After six years, Beats is poised to unveil a successor to the Beats Studio3 — the Beats Studio Pro has just appeared in a recent FCC filing following a leak last month discovered in the internal files of iOS 16.5.
First spotted by MacRumors, the headphones in question go by the product number A2924 — just a few numbers away from the A2931 model number used by the AirPods Pro 2 — and have an ID of BeatsStudioPro1,1.
Digging through the filing, we discovered that the Pro headphones seem to support Bluetooth LE, a new codec that would give the Studio Pro a huge uptick in sound quality.
In addition to a new audio codec, we speculate that the new Beats Studio Pro will likely feature Apple’s H2 wireless chip that enables the new adaptive audio feature coming to the AirPods Pro 2 and, by extension, active noise cancellation like the Beats Studio3 have.
So how do we know that it’s coming soon? The report was filed with the FCC on June 15 and became available to the public on June 20. Typically, FCC filings become public just a few months before the products are officially announced, which means the headphones will be announced sometime in the next two months — though neither Apple nor its subsidiary Beats have made any claims to that effect.
Time to head to back to the Studio
Beats headphones haven’t seen a new over-ear model added to the lineup since the Beats Solo3 were released in 2019, though there have been a half-dozen in-ear models in that time. The most recent of which was the Beats Studio Buds+.
A return to the over-ear design feels overdue at this point, especially if Apple plans on adding both Bluetooth LE and the H2 Wireless Chip in the latest model.
As far as potential pricing, there’s no real indication based on the FCC filing. If they’re designed to supersede the Beats Studio Wireless3 that currently retail for $349 on Apple’s website, it’s possible the Studio Max could come in at $399 or more.
We won’t have pricing information until Apple and Beats officially announce the headphones, and there’s a good chance that won’t happen for another few months. Until then, over-ear headphone aficionados can grab a pair of the Apple AirPods Max — or a pair of the Sony WH-1000XM5 that just launched last year.
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