A tear down has revealed some fairly embarrassing truths about the pricy Beats headphones.
Beats are pretty expensive, which is one of the reasons that they are now part of the Apple stable.
According to some new in-depth analysis put together by engineer Avery Louie, the most expensive thing about the headphones is the box it comes in.
Louie figures that a pair of Beats headphones that retails for $199 costs about $17 to produce which is bad enough. But the packaging including the manual, soft case, box, and sleeve run about $7. The speakers themselves cost less than $10 each.
In other words, rather than getting what you pay for, you are getting a $10 pair of headphones and $7 worth of marketing for nearly $200.
To be fair, Dr Dre who was behind the outfit, said that “if you ain’t in it for the money then get out the game” so he did warn people he was ripping them off.
Apparently what makes a cheap pair of headphones feel better is that they are loaded with metal to add weight.
The added heft can go a long way toward convincing shoppers that a product is worth a few extra bucks. In the case of these headphones, just four little pieces of metal account for 30 percent of the total weight. Louie says there’s no real reason they need to be made from metal. It’s all about creating an illusion.
The tear down can be seen here