“It was always planned. It was always a five-year deal,” the chairman of Interscope/Geffen/AM Records said on his way back from the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. “It was a manufacturing distribution deal. We were with Monster for headphones and speakers. It was always a plan to turn into a freestanding company.” Beats will retain the rights to the headphone’s distinct sound technology, design and brand. While Monster plots a Beats-free future, Beats is continuing to expand outside of pricey headphones. Dre and Iovine have now aligned Hewlett-Packard PCs and laptops, HTC smartphones and a line of Chrysler's with the Beats brand. Iovine promised there’s no “weirdness” between the two camps.

“I don’t run my businesses like that. I just sort of do my own thing,” he said. “The growth of Beats has been so good. We are about the transmission of music, and sort of what we consider fixing the destruction of audio due to the digital revolution. This is important to us. We’re very proud of setting in motion. It’s important to Dre and I, and to people in the music business, for our sound to be transmitted properly.”

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– Gerrick D. Kennedy Twitter.com/GerrickKennedy

Photo: Beats by Dr. Dre. headphones. Credit: Timothy Hampson Sr.

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