Earlier this week, Apple unveiled the AirPods Max 2. The upcoming over-ear headphones build on its predecessor with the H2 chip that powers a number of new features; However, they still don’t offer the kind of cross-OS compatibility that you get with a modern pair of Beats headphones – including beats studio proWhich are on sale for an all-time low of $169.95 ($180 off) at Amazon, Walmart, and Best Buy ahead of Amazon’s annual Big Spring Sale.
Although they’re undoubtedly getting a little long in the tooth – the Beats design hasn’t fundamentally changed since 2017 – the Beats Studio Pro remain a solid pair of platform-agnostic headphones, especially at this price. They offer one-touch pairing with both iOS and Android devices, as well as support for Apple’s Find My and Google’s Find Hub networks, making finding them a little easier if you ever lose them. Apple users get hands-free Siri access and support for head-tracking spatial audio, while Android folks get an AirPods-like audio switching trick that lets you easily jump between different Android devices (phones, Chromebooks, etc.).
As far as sound quality is concerned, the Studio Pro won’t compete with newer options like Bose’s latest QuietComfort Ultra or Sony’s WH-1000XM6 (or even the last-generation XM5, for that matter). Their custom 40mm drivers don’t deliver anything extraordinary, but their signature is quite balanced and decent, even if it does reduce somewhat the low-end oomph for which Beats was once known. Plus, they offer an excellent transparency mode to block out external noise and support lossless playback over USB-C, letting you take advantage of 24-bit/48kHz audio from compatible platforms like Spotify, Apple Music, and Amazon Music. Now, if only USB-C didn’t disable all access to their noise cancellation and transparency modes when playback is active.
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