Beats Solo3 Wireless Headphones Review

The Beats Solo3 Wireless look indistinguishable to the Beats Solo2 Wireless. You can barely tell them apart, even on closer inspection. The only differences are in the available color schemes: the Solo2 have slightly more options. On the upside, if you liked the previous model, then you'll be familiar with the sleek design and the small, round, and well-padded earcups of the Solo3. They'll still stand out in a crowd, especially if you choose one of the flashier color schemes.

The Beats Solo3 are almost identical in design to the Beats Solo2 Wireless. They have the same weight, and they're just as tight on the head. The ear cups are heavily padded, which makes them decently comfortable, but they aren't ideal for long listening sessions as you'll feel fatigued from their clamping force.

The control scheme of the Beats Solo3 Wireless is efficient and easy to use. Like the Beats Solo2 Wireless, the buttons feel responsive and are well spaced out on the small earcup. They provide basic but essential functions: track-skipping, call/music, and volume controls. The buttons are a bit small but they're not much cause for concern.

The Beats Solo3 Wireless are breathable headphones. They have an on-ear design that doesn't fully cover the ears; heat is trapped within the notch and ear canal, leaving the outer ear relatively cool. These headphones will make you sweat a bit more than usual during intense workouts, but they're not as bad as most closed-back over-ear designs.

The Beats Solo3 Wireless are passably portable headphones. They fold up to take less space and can potentially fit into larger jacket pockets. However, they're still a bit of a hassle to carry around on your person.

The Beats Solo3 Wireless come with a mediocre pouch that will protect the headphones from scratches and scuff when they're in your bag. Unfortunately, the soft case won't shield them from impacts or water damage like a hard case would, which is a little disappointing for their price, especially when compared to similarly-designed headphones like the JBL Everest 310.

These headphones are well-built, compact headphones that won't break if you accidentally drop them a couple of times. They're made using high-end materials and the headband is reinforced with a metal frame that makes them decently sturdy under physical stress. Unfortunately, the plastic coating feels rigid; if you bend them too far, they might crack. The coating is also prone to scratches and scuffs.

The Beats Solo3 Wireless are decently stable. They might not be the best headphones for high-intensity exercises involving jumping or head waggling, but they're tight enough to not move around much while on your head. Additionally, since they're wireless, they won't get pulled off your ears because the audio cable got hooked on something.

• Beats Solo3 Wireless Headphones
• Carrying case
• Audio cable
• USB cable
• Manual

Slightly more balanced than their predecessors, the sound profile of the Beats Solo3 leans into the bass, making them a good choice for people looking for a little more thump in their audio. The dip in the mid-range recedes vocals and instruments in favor of the bass while the treble is prone to brightness. This mix can make the sound profile sound muddy, however.

These headphones have a good frequency consistency. While the Solo3 perform better than their predecessor, there are still similar inconsistencies, particularly noticeable in the treble. Depending on how you wear these headphones and how they sit on your ear, you may need to readjust them on your head to get the same listening experience every time.

The bass accuracy of the Beats Solo3 Wireless is mediocre. The overemphasized bass, while fairly even across the range, produces prominent, punchy thumps and rumbles.

The Beats Solo3 Wireless have a great mid-range accuracy. The response is pretty consistent, except for a dip in the mid-mid, which pushes vocals and other lead instruments slightly to the back of the mix, and giving more emphasis to bass instruments.

The Beats Solo3 Wireless have impressive treble accuracy. Their good balance of presence, detail, and brightness in the reproduction of vocals, leads, and cymbals make them well-balanced and quite neutral sounding.

The peaks and dips performance of the Beats Solo3 is decent. The peak in the high-bass will produce more thump while the following dip between low and mid-mid will push vocals and instruments back in the mix. Another spike in the low treble will make sounds in this range sharp or bright.

The Beats Solo3 have excellent imaging. Their weighted group delay is below the audibility threshold and 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 specific to our unit and may not be the same with every pair.

The Beats Solo3's soundstage is poor. Since these are on-ear headphones, they have limited acoustic interaction with the pinna or outer ear, which is necessary for creating a large and out-of-head soundstage. Also, because of their closed-back design, their soundstage will be perceived as less open, compared to open-back on-ears like the Grado SR80e. Overall, the soundstage will most likely be perceived to be small and located inside the listener's head.

The Beats Solo3 don't have any virtual soundstage features.

The weighted harmonic distortion performance of the Solo3's is excellent. All frequencies fall within good limits, which should result in a clear and pure audio reproduction.

The results of the Beats Solo3 are only valid for these test settings.

The isolation performance is disappointing. These on-ears provide little isolation in the bass range, which means you'll hear the rumble of airplane and bus engines. While the passive isolation provided by the ear cups start to kick in towards the mid-range, these headphones will still have trouble blocking out most speech. However, sharp sounds from the treble range will be reduced. If you like on-ear designs but need a bit more isolation for your noisy commutes, then check out the AKG N60NC Wireless, the Marshall MID ANC Wireless, or even the higher-end Beats Solo Pro Wireless.

The leakage performance is sub-par. These headphones leak a bit more than the usual closed-back on-ear headphones. While leakage is low in the bass range, there's a noticeable spike in leakage in the treble range: to others, your audio will sound thin. If you like to blast your music, people around you in quiet to moderately busy environments, the people around you will hear.

The Beats Solo3 have an integrated microphone. The detachable audio cable also has an in-line microphone.

The integrated microphone has a mediocre recording quality. Speech recorded or transmitted with these headphones will sound quite thin, lacking detail and presence. However, this won't have a big negative effect on the intelligibility of the recorded speech.

The noise handling performance of the Beats Solo3's mic is disappointing. The microphone will struggle to separate speech from ambient noise in moderate to loud situations. However, in quiet environments, speech will sound clean and clear.

The Beats Solo3 Wireless have impressive battery life. They can last up to 40 hours of continuous playback on a single charge. They also charge surprisingly fast: a 5-minute charge delivers above 2.5 hours of playback while a full charge is complete in less than 2 hours. If you're always on the go, the long battery life ensures that you can go longer without charging them. However, they don't have an auto-off timer so the battery will continue draining if you don't switch them off.

Like the AirPods, the Beats Solo3 also use a W1 chip to provide extra features on iOS devices. These headphones connect with a pop-up that displays basic battery information. Unfortunately, this isn't particularly useful as it only shows up on your initial connection with an iOS device; however, you'll get live feedback notifications on the battery status. Unfortunately, this feature isn't available on Android.

The Beats Solo3 connect wirelessly via Bluetooth. Unfortunately, they can't pair simultaneously with multiple devices and don't have NFC support. While the Solo3 have improved latency compared to their predecessor and have a lower latency on iOS, they won't be the ideal headphones for watching movies or gaming.

The Beats Solo3 are Bluetooth-only headphones.

The Beats Solo3 come with an iOS cable with an in-line remote microphone that's compatible with the PS4 but not the Xbox. This gives them a secondary connection option in case you want to save battery life by turning off Bluetooth or if you want less latency while watching videos or gaming.

These headphones can only be used via Bluetooth on PCs. Due to their high latency, however, they aren't recommended for gaming. While you can't use the Solo3 wirelessly on the PS4, they can be used with the audio cable plugged into the controller: you'll be able to receive audio as well as use the microphone.

These Bluetooth headphones are only compatible with the Xbox One while the audio cable is plugged into the controller. However, you'll only get audio and won't be able to use the microphone.

These headphones don't have a base/dock. If you want a versatile headset with a base that you can also use wired, check out the SteelSeries Arctis 7 Wireless 2017.