Beats Powerbeats2 Wireless Review

Some audiophiles may thumb their noses at Beats' bass-boosted, celebrity-endorsed speakers and headphones, but the brand helped bring better sound to the forefront for otherwise casual listeners. But despite my gratitude toward Beats for making people care about audio again, I can also recognize when the company's gone too far with its emphasis on bass. The Powerbeats2 Wireless ($55.97 at Amazon)  is a $199.95, gym-friendly Bluetooth earphone pair with some vague LeBron James-branding and more deep bass response than anyone really needs. Unlike some more balanced offerings in the Beats lineup, this pair has almost no high-mid sculpting to counteract the thunderous boosted bass. These earphones are good-looking and distortion free, but excellent, exercise-focused Bluetooth pairs like the Jabra Rox ($25.99 at Amazon)  and Editors' Choice JayBird BlueBuds X  can be found for far less.

Design

The Powerbeats 2 are available in the established Beats color schemes of red and black or white, both of which are sharp-looking, fitness-style earphone pairs connected by a flat linguini-style cable that rests behind the neck. Stabilization fins tuck behind the top of the ear for a secure fit, while the chunky-but-lightweight eartips stay inside the canal.

The fit can feel disconcertingly loose until you find the right-sized eartip, and even after I found the right one for my canals, the earphones kept a relatively open, relaxed feeling. This may be due to the over-the-ear loop on each earpiece potentially pulling the earpieces away from the canals a bit. There's something to be said for this feel when exercising, since the earphones won't fall out of your ears despite the relaxed fit, and they let you hear your surroundings better. Most in-canal earphones create a firm seal at the canal that blocks out ambient sound and aids in bass response, and the Powerbeats2 Wireless doesn't create this seal. It's not a deal breaker, but it took me some getting used to.

An inline three-button remote control and microphone compartment hangs near chin-level from the left earpiece, allowing for easy control of playback, volume, and calls. The Powerbeats2 Wireless ships with a very short USB charging cable, four pairs of eartips in multiple sizes, a clip that fastens onto the earphone cable to keep it secure behind the head, and a hard zip-up carrying case.

Pairing the earphones with an iPhone 5s was effortless and quick, aided by helpful LEDs that indicate pairing status and battery level. Beats estimates the Powerbeats2 Wireless battery life to be about 6 hours on a full charge, but this depends on the volumes at which you listen to your music.

Performance

This is not a subtle-sounding earphone pair. On tracks with powerful sub-bass content, like The Knife's "Silent Shout," the Powerbeats2 Wireless does what it was made to do: fill your ears with gobs of throbbing bass that sound like they're coming from a club PA. It doesn't show any distortion on the most challenging deep bass tracks, even at maximum and unsafe volume levels. At moderate volumes, it sounds overly bass-heavy and lacking in high-mid and high frequency definition. This is an imbalance that comes through on other tracks even more prominently.

On tracks that lack super-deep bass content, like Bill Callahan's "Drover," the Powerbeats2 Wireless creates some out of whole cloth. Both the drums and Callahan's baritone vocals, which need no extra bass, get plenty piled on top. The track sounds muddled at times, as if the high-mid frequency range were completely ignored. This is odd, considering the recently reviewed Beats Solo 2 sounds far more balanced, with at least a decent sense of high-mid and treble presence to keep every aspect of the track well-defined against the onslaught of deep bass. Yes, this is comparing headphones to earphones, but the overall Beats sound shouldn't vary this much.

Jay-Z and Kanye West's "No Church in the Wild" suffers from the same lack of high-mids. The kick drum loop's attack sounds dull and heavy here, without the attack would slice the mix with a sharp treble edge on a more accurate earphone pair. The sustain adds onto the already formidable deep lows, almost masking the sub-bass synth hits that punctuate the drum loop. This should not be happening. 

Classical tracks, like the opening scene in John Adams' "The Gospel According to the Other Mary," receive far too much boosted bass to have a natural sound. If you exist in the rare subset of listener that sometimes exercises to classical music, you probably already had a feeling these earphones weren't for you based on the reputation of the brand alone.

The Beats Powerbeats2 Wireless is for people who want extreme bass, and not really anyone else. Vocals take a backseat to beats and bass here, and this pair is a certainly a great option for the gym if that's your thing. However, you can get far better overall audio performance without giving up on bass completely, and the LG Tone Ultra (HBS800) , Jabra Rox, and JayBird BlueBuds X are all better-sounding, exercise-focused Bluetooth options worth your consideration. Some Beats products feel a tad inflated in price, while others (like this one) are simply too expensive no matter how you look at them.

I won't speculate on whether the subtle LeBron James branding of this particular product (on the Beats website and in commercials) has anything to do with the price, but this is not what a $200 pair of earphones should sound like. The Powerbeats2 Wireless looks good and doesn't distort, but for this price you need a much more balanced sound signature on top of those things.

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