When Beats introduced the Solo 3 in 2016, the main feature was the integration of Apple’s W1 audio chip. This enabled seamless pairing with Apple devices, making life much easier for iPhone, Mac and iPad owners. Aside from the noise-canceling Solo Pro in 2019, Beats hasn’t updated the Solo range in almost eight years and is now bringing its popular on-ear headphones up to today’s standards. Beats today announced the Solo 4, a $200 set of familiar-looking cans with significant improvements in audio quality and battery life. But as with other devices, the company chose its own audio platform over Apple’s AirPod chip.
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Beats has made significant improvements to the Solo 4’s audio quality and battery life, but the design needs a refresh.
- 50 hours of battery life
- Improved sound quality
- USB-C
- No price increase
- Overly familiar design
- Not particularly comfortable for large heads
- No multipoint Bluetooth on iOS
- No automatic pause
$200 at Apple
What’s new with Beats Solo 4?
Beats says it has reworked the Solo 4’s tone for “incredible high-fidelity acoustics.” These include new custom-built 40mm converters that provide “exceptional clarity and range” due to minimal latency and distortion. The company explained that the change also resulted in improved high-frequency reproduction compared to the Solo 3. Beats says the Solo 4 is the only passively tuned headphone, so you’ll get the same audio quality when listening wirelessly as the battery runs out and you have to use the 3.5mm jack.
Spatial Audio was available on the Solo 3, but Beats took it a step further on the Solo 4 and added personalized spatial audio with dynamic head tracking. This is the process developed by Apple for its AirPods that uses your iPhone’s camera to create a custom audio profile tailored to the shape of your ears. The effectiveness of head tracking in improving spatial audio may depend on your personal preferences and the content, but the addition brings the Solo 4 up to date with other audio products from Beats (and Apple).
Another big upgrade is battery life. The Solo 3 already offered 40 hours of playtime on one charge, but Beats managed to squeeze another 10 hours out of the Solo 4. Of course, at a volume of around 50 percent with spatial audio turned off (45 hours with spatial audio turned on). ). With the Fast Fuel quick charge feature, you can now use the device for up to five hours in 10 minutes. That’s two hours more than Solo 3.
Like Apple with most of its products, Beats has switched to USB-C to charge the Solo 4. This wired connection also delivers lossless audio as long as you’re listening to compatible content using a supported device. Similar to other recent Beats products, the Solo 4 swaps Apple’s chips for the company’s own platform. In this case, the Solo 3’s W1 has been replaced, but there is still extensive integration with iOS, macOS and iPadOS. And the company’s recent efforts to better cater to Android users continue with the Solo 4.
Beats has improved the Solo 4’s microphones, but they are used exclusively for phone calls as there is no active noise cancellation (ANC). Specifically, the company says it has replaced analog microphones with digital MEMS microphones with beamforming, which has resulted in higher quality voice capture in various environments. Beats has also added a noise learning algorithm that targets your voice while combating background noise and wind.
What is good
The steps Beats took to improve the sound quality of the Solo 4 really worked. The company has been pushing for more even tuning for several years now, ditching the overly bass-heavy EQ that dominated the sound of its early headphones. I can also hear the added clarity in tracks like “Neverender” by Justice, where details like synthesizer sounds created an atmospheric texture that enhanced the song. This is most noticeable when you have Spatial Audio enabled, and in my experience the Solo 4 performed best with Dolby Atmos content in Apple Music.
The stated battery life of 50 hours also applies. After 37 hours of testing at around 50 percent volume, macOS still showed that the Solo 4 still had 35 percent left in the tank. This is well above the stated number of beats. During my testing, I streamed spatial Dolby Atmos content from Apple Music, primarily from a MacBook Pro.
Beats says the Solo 4 features the same memory foam ear cushions as the Studio Pro over-ear headphones, but with a new cover material for this component to further increase comfort. While I did feel like there was less pressure when wearing the Solo 4, after a few hours it felt more laborious by the minute.
What’s bad
Speaking of comfort, I’ve never been a fan of on-ear headphones. Most of them, including the Beats Solo, feel like they’re pressing on my head. Granted, I have a big dome; I take my New Era caps in 7 ⅝. But I understand that this design is very popular, so for my big dome buddies it’s less of a scam and more of an observation. The slight changes to the ear cushions make them more comfortable to wear, but they are still too tight for me. But the Solo series is clearly a hit: Beats claims to have sold over 40 million pairs of these on-ear headphones.
I also wish the company had done a little more with the design of the Solo 4. I understand “if it ain’t broke” and all that, but this feels like a missed opportunity. Beats has opted to keep the look of the Solo 3 almost entirely the same, with the exception that the “Solo” logo on the headband is now just a “4.” The company made some changes to the Solo Pro, but that model is no longer available, so a design update to the Solo headphones without ANC would have been a welcome change.
Although there are some obvious updates to the audio profile, the Solo 4 sounds a bit thin at times. When listening on an iPhone, the audio performance is the same across all genres, but there is a noticeable difference when listening to the same songs on Apple Music on a Mac. The Justice album, hyperdrama, I don’t get the same oomph streaming from my MacBook Pro as I do from my iPhone.
The Solo 4 also lacks multipoint Bluetooth support on iOS. It’s not the first Beats audio device to lack this, but that doesn’t make it any less frustrating. The ability to automatically switch between your computer and your phone when you’re on a call is a handy feature that most headphones offer these days. And if you’re used to it, you’ll miss it with the Solo 4.
Wrap up
There’s no denying the updates Beats has made to the Solo 4 in terms of sound quality and battery life. The company also made optimizations to modernize it, including switching to USB-C. Small changes to the earpads make the Solo 4 more comfortable for those of us with large heads, but the fit is still far from ideal. And overall, the familiar design could use a refresh, especially now that it’s been almost eight years since the Solo 3. Still, the Solo 4 is a clear evolution of the Solo 3, but probably not significant enough to tempt more than the Beats faithful.
The Beats Solo 4 is available now from Apple for $200. The headphones are available in black, blue (pictured) and pink.