Rapper Dr Dre goes from guns to headphones

The Dr Dre 'phones

Big-shot rap star and record producer Dr Dre has teamed up with hi-fi cable company Monster to make the new ‘Beats By Dr Dre’ music headphones. It’s the first time that Dr Dre – real name André Romell Young – has endorsed a consumer product in this way.

The Beats by Dr Dre “high-performance headphones” were conceived by Dr Dre and mutually designed, with “groundbreaking and inventive” engineering by Monster. Monster says the headphones feature both a “unique and futuristic style” as well as newly developed sonic technologies for “unprecedented state-of-the-art performance”.

Dr Dre is, of course, better known for writing insightful and groundbreaking lyrics such as: “Dr Dre is the name, I'm ahead of my game. Still puffing my leafs, still f**k wit' da beats. Still not loving police (Uh huh)”.

Dr Dre's new headphones

“When I’m making a track I’m trying to capture the sound that makes me go ‘now that's the s**t!' And I want that reaction from everybody who hears it,” said Dr Dre.

“I spend a lot of time in the studio listening to my music through headphones…with Beats, people are finally going to hear it the way they should - the way I do.”

Monster says that the Beats headphones have a unique and avant-garde new look that will “revolutionise the headphone world”. A strong claim indeed. So why don’t we get some in and see if they’re as good as they’re supposed to be?

Well, no. Because curiously Monster says it will not be sending out any review samples to journalists. Is this because they’re so exclusive that they’re only for people dedicated enough to buy them? Or is it simply because they’re rubbish?

Well, it’ll cost you $400 (£204) to find out, because that’s how much they cost. And they’ll be available in the US in July.

James Rivington

James was part of the TechRadar editorial team for eight years up until 2015 and now works in a senior position for TR's parent company Future. An experienced Content Director with a demonstrated history of working in the media production industry. Skilled in Search Engine Optimization (SEO), E-commerce Optimization, Journalism, Digital Marketing, and Social Media. James can do it all.