Beats Electronics, the headphone manufacturer founded by rapper Dr. Dre and recording executive Jimmy Iovine, is buying MOG, a music subscription service akin to streaming services like Rdio.

The acquisition of MOG is said to be part of Beats' devotion to producing high-quality sound. MOG encodes its song files at 320 kilobits per second, higher than the 256 kbps standard set by Apple's (News - Alert) iTunes.

MOG's service is capable of playing at higher bit rates when bandwidth allows it or at lower rates when connectivity is slower.

"Beats By Dre was born out of a need to restore the emotional connection with music that was lost by the degradation of sound from the digital music revolution, starting with the weakest link in the experience at the time – headphones," Luke Wood, president and chief operating officer at Beats, said in a statement announcing the acquisition. "With MOG, we are adding the best music service to the Beats portfolio for the first truly end-to-end music experience."

Beats hopes to ultimately use MOG to create an end-to-end music experience meant to compete against bigger subscription services such as Rhapsody and Spotify (News - Alert). Currently, MOG's paying subscribers number in the tens of thousands, while Rhapsody and Spotify both boast subscribers numbering in the millions.

"It's too early I think, based on the scale of any of these services, to declare winners and losers," said Wood. "I think the future of the marketplace is going to be defined by the greatest product and the best user experience."

In August of 2011, phone manufacturer HTC (News - Alert) announced it was buying a 51-percent stake in Beats for $300 million. Since then, "Beats Audio" has turned up on a number of HTC's high-end devices, primarily devices in its One line of products, like the HTC One X.

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