Beats Solo Pro: Might Be The Best From Dre
When choosing headphones, you’re gonna have to pick between on-ear or over-the-ear headphones. We’ve just about covered only over-the-ear cans for our reviews throughout the course of the site. Its time to show some love to the on-ear cans so today we’re talking about the latest from Beats By Dre: the Solo Pro headphones.
The latest from Beats arrives in the form of these $300 headphones. Offering more Matte color options, ANC/Transparency abilities, good battery life and more. We’ll tell you how it all adds up in the overall experience of it all. And we’ll see if this works as a Pro version of their Solo line or is it just marketing?
The overall look of the Solo Pros matches what you would expect from Beats design-wise. However, they managed to update a few of the minor details for lots of improvement. So instead of gloss finish, you got a matte finish for its mostly plastic body w/ exposed aluminum rails to adjust them on your head. You don’t have a Power button present as you turn them on by unfolding them. They easily sync to your iPhone via its H1 chip and Android smartphones as well. You got more padding to be even more sweat-resistant than on previous Solo models, on-ear controls on the right earcup, and no headphone jack present.
Comfort might be the only issue depending on your head.
These guys are small but offer a nice heft to them w/ a 0.58lb weight class. Now as far as the comfort and fit of them, your experience may vary. Beats made sure to build these cans to maintain a seal around the cups to help block out the noise. The end results can be a pair of headphones that can get uncomfortable after a few hours of using them. I found this to be the case w/ both glasses on and off for me. However, I let a co-worker use them for a few hours and he was fine – he also wears glasses for distance aka all of the time. So It’s like I said before, your experience in comfort will vary. So if you plan on giving this a shot, don’t throw away the receipt.
We got a good 2 weeks of testing and got a good grasp on them and what they can do. I used these to listen to a garden variety of content like Chixtapes 5, most of Jay-Z’s discography, various YouTube content, as well as Joe Budden Podcast & Jemele Hill’s Unbothered Podcast. Our thoughts from hearing that w/ the Solo Pros is clarity w/ a good thump but not that overbearing bass you’re used to from Beats. I did wish it got a little bit louder but other than that, they’re cool. However, moving forward, I would love to see Beats add an EQ setting or option within an app for a more custom audio experience.
Beats continue to step away from its stigma and continues to step into pretty good audio quality w/ the Solo Pros.
Moving onto its ANC abilities, I would place it in the ‘they’re just fine’ category. It works pretty well at the touch of a button thanks to that seal. But when comparing to Bose & Sony cans, they’re just OK. Meanwhile, the Transparency mode works really well. Its transitions pretty natural and can go back on/off w/ just a touch of a button. Kudos to Beats on this one as they made sure to offer a little bit of everything in one pair of cans.
Beats claims 22-hours of juice on a single charge on the Solo Pros and they easily live up to it. So you can get almost 3 8-hour workdays on a single charge so that ain’t too shabby as I ain’t complaining. Which equates to having to charge these about once a week. You can even get even more juice when you turn off the ANC and the Transparency mode and get up to 40 hours of juice. But keep in mind that you’ll also need a Lightning cable to charge them. Maybe 2020 will be the year all things Apple finally goes to USB-C. Despite using the Lightning cable option to charge, you can get up to 3 hours of juice in 10-minutes via Fast Fuel charging. So overall a nice sweet spot in the battery department – not a super long battery but not too short either.
If these fit you good, the Solo Pros might be the best Beats headphones to date.
So does this work as a Pro version of Beats Solo on-ear headphones? Most definitely. Beats is an interesting place right now among the realm of headphones right now. I think they’re fine-tuning their signature sound as well as adding some noteworthy features to add to the experience. The shift started w/ the Solo 3s + Studio 3s and has been tweaked to the Powerbeats Pro and now the Solo Pros.
But when you compare these to other similarly-priced headphones, these aren’t so competitive. The $300 price tag can get you better audio, better ANC, and better comfort than what the Solo Pros have to offer. But good luck trying to convince the younger crowd of this as Beats is the only headphone company who actually markets to consumers – outside of internet banner ads. So these are still the best Beats have to offer but the competition is still stiff out here in these tech streets.
Our headphones were provided by Beats By Dre. There is an affiliate link present as we get a cut from your purchase or purchases made from there.
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