On the road, music can make the difference between a lousy day filled with loud traffic and screaming kids, or serenity surrounded by your favorite tunes. When I travel, I always have music with me – and in a quest to find the best way to listen to my selections, I’ve taken the Monster Beats Tour headphones for a spin.
The first thing you’ll notice about the Tours is that they don’t look anything remotely similar to the thousands of others headphones on the market. For starters, the Tours use a flat cord instead of round. This cable isn’t just for show, it actually helps reduce the risk of spending the first 20 minutes of your trip trying to untangle them. Of course, the cord also incorporates a variety of Monster technology to reduce interference.
The next design feature comes from the buds themselves; instead of the usual can with an ear piece, the Tours are longer, and angled in a way that makes them feel more comfortable when inserted.
Getting the headphones inserted correctly takes a bit of practice, and is a little trickier than what you are probably used to. Thankfully, the headphone kit also includes a variety of different earpieces, for the various ear sizes out there.
Once inserted, the Tours are very comfortable, without any pressure on your ears. I wore them for a four hour flight without any problems or discomfort.
I am by no means an audiophile, but I can tell when sound is good or bad – and the Tours really do deliver in the “good” department. It is hard to describe what makes the Tours sound so good, and I assume there is some magic involved, but music sounds much “closer” than I’m used to, and I did not feel I was listening to headphones – a very weird but fantastic experience. Bass is magnificent, and in some cases you may even need to turn it down a little in your equalizer.
The Monster Beats Tours come with a carrying pouch, three pairs of standard earpieces and two pairs of triple-flanged noise isolating earpieces. Noise isolation on the Tours is not as effective as on active noise canceling headphones, but since the Tours go deeper in your ears, you can reduce volume and still manage to block out a lot of ambient noise.
The Monster Beats Tours retail for $179,95, and are available from the Apple Store, Amazon and Best Buy. Retail price in stores is usually lower than the MSRP, and I’ve already found these headphones for under $135.
Investing in high quality headphones is obviously not for everyone, but if you value your music, and you’d like to hear it in something better than the standard headphones that came with your player, you really will want to consider the Tours. The only thing that could prevent you from investing in these is the design. Personally I found the design very appealing, but for every person that loves them, there is probably one that hates them.
To learn more about the Monster Beats Tour high-resolution headphones, head on over to the Monster product page.