has hard plastic instead of a clothing materal.
Build Quality
Beast EP in white
The Beats EP is also available in red, blue and black. I personally got myself the white one because of its stunningly clean look. Probably, the first thing you will notice is the stainless steel that supports both sides of the headphones. The material feels really great and premium and durable. Beside those stainless steel supports are the exposed cables that are connecting both left and right headphones which concerns me that this can be an issue as time goes on but so far after a month both cable on both sides seems fine. Also found on both sides of course are the Beats logos which is unlike the old models, the branding is very much going for a subtle and clean look which makes it really modern looking.
The non-removable cable
The cable now sports and thinner form factor compared to the standard tube standard. This is a good because it will lessen the possibility of it tangling inside its storage and it looks much better in my opinion too. This is the first time Beats shipped an on-ear headphones with a non-removable audio cable. This actually makes sense because of its lower price tag compared to their other on-ear headphones plus this will defeat the purpose of the Beats Solos if the audio cable is removable with the EP. Of course, the main down side of the cable being non-removable is the cable going to be tangled more and the possibility of pulling it by accident. This is true for people like me who does commute a lot. Got to manage the cable really carefully.
RemoteTalk controls
The music controls, 'RemoteTalk' as Beats call it, that is attached to the audio cable works fairly well. Pressing the top button increases the volume, the bottom button decreases the volume and pressing the middle button pauses the music. It's kind of a bummer that there's no option to skip tracks. This also functions with calls and the controls can be found here. This works really well on iOS devices but with Android and Windows devices the volume controls won't work for some reason. The pause/play controls works though.
The overhead cushion
Beats branding above the headband
The headband is fairly durable and really stretchable. This is durability is known to Beats ever since the first iteration of the Beats Solo and so far, the headband cushion feels just fine. Its very comfortable every time i use it. It's not as soft as you expect because it only has a thin layer of cushion but so far it does it job well.
Headphone jack
Since this is a wired headphone, you can expect a headphone jack. It's really strange that they didn't use the Lightning connector standard found on Apple products because Beats is already acquired by Apple Inc back in 2014 and that's actually a good thing. I do think that the headphone jack standard will still last for a few more years before everything gets replaced by wireless and USB-C standard.
A courageous move by Apple. The removal of the headphone jack.
As you can here in this photo. I currently have an iPhone 7 Plus which got its 3.5mm headphone jack removed by Apple for some reason making it hard for old headphones to work with this device. This is also true with some of this year's flagship Android smartphones, the Google Pixel 2 for instance. Luckily, they included a Lightning to 3.5mm headphone jack. Thanks, Apple.
Ergonomics
Testing out Beats EP
The ear cushions are really comfortable and soft. There are times that after about almost an hour of use one of my ears will start to hurt. Maybe its just me wearing the headphones incorrectly since recently i'm not experiencing this problem anymore with the EP. Another problem i'm having with this headphones is the audio cable. It keeps on getting tangled inside the pouch which is pretty inconvenient to some extent. There are times that i'm getting tripped because of it plus the cable are not looking very durable but so far it is still fine and still serves the audio fine. It's really inconvenient that the cable is permanently attached to the headphone. Well, i totally understand because ,just like what i said, this will defeat the purpose of the Beats Solos, which has a removable cable.
Sound
Audio testing
The sound quality, like we always expect from other Beats headphones, will have that bass. The bass is indeed noticeable but not that punchy especially when playing hip-hop or dance beats. No pun intended. The sound quality is really good and crisp compared to the older Beats headphone models. It can sound muddy at times when its too loud but its still very acceptable especially for a Beats headphones at this price. The acoustics in each song i listened to can be heard very clearly which is a good sign of quality. Also, the noise isolation with this headphone is really good making the listening experience even more personal. As someone who is always on commute, being on a trip is where this feature kicks in. I can't barely hear any of the background noise at all which makes you hear the music more. This is a must have in every headphones.
Conclusion
Considering some of its flaws such as the non-removable audio cable the Beats EP makes up for it through its great packaging, bassy and crisp sound quality and its great sturdy build thanks to the stainless steel making it feel so rigid and premium. The Beats EP, for its $70 up to $130 price tag, is one of best Beats on-ear headphones you can buy today.
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