An Early Beats Employee Who Sued The Company For Cutting Him Out Of Royalties Is Now Selling His Own $299 Headphones

As talk of Apple buying Beats was building, one early Beats employee was not too thrilled about the deal. Steven Lamar sued the company, claiming he played a large role in developing the Beats headphones and deserved four percent of royalties on headphone sales.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, he was even called the "father of Beats headphones."

Well now Lamar is taking matters into his own hands with a new Beats competitor called Roam, which is releasing a $299 pair of earbuds called Ropes. In the press release for Ropes, Lamar calls himself a "Beats by Dr. Dre co-founder."

The Ropes earbuds are designed to act as a necklace when you're not listening to music, and according to Lamar, they offer the most customizable sound with a five-band equalizer and presets for different kinds of music. You can adjust all of these settings through the supplementary Roam EQ app.

"Everybody is different. Everybody hears things differently in the left ear than the right ear," Lamar told The Verge. "I'm going to give you an app to personalize it the way you want to hear it."

The one downside with the personalized settings is that it takes up a lot of battery life, so it'll only last for six hours. The headphones will continue to work, but you won't be able to keep adjusting the settings until you recharge.

And you'll have to wait a bit to decide for yourself how incredible these Ropes earbuds are. Lamar has yet to actually display any hardware, saying that he plans to show them later this month and is hoping to ship them by the holiday season. You can pre-order the buds from Roam's site.