Foo - Studio Beats by Dre -- any good?

I won a pair of Studio Beats by Dre in a contest recently, and I'm debating whether to sell them or to keep them (they're still in the plastic wrap).

For one thing, I enjoy music, but not to the extent that I would ever drop more than $60 on headphones (I currently use a $30 pair of Sennheiser's). I listen to a very wide range of music (U2 to Beethoven) and love to play and listen to piano, but I know these headphones are designed for the rap/bass-heavy genres.

The problem is that when I search for reviews on these headphones, I get a VERY wide range of ratings. I feel like most people have strong opinions, either negatively or positively, because these headphones are associated with a rap artist (Dr. Dre), and that skews the reviews heavily in either direction.

For me, the ideal test of headphone quality is to determine how closely the headphone's output most closely matches the original waveform of the sound. This isn't a subjective thing -- I could describe how this would be done mathematically in a few minutes. I don't understand why more reviews don't do this.

So, does anyone know of a review that does something along these lines? If you don't, I guess I'll go the subjective route -- do you have a personal experience with these headphones?

Thanks

Sell them. They don't sound good. They're all treble and mid-bass. They remind me of the ****ty car audio systems kids had back in high school.

I don't really like them. I would sell them. I like my Bose.

Hmm.. Thanks for the replies. I would feel kind of bad about selling a gift though lol...

Is the sound good for the average person? I mean, these headphones are still better than my $30 pair, right?

the fact that they are made by monster cables should give some indication of quality.
http://www.hardocp.com/article/2011/08/11/beats_by_dr_dre_studio_headphones_review/

yamaha EPH-20 and EPH-30 are hard to beat for their price.

http://www.hardocp.com/article/2011/08/11/beats_by_dr_dre_studio_headphones_review/

lol, as expected.

Okay, I thought I would give everyone an update on my decision (plus if Google finds this page, someone's going to want to know the result). I decided to keep the Beats. For one thing, I hate the prospect of selling a gift -- it would make me feel bad. Secondly, I scoured a lot of reviews on the internet, and many were just "they suck" -- which is kind of useless. So I learned a bit about audio quality and looked up the frequency responses and distortion charts of these things, and they compared favorably with similarly priced headphones.

The deciding factor was probably this article: http://www.headfonia.com/closed-cans-shootout-m-50-esw-9-t50p-hd25-1-beats-studio-srh-840-srh-750dj-k181dj-and-dj1pro/9/

which was written by an audiophile who knows his stuff very well.

I think a lot of the dislike for these stems from an "expectation" thing. I read a study recently that said when cheap wines were secretly swapped with expensive wines, the "wine connoisseurs" thought the cheap wine was excellent, "smooth and subtle", and the expensive wine was "flat". With these headphones, it's "they're popular and promoted by a rap artist, so they must suck". I think in a double-blind test of audio quality with similarly priced headphones, 99% of people would not be able to guess the correct headphone. But it would be interesting to try myself, so if I ever get my hands on some nice Sennheisers, I'll try it out :)

Not the same but my HP laptop has the over-hyped Beats Audio. The audio stinks! Actually, it isn't horrible but the max volume is so low as to be nearly useless on airplanes which is when I primarily use it. Dre and his subpar marketing gimmick can byte me...

Not the same but my HP laptop has the over-hyped Beats Audio. The audio stinks! Actually, it isn't horrible but the max volume is so low as to be nearly useless on airplanes which is when I primarily use it. Dre and his subpar marketing gimmick can byte me...

the inside of an airplane is around 60 to 85db, with low 70db being average.
a baby crying is something like 90db.
ipod earphones, with no volume limiter go up to 108db

ear plugs and muffs each block out about 20 to 30db.

Not the same but my HP laptop has the over-hyped Beats Audio. The audio stinks! Actually, it isn't horrible but the max volume is so low as to be nearly useless on airplanes which is when I primarily use it. Dre and his subpar marketing gimmick can byte me...Get some ear buds from Etymotic or Shure... they will block a large percentage of noise & have exceptional sound quality.

the inside of an airplane is around 60 to 85db, with low 70db being average.
a baby crying is something like 90db.
ipod earphones, with no volume limiter go up to 108db

ear plugs and muffs each block out about 20 to 30db.

Yeah, I know. I probably should not have included the airplane part. My point really was that the volume and quality just are not there in general but that fact is even more apparent on the plane...