Ears On With Nokia's New Monster Headphones

It's known that HTC has Beats,now Nokia has Purity. Nokia's new Lumia line of Windows Phones comes with a new line of headphones as well, the "Purity" headphones produced by cable and headphone company Monster.

Monster, which makes Beats by Dre headphones, is also known for selling horrifyingly overpriced cables to people seduced by their packaging. The company apparently uses the resulting money to paint dre beats flames on CEO Noel Lee's Segway, on which I saw him zipping out of a panel yesterday. HTC is a heavy investor in Beats, which is a separate company from Monster, and HTC has begun to feature Beats Audio in its smartphones.

Purity headphones come in two varieties: earbuds with flat cables beats by dre dre and four, different-sized eartip options (officially called the "Nokia Purity Stereo Headset by Monster"), and big over-the-head headphones (the "Nokia Purity HD Stereo Headset by Monster") with rectangular pads and a stiff headband. They'll come in four colors—black, white, light blue, and magenta—to match the colors of Nokia's new Lumia 710 and 800 phones. The design is squarer, and thus somehow much more Euro, than Monster's Beats headphones.

Both headsets have microphones and volume controls on their wires, so they're ready for phone use. The volume and call-handing controls only work with Windows phones, though.

What struck me about these headphones is how bright they sound. I haven't spent a lot of time with Beats, but these headphones may draw a distinct line between Nokia's vision of the musical world and HTC's. "Monster Beats headphones are typically known for their heavy bass," our audio analyst Tim Gideon wrote in a review of Beats' top-of-the-line Beats Pro headphones.

The Purity headphones pull human voices, the middle of the midrange, forwards, and cymbals and other high-end sounds were crisp and sharp. You won't get pumped-up bass here; the bass in presumably bass-heavy tracks by Muse and Depeche Mode was surprisingly demure, having retreated a bit into the background to make room for melody. My Nokia demo guy told me the goal is to make the Purity headphones right "for all kinds of music"—presumably as opposed to Beats, which were originally designed for rock and hip-hop.

The Beats headphones are also designed to work dre dre beats with specific Beats-enabled phones to offer the best possible sound equalization, HTC has said. I didn't hear any such claims about Purity. These headphones just seem to be good-looking, decent-quality headphones that match the colors and design of your smartphone.
The over the ear headphones cost 200 euros ($270), and the earbuds will cost around 100 euros ($135). That sounds like a lot, but Beats' Tour mobile phone earbuds list for $179.95 and the Beats Solo over-the-ear headphones cost $199.95, so Nokia is competitive. Purity is considered part of the Lumia line, so they'll only be coming to the U.S. next year.