If you want to pause your music, there’s an integrated mute button on the center of the right ear cup Beats by Dre, and if you want to take a call, you can click the microphone button on the cable and talk. When you’re done, just click again.

Sound quality
This is the part that shocked me the most. I figured that these headphones were probably just all marketing, with Beats by Dr. Dre and Monster Cable behind it. Thankfully, I was pleasantly surprised. Within seconds of turning the headphones on, I played the included samples. I immediately heard crisp highs and bass pumping lows. The most surprising thing about it was that I barely had the volume on half. Some headphones deliver a bass and a decent high but you usually have to crank the volume. This was not the case with the “beats”.

Since the sample music was at a bit rate of 1536 kbps, I figured I should try some of my own music, at a bit rate of 192 kbps. Again, I was floored. Not only did I hear the highs and lows, but I heard background noise in a live broadcast of a James Taylor song that I’ve heard hundreds of times, but never before heard the noises. I also felt like the sound was coming from behind me at tmes, which is no small feat for a pair of headphones.

The only negative that I found while testing the Dr. Dre Monster Beats headphones is that I actually started to feel nauseous after a while. I mentioned this in my review of the Clear Harmony headphones, and it’s something that happens to me when I’m using different kinds of noise canceling headphones. I had other people test them, too, and they didn’t get a nauseous feeling, so I know it’s just me and not the headphones.

While these beats by dre headphones are priced a bit high (retail $349.95), they are definitely among the best in their class. As Dr. Dre said, “People aren’t hearing all the music” when it comes to regular headphones. With the dr. dre beats you’ll hear things in your favorite tunes that you never knew existed.