What Beats by Apple would mean for music, and you

(CNN) -- It's an odd pairing, really, the gadget-obsessed tech giant from Silicon Valley teaming up with hip-hop super producer Dr. Dre and music mogul Jimmy Iovine.

But late Thursday, reports surfaced that a $3.2 billion deal was in the works for Apple to scoop up Beats Electronics, the world's most popular maker of headphones and, more recently, the company behind a highly regarded music-streaming service.

Neither side has confirmed the deal, though Dre came dangerously close in a new video in which he declared himself "the first billionaire in hip-hop."

For fans of Apple, Beats, or both, the main question here is obvious: If the reports are true, what will it mean for me, the consumer?

Here are some educated guesses.

Deal ... or no deal?

First of all, analyst James McQuivey, who follows Apple and other tech companies for Forrester Research, isn't convinced that the deal will really go down.

"Given Apple's historical tight-fistedness with the contents of its huge treasure chest, it wouldn't be surprising if the company backed away," he said in a blog post.

But if it does happen, he speculates that it won't be simply about bringing the successful Beats under the Apple umbrella. Instead, Apple fans may get some new product no one is envisioning yet.

"I'd like to believe that (Apple) would team up with Beats to do something totally amazing and world-changing," he said. "Because we need some world changing much more than we need Apple to return its hard-earned cash to investors in the form of more dividends.

"So even if Apple doesn't buy Beats after all, the fact that the company is shopping encourages some of us to anticipate what it could spend its hard-earned money on next."

Among projects McQuivey envisions are Beats being part of an Apple-created health-and-fitness monitor (considered likely after Nike essentially punted the future of its FuelBand) or providing the audio on a headset to compete with Google Glass.

'Smart' headphones

For audiophiles, the marriage would, in some ways, be an ironic one. Apple, whose iconic earbuds have been knocked for delivering subpar sound, could be joined by Beats headphones, which have received similar criticisms.

"It is a fair assessment, and I lay the blame squarely on executive management," said Tyll Hertsens, editor at audio website Inner Fidelity, referring to Beats. "Their headphones had just way too much bass, as a general rule, and some models were particularly poor performers -- Solo and Solo HD. Build quality has gotten much better though; they're fairly well built headphones."

How Beats headphones changed the audio world

Apple has worked to address quality issues with its ear buds, which had begun going straight into the garbage, or at least storage, at the hands of many new iPod and iPhone customers.

When their new-generation EarPods rolled out in 2012, Engadget reviewer Joe Pollicino may not have been damning them, but he certainly offered faint praise.

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