Monster spent four years manufacturing Beats by Dr. Dre. That partnership ended in 2012, and the Inspiration is what the company put out around the same window: their own over ear, their own noise cancelling, their own name on the outside.
You can hear the argument in the tuning.
Beats had been engineered for a specific job, which was making hip hop and electronic music feel enormous on the street. That meant a deliberate low end lift, and it worked commercially at a scale nobody had predicted while audio reviewers complained continuously. The Inspiration was tuned the other way, toward balance across genres, which reads clearly as a company saying we can do the other thing too, and we always could.
Whatever else was going on, Monster were the ones who had actually been building them.
That’s the part worth holding onto. Monster made cable before any of this, which is an unglamorous business where the entire product is manufacturing tolerance. The Inspiration is a manufacturer’s headphone. The hinges feel like hinges, the folding is properly engineered, and the whole thing was built by people who knew how these are assembled because they’d assembled millions of them.
Then there’s the headband, which is the actual idea. The Inspiration’s headband detaches and swaps, in different colours and materials, so one pair of headphones becomes several. That was Monster reading the room correctly. Beats had proven headphones were now something people wore rather than merely used, and if they’re worn, they’re an accessory, and accessories change with the outfit. Tumi did a version in November 2012.
Black is the version to have. It lets the swappable headbands do the talking, if yours came with spares.
Monster spent four years manufacturing Beats by Dr. Dre. That partnership ended in 2012, and the Inspiration is what the company put out around the same window: their own over ear, their own noise cancelling, their own name on the outside.
You can hear the argument in the tuning.
Beats had been engineered for a specific job, which was making hip hop and electronic music feel enormous on the street. That meant a deliberate low end lift, and it worked commercially at a scale nobody had predicted while audio reviewers complained continuously. The Inspiration was tuned the other way, toward balance across genres, which reads clearly as a company saying we can do the other thing too, and we always could.
Whatever else was going on, Monster were the ones who had actually been building them.
That’s the part worth holding onto. Monster made cable before any of this, which is an unglamorous business where the entire product is manufacturing tolerance. The Inspiration is a manufacturer’s headphone. The hinges feel like hinges, the folding is properly engineered, and the whole thing was built by people who knew how these are assembled because they’d assembled millions of them.
Then there’s the headband, which is the actual idea. The Inspiration’s headband detaches and swaps, in different colours and materials, so one pair of headphones becomes several. That was Monster reading the room correctly. Beats had proven headphones were now something people wore rather than merely used, and if they’re worn, they’re an accessory, and accessories change with the outfit. Tumi did a version in November 2012.
Black is the version to have. It lets the swappable headbands do the talking, if yours came with spares.
