"The new Beats Studio is us learning to play," says the iconic headphone maker’s president, as he talks to Stuff about working with Dre, HTC’s One Max and why he’ll always be an audiophile at heart
Luke Wood knows what sounds good.
As president and chief operating officer at Beats Electronics, he's developed the company's portfolio of headphones and speakers, working alongside co-founders Dr Dre and Jimmy Iovine. And while audiophiles may bemoan the bass-heavy sound profile that's typical of Beats, its products are a massive hit – 64 per cent of headphone sales priced US$100 and over last year were Beats, according to analysts NPD Group.
Indeed, since Beats rocked on to the scene in 2008, over-ear cans have become fashion essentials – and dropping £250 on a pair now seems like completely rational behaviour.
Prior to that, Wood was a music industry executive at Geffen Records, guiding the careers of some of the greatest bands in history, including Nirvana, Weezer and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. And Sonic Youth, who almost certainly are the best band in the world ever.
We sat down with him to talk about his thoughts on high-resolution audio, the company’s will they/won't they relationship with HTC, why the artist always comes first and why Beats' ambitions reach far beyond fancy earwear.
FOR BEATS, DESIGN IS CORE – BUT WE’RE ALSO FOCUSED ON SOUND
"When we started we were brand new in the business of making headphones. Jimmy [Iovine] and Dre: they had 70-plus years collectively of making records in the studio, producing and mixing as artists, engineers. I spent 20 years in the studio myself, so we came from that background of making records, but we’d never made headphones before. So in 2006, when the product was started, to 2008 when it first came out, we learned a lot.
"The Studio was really the Beats icon. It was our original headphone, our model A. Design is at the core of what we do: if it doesn't look great, no-one's going to want to wear it. I always feel a certain sense of betrayal when someone completely redesigns the products that I have an emotional connection to, so when we were thinking about our new Beats Studio, it was really driven by our desire to focus on the sound.
"With the design [from the original Studio and new Studio], you're looking at two products that are evolutionary, but the sound profile is radically different."
THE NEW BEATS STUDIO IS OUR NEVERMIND
http://www.stuff.tv/beats-drdre/beats-luke-wood-we-want-raise-sound-quality-bar/feature
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