Beats Solo Pro Wireless Noise Cancelling On-Ear Headphones – Apple H1 Headphone Chip, Class 1 Bluetooth, 22 Hours of Listening Time, Built-in…

These are the best beats so far. They sound very good and less bass heavy as previous models. Sound is really crisp. The only downfall to these is they are a little tight on your head and takes some time to get used to. Very worth it. The Noise Canceling feature is so good. You basically can not hear anything around you!

This is my first modern headphones purchase. I mostly use old (like from the 90’s) Sony open air on ear headphones.
You know, the kind that used to come with portable CD players back in the day. Anyway, I needed something with a mic so when I’m making calls or streaming games, everyone else doesn’t have to hear what’s going on in the background (I’m looking at you cat…) I was using the earbuds that came with my iPhone, but those aren’t really comfortable, and the sound quality isn’t that great for long sessions of gaming and streaming.
Rather than just spend the big bucks on a gaming headset I wanted something that I could take “outside” and not look completely ridiculous.
After narrowing it down to a couple different brands, these popped up on sale for $50 off so I figured I would give these a try.
Turns out these are actually pretty good. The sound is very good, considering that these are Bluetooth headphones. It’s a very balanced profile. Not the crazy treble of the old open air 90’s headphones, and not the extreme bass of an early 2000’s civic rocking 15″ subs.
I listen to a much broader variety of music these days, so the balanced profile works well for me.
Fit and finish is very good on these. There’s a lot of plastic, but it’s been covered with “soft touch” material.
While they don’t show fingerprints very much at all, body oils (bald folks will understand) do build up on them.
I find a quick wipe down once a week with a baby wipe keeps them looking good, and keeps them from sliding around.
As far as fit goes, this is going to be hit or miss for you. As pretty much everyone has said, these do fit tight on your ears, and it can get uncomfortable. The biggest problem I have had is with wearing glasses. They do very much smash your ears into the arms of your glasses and it doesn’t take long to start hurting and become irritating.
Now, I have found that due to how tight they fit, and the fact that my glasses are big, I can just rest the temples of them above the cups of the headphones, and alleviate all the issues. I can usually wear them for a several hours like this and be fine, as opposed to mere minutes wearing glasses normally.
Bluetooth range on these has been much better than expected. I’ve tried earbuds that wouldn’t even stay connected to the phone in my back pocket, let alone across a room. I’ve had these stay connected to several hundred feet away (outside in a rural setting) and had no issues in my apartment in a massive complex, with more wifi and wireless signals than a spaceship. Bluetooth has definitely come a loooong way.
Now, if you’ve made it this far in the review, you’re probably wondering what the surprising use is.
Turns out these are the best thing ever for apartment living, and that’s because of the noise cancelling. I’ve never seen/heard anything like this before.
Downstairs neighbors drinking and fighting again, noisy kids playing in the breezeways, people who can’t bother to get their car alarms fixed, barking bass dogs… you get the idea.
Just one touch of the little magic button and all that goes away.
You can’t really sleep in these, but I’ve used them more than a few times now for afternoon naps on weekends in the recliner. Put some lite rock, or nature sounds stuff on, and next thing you know it’s dinner time.
I’ve also used them without any music, just on and connected to block out noise.
Be prepared though for a heart attack if you should happen to get a text or call. It’s pretty brutal if you’ve fallen asleep.
Now to be fair these don’t block out all sounds, but the do bring it down to a level that is more than manageable.
I’ve also found these to be fantastic for doing laundry in the apartments laundry center.
I’m one of the few people who stay and wait with their stuff, and the noise cancelling is just outstanding for blocking out broken dryers with belts squealing, off balance washers, banging and crashing of unsecured plumbing etc. etc..
Battery life is excellent. These tend to get better than advertised life for me, but I don’t listen to stuff at a very loud volume. I’m at maybe 25-30% volume level, 90% of the time.

If you can snag these for $250 or under, I would absolutely recommend giving them a try.
With amazon’s excellent returns policy you don’t really have anything to lose. Just be sure and give them a couple of extended wear sessions before that window is up, as the tight fit can be especially irritating if you wear glasses.

I wanted to love these, but after an hour I decided to return them. They simply compress your ears far too much.
Might be good for short uses (or people with smaller heads).

They sound similar to my airpod pros – at the same price with less function (water resistant, mobility, etc).

I returned these for Beats Studio 3’s – which have a little more base, and are far more comfortable (I’ll be giving up the transparency mode).

Unboxing brand new Beats Solo Pro, following the instructions to connect to my phone, however would not pop up the connection. I ended up connecting to the charging cable and to my surprise I figured it came with 0% battery charged. Battery is drained. I wonder if this a particular product manufacture defective or just normal. I could not find any information on Google.

Overall, really love these — a solid upgrade to the solo 3’s, and songs sound noticeably fuller on the pro’s. They compare favorably to the Sony XM3’s but each has specific advantages over the other. The Sony XM3’s sound a bit better overall for classical/jazz music and are more comfortable, but are less ideal for exercise (as solo’s have punchier bass for rap/pop/hip hop,+, water resistance, pair more easily w/ multiple devices.)

IMPORTANT NOTE!!
Concerning the fit … these are surprisingly much tighter on my head than the Solo 3’s, and I could see this being a total dealbreaker for some people. It took me a couple days to get used to it, and now I don’t mind as much as I initially did. I’m not sure if it loosened up, but I don’t think so — I just think I adjusted. But, there is no question that for comfort, I would rather listen to my sony 1000XM3’s for a very long period (1 hr+). For shorter listening, I really like these. The clamping force helps with the noise-cancelling, but it’s also very very noticeable, even when I extend these out to their max-level of extension. Note that I have a larger size head, and wear glasses.

Probably my favorite little feature: Because these automatically power on when opened, and power off when closed, you never have to fuss with a power button like you do on other headphones. When I go for runs, I just grab these, put them on my head, and start up music on my Apple Watch, and it quickly connects automatically and starts playing. It will quickly join any other Apple device you want, as long as it’s on the same account. With the latest iOS, you don’t even need to go to the device menu — these headphones [like airpods] will auto-connect as soon as you start using another device. For instance, if I’m on my iPad listening to the solo pros, then close my iPad and go to my iPhone, the beats solo pros transition seamlessly to the iPhone. When I’m done, I fold them and put them down. This is more convenient than my XM3’s, which only remember one device for Bluetooth.

Some other nice Apple-specific benefits: When these are on, the headphones will automatically read out any texts ou get, allowing you to reply by voice without having to take out your phone. And, you can ask Siri to turn on or off noise canceling and transparency mode by voice, without messing with setttings.

The sound quality is similar to the Solo 3’s, but the bass, for lack of a better word, feels ‘tighter.’ It’s still punchier than the bass in my Sony 1000xm3’s, but it feels less like the low rumble of the Solo 3’s. Instead, the bass in the Solo pros feels more like one component of the song. For shorter listening periods, I prefer the Solo Pros to both the Solo3’s and my Sony 1000xm3’s.

The Solo pro’s can get very, very loud without distorting the low end at all. The Solo 3’s are not terrible by comparison, especially for workouts, but the bass feels less precise and the soundstage more limited. Given a choice between the Solo 3’s and the Pros, I would pick the Pros every time — BUT, when I use the Solo 3’s, I still think they sound pretty good.

One huge plus: The Solo pro’s have sweat resistance — woohoo! I can take these running. For many reasons, I would not take the XM3’s running.

These look incredible and have a far better, sturdier feel than the Solo 3’s. As mentioned, a major advantage of these headphones for Apple users is that, like the Solo 3’s, Airpods, Powerbeats, etc, these will pair with your apple account and are instantly accessible from any apple device tied to that account.

I do love the passthrough mode, which uses the microphones to pipe sound into your headphones for when you need to hear ambient sounds. It’s surprisingly significantly better than the one on the Sony 1000mx3’s I have, and I think the noise cancelling is roughly similar. Really, the passthrough mode here (which you activate with a single press on the underside button) is almost crazy good — doesn’t feel like you’re listening to microphones at all.

The noise cancellation, with or without music playing, is also solid. With sound playing, like the XM3’s, you won’t hear much. It seems not quite on par with my Sony’s XM3, but it’s just very hard to be more specific than that. Jims’ Review Room and Sound guys have a more comprehensive analysis that comes to a similar conclusion, but they do great, especially for canceling the low end.

A double press on the solo pro’s underside button will disable both passthrough mode and noise cancelling, doubling battery life to 40 hours. In this mode, outside sounds are partially muffled by the headphones’ seal on your ears.

The new iOS update also allows you to control these settings in the menu.

I appreciate that music controls — pause, play, Siri, next song etc — are done using clicky and responsive physical buttons on the earcup. The Sony’s touch interface has a big problem in winter and wet environments, due to condensation, and I had a lot of mis-presses with those.

Love the way they auto-power off when folded. I don’t mind the lack of a headphone jack.

I prefer these to the Powerbeats pro, because those got earwax in them and always seemed to pop out, no matter which of the ear caps I used. The sound quality is a bit better as well. For weightlifers, you might want to check out the power beats pro, as they get in the way a bit less than on-ear headphones like this.

Lastly, the carrying case is super cheap and not at all sturdy, which is disappointing.