Beats by Dre Studio Buds Earbuds Review

• Quick charge: If you’re in a hurry and your Studio Pros are all but dead, 5 minutes of charging can provide an hour of music playback. 
• IPX4 water resistance: The Studio Buds themselves are IPX4 water-resistant, which means they’re splashproof but shouldn’t be immersed. The Studio Buds charging case isn’t water-resistant at all.
• Custom controls: The buttons on each earbud can be assigned to control volume or noise cancellation modes and access to Apple’s Siri digital assistant.
• Transparency mode: This allows some outside sound so that you can be aware of your surroundings or have a quick conversation without interrupting your content. 
• Find My Beats: This feature can ping the earbuds to help find them if they get lost. The charging case, however, lacks this feature, which can be found on the latest AirPods Pro. 

One way to think of the Beats by Dre Studio Buds is as a budget alternative to the Apple AirPods Pro. Beats By Dre has been owned by Apple for a while, and there’s a lot that Studio Buds share with the AirPods, with a few significant improvements.

A fun, fashion-forward difference is that the Studio Buds are available in a variety of festive colors, including red, black, white, moon gray, and ocean blue. The Studio Buds come in a compact case with USB-C charging rather than Apple’s Lightning connector. I found storing the Studio Buds in the case to be less than intuitive; instead of just popping them in casually the way I do with most earbuds, I had to look at them carefully and rotate them so that the “b” was right side up. That was a bit frustrating but pretty much the only annoyance I encountered while using the Studio Buds.

As far as fit, the Beats by Dre Studio Buds stayed in place during a workout, but with soft silicone ear tips they’re also lightweight and comfortable enough for long-term listening at your desk or on an airplane.

The Studio Buds have buttons instead of the earbud body being touch-sensitive like the AirPods. I personally prefer the solid click of a button, especially with a function like skipping a track that requires multiple clicks. Better still, the Beats’ buttons sit at the top of the earbuds instead of the outside, so I almost never found myself hitting them accidentally.

In terms of noise cancellation, our testers gave the Studio Buds a strong rating but note that a faint rushing sound can be heard in very quiet environments. I found the transparency mode, which pipes in some outside noise so you can be aware of your surroundings on a sidewalk or a road with traffic, to be a welcome feature.

Sonically, our testers found the Beats by Dre Studio Buds to be somewhat bass heavy, but the all-important midrange, where most music lives, is neutral. They fall just a bit short of the very best headphones in terms of how they can stir your soul. If you want to hear the resin on the bow vibrate the spruce on YoYo Ma’s Stradivarius, you can find a few earbuds that will do that better. But if you listen to less demanding music, like most pop, rock, R&B, or country, you’ll likely find the Studio Buds to be very satisfying, as I did.

The Studio Buds are also quite similar to the more expensive Beats Fit Pros. Both models are true wireless, noise-canceling models. The Studio Buds lack a few of the features you can find on the Fit Pros—like the H1 chip and in-ear detection—but that’s not a huge loss. Sonically, our testers found the Studio Buds to be a little less smooth and warm than their more expensive siblings, but the differences are subtle. The hard choice between the Beats siblings largely comes down to fit (the Fit Pros have a wingtip for additional retention during active use) and those few missing features. And maybe which colors you like better.

In a way, the Beats by Dre Studio Buds remind me a bit of Apple’s SE phone and smartwatch. They don’t have all the bells and whistles (and air horns and whoopee cushions) of the top-of-the-line models. But the features that the Studio Buds do include—notably noise canceling, transparency mode, and fine sound quality—are the ones you really need, especially given the modest price of the Studio Buds. 

They’re for anyone looking for midpriced earbuds with high-end features like active noise canceling. They’re also for Android users who’ve been intrigued by the style and features of the Apple AirPods, which work best with iPhones.

In general, it seems that Beats got it right with these earbuds. They work really well, sound really good, and have most of the features you really need. If you want the quietest possible noise canceling, you might stretch for the Apple AirPods Pro. And if you’re all about sound quality and can stretch your budget, the superb-sounding Sony 1000XM4s are also worth your consideration, albeit at a higher price. But if you want noise-canceling earbuds that keep the world at bay while playing your music in a satisfying way—while keeping a few bucks in your pocket—don’t snooze on the Beats by Dre Studio Buds. 

There are more than 200 headphones in our ratings. They’re refreshed constantly, ensuring that only currently available models are presented to CR members.

Our testing program begins in our dedicated labs, where a team of testers use rigorous test methods and reference quality recordings to reveal the smallest differences between each model. 

Our trained testers carefully listen and document the clarity and detail, frequency response, spatial imaging, dynamics, and freedom of obvious distortions at normal listening levels of the headphones with fellow colleagues, and in the case of noise-canceling headphones, how well they reduce background noise. Our testers even get their hearing checked routinely by an audiologist.

The secret behind our process? Consistency. We use the same process with the same equipment. And the same recordings. That results in an even playing field for every product we test. And ratings you can trust.