We review the Beats Studio 3 wireless noise-cancelling headphones to find if they are worth the £299 price
Luxurious headphones are the result of a partnership between Apple and Beats, a firm founded by the legendary rapper and hip-hop producer Dr Dre
THEY are the headphones built using Apple's technological expertise and the audio knowledge of Dr Dre and his team of music industry veterans.
But are the new Beats Studio 3 wireless headphones worth their stonking £299 price tag?
We spent a week testing these super advanced new cans to find out.
They are the result of a collaboration between Beats and Apple, which bought Dr Dre's audio firm £2.3 billion in 2014 - and both companies' prowess clearly shines through.
The first thing to note is the elegant styling. The Studio 3s still have the cool, spacey, street-influenced urban look of the classic Beats but now have a tell-tale Apple glossiness which makes them feel extra luxurious.
The Studios are built to last and come with a carry case and can be folded up into a space that's about the size of a large bap, making them perfectly portable.
They feature the Apple W1 chip, which was first introduced in the revolutionary AirPods and makes it incredibly easy to "pair" headphones with Apple devices, removing the fiddly link up process which made most wireless listening devices so annoying.
It's easy to underestimate how useful this feature is because pairing Bluetooth headphones is normally as easy as threading a needle in the dark.
I tested the Beats with my iPhone and iPad to find that linking the two devices involved doing little more than pressing a button on the headphones.
It was also super simple to swap between the devices, so that I could take a call on my iPhone and then swap back to the iPad with one click.
This reliable, simple and efficient Bluetooth tech also made taking and receiving calls incredibly simple.
You can control your iPhone using the buttons on the side of the headphones, which can load up Siri, change the volume and skip tracks.
I tested the headphones for a week and didn't experience one audio dropout, which is a testament to the quality of the Bluetooth matching technology developed by Apple and Beats.
The Studios come with a very cool system called Pure Adaptive Noise Cancellation (Pure ANC) which can react to the ambient sound around you and adapt itself continually so that nothing interrupts your music.
I tried the headphones on the tube during a morning commute and was able to block out all the sound of the train and its passengers - which is exactly what you want at 7am on a Monday morning.
This system is powered by a battery which lasts up to 22 hours and uses a technology called Fast Fuel which provides 3 hours of battery life after being plugged in for just 10 minutes, meaning you could juice up the headphones whilst in the shower and then listen to them all the way to work.
Of course, the most important thing about headphones is their sound quality - and the Studio 3s don't disappoint.
I've always been a fan of the hyped-up Beats sound, which puts an emphasis on the bass and blasts out more low end than any of the competitors' products.
The Studios still have this uncompromising low-end focus, which is vital when listening to bass-focused modern electronic music or genres like reggae.
I felt that these headphones were actually a bit more neutral than previous models, but reacted nicely when I fiddled with the EQ settings on my iPhone, meaning you can make them sound exactly how you want them.
Basically, the Studio 3 wireless headphones sound absolutely brilliant, bringing out all the intracicies of the music I tested them with and overcoming some of the coldness you often get when listening to digital music on lesser devices.
The only grumbles I had about the headphones related to very personal issues.
I felt like a bit of wally wearing the Beats on the tube and couldn't help worrying that younger, cooler people would point and laugh at a thirty-something father-of-two wearing a great big pair of red headphones.
But I quickly stopped caring, particularly because the ANC would stop me hearing anything but abuse yelled directly in my lughole.
I also have a head that's the size of a small planet, so was a little bit worried the headphones would eventually snap like my Beats Mixrs, which survived five years of intense use before eventually breaking under the strain of my gargantuan noggin.
Aside from these minor grumbles, I was very impressed with the sound quality of the Studio 3 headphones, the ease of use and the simplicity of the super-reliable Bluetooth wireless audio connection.
Should the Beats go on?
I'm going to say an unequivocal YES.
If you can afford the £299, you won't get a better wireless headphone, particularly if you own Apple gadgets or use Apple Music to stream tunes.
The Beats Studio 3 headphones are another win from Apple and Beats.
