Beats Solo3 2019 Wireless Headphones Review

The Beats Solo 3 are on-ear headphones that look identical to the Beats Solo3 2018 Wireless. They have a sleek and round look. While they offer quite a few single-color variants such as 'Rose Gold' and 'Matte Black', Beats also offers the 'Club Collection', which are four headphones that have different accent color detailing: 'Club Navy', 'Club White', 'Club Yellow', and 'Club Red'.

The Beats Solo 3 are satisfactorily comfortable headphones. The ear cups are well-padded, but their clamping force could be fatiguing over time. Their headband also doesn't feel very comfortable for long listening sessions.

These headphones have reasonable controls. Most of the controls are located on the left cup's 'b' button, which is very clicky. You can press it once to play/pause or answer/end a call. Double-tapping skips the track forward while triple-tapping skips the track backward. If you press and hold this button, you can also activate your voice assistant. Changing the volume is relatively simple, as you press the top or the bottom of the circle to raise or lower the volume, respectively. Unfortunately, there's no visual sign to tell you which ear cup is the left cup, so it can be a little frustrating if you put them on backward.

The Beats Solo 3 have just alright portability. They fold up to take up less space, which makes it easier to slide them into your bag. However, they're still quite bulky, especially if you put them in their case.

The Beats Solo 3 have a good soft case. It has a zipper to keep your headphones fully enclosed and the material feels thick. It should protect your headphones from dust, scratches, and the occasional drop but it won't shield them from water damage.

The Beats Solo 3 have a good build quality. They feel sturdy and are made from high-end materials. The faux leather padding feels good too. However, their plastic coating feels a bit rigid and may crack if bent.

These headphones have a stable fit. They clamp well on your ears so they don't move too much while on your head. They also don't have any cables that can catch on something and pull them off your head. However, they're not the best choice for high-intensity workouts as they may fall off with large head movements.

• Beats Solo 3 wireless headphones
• Carrying case
• Carabiner clip
• Micro-USB cable
• Manual

The Beats Solo 3 have a bass-heavy sound profile that delivers thump and boom, which is well-suited for genres like EDM and hip-hop. However, some users may find it muddies and clutters vocals and lead instruments. Unfortunately, their companion app doesn't offer any way to customize their sound.

These headphones have a good frequency response consistency. If you have thick hair or glasses, you may experience a drop in bass. Treble delivery is also a bit inconsistent, and it depends on the fit and positioning of these headphones. You may need to readjust them on your head each time you wear them to get the same listening experience.

The bass accuracy of these headphones is disappointing. It's overemphasized across the range, resulting in prominent thump, punch, and boom, which users may like. However, others may find it sounds muddy.

The Beats Solo 3 have good mid accuracy. There's a bit of overemphasis continuing from the bass range and into the low-mids, which makes your mixes sound muddy and cluttered. However, there's a dip in the mid-mids, nudging vocals and lead instruments to the back of the mix. However, the high-mid is very neutral, resulting in clear and present vocals and instruments.

The treble accuracy of the Beats Solo 3 is excellent. Although a little uneven, vocals and lead instruments sound detailed and present while sibilants are slightly dull. However, treble varies noticeably across users, so your experience may differ.

These headphones have decent peaks and dips performance. There's a big peak between the high-bass to the low-mid, which results in a boomy, muddy sound. The dip in the mid-mids pushes vocals and lead instruments to the back of the mix, while a couple of peaks in the low-treble add a bit of harshness. Another peak in the mid-treble makes sibilants piercing.

The Beats Solo 3 have great imaging. Their weighted group delay is below the audibility threshold, which should result in a tight bass and transparent treble reproduction. Additionally, the L/R drivers of our test unit were exceptionally matched in amplitude, frequency, and phase response. This ensures an accurate placement and localization of objects (voices, instruments, footsteps) in the stereo image. However, these results are only valid for our unit and yours may perform differently.

The passive soundstage is poor. Due to their on-ear design, they have limited interaction with your outer ear, which is one of the factors in creating a large and out-of-head soundstage. They also have a closed-back design, and as a result, their soundstage sounds less open and spacious than open-back headphones.

These headphones don't have any virtual soundstage features.

The weighted harmonic distortion performance is great. All frequencies fall within good limits, which should result in a clear and pure audio reproduction.

These are the settings used to test these headphones. Our results are only valid for these test settings.

The noise isolation performance of the Beats Solo3 Wireless is poor. These headphones don't block out almost any bass-range noise like bus or plane engines. They also struggle to cut down ambient chatter, which sits in the mid-range. They do a bit better with higher-pitched noise like the hum of an AC unit, though.

These headphones have a mediocre leakage performance. Just like the Beats Solo3 2018 Wireless, a significant portion of their leakage is concentrated in the treble range. If you like to listen to your audio at a high volume, people around you are likely to hear it.

The Beats Solo 3 Wireless have an integrated microphone.

The integrated mic's recording quality is alright. Your voice should sound natural, although a bit thin and muffled.

The mic's noise handling is just mediocre. It struggles to separate your voice from ambient noise, even in moderately loud environments.

These headphones have impressive battery life. They offer over 38 hours of continuous playback time and fully charge in roughly an hour and a half. They also have a 'Fast Fuel' quick-charge feature, which is advertised to give you three hours of playback time when you charge them for five minutes. However, we don't currently test this feature. While they have an audio cable port just like the Beats Solo3 2018 Wireless and support passive playback, they don't come with a 1/8" TRS cable.

These headphones have a disappointing companion app. The Beats app is a pop-up on iOS devices that displays basic battery information when you first connect with your device, but it doesn't really offer much more. You can also download this app for Android, but it offers the same functionality.

These headphones have decent Bluetooth connectivity. While they don't have multi-device or NFC pairing, they have a W1 chip, which makes it easy to seamlessly pair with other Apple products. Their latency is quite high on PC, so they may not be ideal for streaming video. While their latency on iOS and Android is much lower, some devices and apps seem to compensate for latency differently, so your mileage may vary.

The Beats Solo 3 are Bluetooth-only headphones.

These headphones only come with a micro-USB charging cable. However, while they have an analog cable port, they don't come with a 1/8" TRS cable.

These headphones can be used with Bluetooth-enabled PCs for full audio and microphone compatibility. You can also use an audio cable for an analog connection with PC and PS4. However, you can only receive audio with this connection and this cable isn't included with the headphones.

These headphones can only be used wired with the Xbox One. You can only receive audio and the cable itself isn't included in the box.

The Beats Solo 3 don't have a base or dock.