[Updated 8/11 with awesome PR photo.] HTC CEO Peter Chou has revealed that his company is investing $300-million in Beats Electronics. Some of you will remember Beats as the high-end audio company founded by hip-hop legend Dr. Dre and Interscope super-producer Jimmy Iovine. The goal is to improve the audio quality of HTC phones and leverage the Beats brand. AllThingsDigital had more from Iovine:
Beats CEO (and legendary music producer) Jimmy Iovine told AllThingsD that the partnership with HTC is just the latest piece of his crusade to improve the sound in modern electronics. Iovine said that the shift from listening to music on stereos to one where MP3s are played on computers has led to “an entire generation lost to bad-sounding music.”
There’s no denying that Beats has a certain cachet and will be useful for marketing purposes, but I wouldn’t expect HTC phones to suddenly have magical audio quality. Current Beats products, like Beats by Dre from Monster Cable, are decent goods that are also overpriced and overrated. I’m sure Beats Electronics will help improve the audio quality of HTC phones, but I mostly see this as a really expensive marketing move.
HTC phones with Beats technology are expected to arrive in late 2011.
What do you think of HTC teaming up with Beats? Does it make you more interested in HTC phones? Or is it just a marketing ploy to you?
[Update: Below is an amazing photo of Chou, Dre, and Iovine. This was, by far, the best part of the press release.]
Aint nothin' but a 4G thing, BABY!
I really don't like the Beats tech I prefer Bose. My friend has them (the really good/expensive pair) and they are way too loud and overpriced. The music that I use to gauge headphones and any speaker/monitor set up consists of 3 songs (left behind-Slipknot, tears dry on their own-Amy Winehouse, and any random hip hop song with good production) and they all were distorted to a point with the volume down and maxed out.
How much will this jack up the price of the phones?
I don't see the price of the high-end phones changing much. At least not because of this.