Chic Choice

Coming close on the heels of the launch of audio brand Beats in India is the Kim Kardashian collaboration with its top-shelf Studio Pro headphones. Inspired by the celebrity’s signature earthy tone palette, the wireless noise cancelling cans are available in three limited edition brown colourways - moon (light), dune (medium) and earth (deep) – which line up the alongside the existing Studio Pros in navy, sandstone, black and deep brown colors. The headphones are otherwise the same, although you do get a color-matched Beats x Kim carrying case and custom woven cables. Whichever you pick, are the Beats x Kim Studio Pro worth the asking price?

As you’d expect from a company owned by Apple, the Beats Studio Pro look suitably classy and every bit the premium product that they are, albeit a little monochromatic in their liberal use of a single color throughout. They’re sturdy yet flexible enough in their fold-away design to fit into the compact fabric carrying case, and the memory foam/faux leather earpads coupled with the 270g weight ensured that these were comfortable enough to wear for long durations with minimal fatigue. 

Features wise, the Studio Pro is packed, though it does have some odd exclusions. You get support for Apple’s Find My and Spatial Audio features, the latter with dynamic head tracking for “theatre-like sound” with Dolby Atmos tracks, but there’s no dedicated chip for boosted pairing speed or lower latency with iOS devices. On-head detection and multipoint connectivity is missing as well, but what you do get instead is rather interesting – a USB digital to analog converter (DAC) – to listen to your tunes in high-resolution over USB-C. It makes a discernible difference to the experience – the music feels a lot more energized, clearer and more confident than over Bluetooth, the latter lacking a bit in refinement and dynamism particularly when compared to the competition. Bass lovers will love the 40mm drivers, they pack quite the punch.

Slip these on and you’ll immediately notice the bubble of silence that envelops you with active noise cancellation (ANC) on, and you can pick between adaptive ANC and Transparency Mode, the latter for improved environmental awareness. Tested on a flight and close to industrial equipment, the ANC was good, although the similarly priced Sony XM5 was slightly better. Battery life figures are competitive – 22 to 24 hours with ANC. 

Rating: 7/10

Price: Rs. 37,900