Beats 360 are the Beats over-ear headphones I've always wanted, but they're no Studio Pro

Beats carved out a niche for itself in the midrange audio market, delivering popular headphone models like the Studio Pro and Solo 4. Each of those models was a tasteful tweak to the familiar Studio and Solo product lines, but it’s been a while since we saw a genuinely new pair of headphones from Beats. That changes with the Beats 360, a completely fresh pair of over-ear headphones designed to be customized with colorful ear cushions and headband inserts.

The Beats 360 are stylish, comfortable, water-resistant, and as versatile as any pair of over-ear headphones I’ve tested. They can handle a gym workout, a daily commute, and almost everything in between. The one thing the Beats 360 can’t handle is wired lossless audio, as these headphones use a truly wireless connectivity architecture. Are the design and comfort of the Beats 360 worth the sound quality trade-offs? Here’s what I learned after nearly two weeks of testing these $350 cans.

What’s it like to use the Beats 360?

The Beats 360 are a pair of lifestyle headphones with swappable ear cushions and headbands, complete with IPX4 water resistance and the ultimate customization experience.

Design

Beats 360 slot into the brand’s headphone lineup at the Studio Pro’s old price, and they solve key design issues with the 2023 over-ear headphones. While the Beats Studio Pro were over-ear headphones, they had tiny ear cushions, and barely any padding on the headband.

Unlike the AirPods Max, the headband cushion on the Beats Studio Pro can be replaced when it wears out, but there’s no fixing the comfort issues if they don’t fit your head shape well. The Beats 360, with a lightweight headband, swappable cushions, and better weight balance, finally solves these problems.

The modular design of the Beats 360 requires the over-ear headphones to be absurdly compact with the cushions removed. These headphones have a cylindrical plastic headband that connects the two audio drivers. The curved shape extends throughout the Beats 360’s design.

Beats offers ear cushion materials for the 360 headphones: Performance Knit and UltraPlush. The latter is the eco-leather material we’ve seen on prior Beats headphones, but the former is a new textile-thread material designed to absorb sweat. I’ve worn the Beats 360 for nearly two weeks, and one thing’s for certain — the ear cushions you choose matter (more than it looks like on the chart, anyway). The eco-leather UltraPlush cushions practically stick to your face, creating a strong seal and quite a bit of pressure. The Beats 360 have a stronger clamping force. Paired with the tight UltraPlush seal and strong ANC pressure, you may experience discomfort. The Performance Knit cushions are more comfortable in this regard.

I’ve tested both cushion types with the Beats 360, and it’s easy to see where each one shines. The UltraPlush cushions create a tight seal against your head — even for people wearing glasses or facial hair — which is better for active noise canceling.

Meanwhile, the Performance Knit are undoubtedly more comfortable and are better at wicking moisture away. This is crucial because the Beats 360 are IPX4 water-resistant. You can wear these headphones at the gym or during a drizzle and be just fine.

The Beats 360 weigh 294.5 grams, so they’re not the lightest headphones on the market. They are actually heavier than the Studio Pro, but the Beats 360 feel more comfortable to wear due to the lightweight headband. Almost all the headphone’s components are stashed inside the ear cups, as the Beats 360 uses a truly wireless design. Like wireless earbuds, the Beats 360 have a separate battery, antenna, and processor in each ear cup, enabling this balanced and modular design.

Beats finally shifted the on-headphone controls to the back side of the 360. Typically, Beats headphones have used the Beats logo on the side of an ear cup for controls, and this means you’re pushing into your head to change the volume or press play on a track. This time, the Beats 360 have a volume rocker and playback control button on the back side of the right ear cup, and a button that cycles through ANC modes on the back side of the left ear cup.

There’s also a power and Bluetooth pairing button that sits flush with the Beats 360 chassis on the back side of the left ear cup. Since it’s the only button that doesn’t protrude from the Beats 360, you won’t accidentally press it while reaching for the ANC button. However, this makes it hard to find with your fingers, and on my black Beats 360 review unit, it’s also hard to see in the dark.

Finally, there’s a single USB-C port on the bottom of the left ear cup. This is unfortunately only for power and charging. Without USB audio support or a 3.5mm jack, there’s no way to use the Beats 360 over a cable.

Features

The Beats 360 are powered by the brand’s fourth-generation proprietary chip, which integrates natively with iOS and Android. Android users can connect to and manage their Beats 360 headphones in the Beats app, while iPhone users can do the same in the Settings app.

Beats 360 support Personalized Spatial Audio with dynamic head tracking, but you need an iPhone with a TrueDepth camera to set it up. After configuring Personalized Spatial Audio for the first time, your custom profile will be synced between your Apple devices. However, it’s unavailable on Android and other third-party Bluetooth devices.

The headphones miss out on a custom equalizer. Instead, they have a single Adaptive EQ mode, which tunes the sound to your specific fit and ear seal rather than using a standardized preset — just like the AirPods Max does. Adaptive EQ only works when both ANC and transparency mode are off, and that Off setting isn’t available on the headphones by default. You’ll need to enable it in your iPhone’s Settings app, System Settings on a Mac, or the Beats app on Android before the listening mode button will cycle to it. Apple’s support page walks through the steps. It would’ve been nice to have manual EQ controls in addition to Adaptive EQ, though.

Beyond spatial audio and the Adaptive EQ mode, the Beats 360 are light on audio features. The headphones do support Apple’s Find My and Google’s Find Hub for tracking, and work with automatic switching on Apple and Android devices. Finally, you can use the Beats app for Android to add a battery and noise control widget to your home screen.

How does the Beats 360 connect?

Beats 360 exclusively relies on Bluetooth 5.3 for connectivity, using the AAC and SBC codecs. The headphones support Apple’s one-touch pairing and Google Fast Pair. Using iCloud pairing and Android pairing, the Beats 360 will automatically pair with every device you own in each ecosystem. While Beats 360 supports Apple’s Audio Sharing feature, they lack proper Auracast support elsewhere.

The Beats 360 do not have a 3.5mm jack, and they also lack USB audio support. The inbuilt USB-C port is only for charging. Beats own Studio Pro, which are $50 cheaper than the 360, have both USB-C wired audio support and a headphone jack. Without wired audio support or high-resolution Bluetooth codecs, the Beats 360 cannot play lossless audio.

I used the Beats 360 with iPhones, Android phones, and laptops. I didn’t experience any playback or connection issues throughout my review period, with one exception. When the Beats 360’s battery got extremely low, I was able to connect the headphones to my phone, but could not play audio. After a quick charge, everything behaved as normal.

How long does the Beats 360’s battery last?

The Beats 360 have modest battery life on paper, as they’re rated for 32 hours of playback time on a single charge. That figure accounts for ANC or Adaptive EQ being active, and you’ll probably get longer runtime with noise canceling off. Beats 360 supports fast charging, as a five-minute quick charge will get you one hour of battery life.

I enjoyed even longer battery life than advertised. For instance, I used ANC while wearing the Beats 360 during a nearly six-hour flight, and only used 14% battery.

How well do the Beats 360 cancel noise?

Beats uses eight MEMS microphones and its fourth-generation chip on the 360 headphones to attenuate environmental noise. The company claims that better microphone placement and a more powerful processor help the Beats 360 deliver 1.75 times more noise cancelation than the Studio Pro. Of course, they don’t tell us by what metric that is. Is it in decibels? Pascals? Perceived loudness? Marketing is often full of BS.

In the lab, the Beats 360 does a great job of attenuating noise under absolutely ideal conditions. With either the Performance Mesh or Ultra Plush pads, you can expect a level of ANC comparable to the other flagship ANC headphones, though certainly not on the same exact level of the Apple AirPods Max 2 or anything. But this is in the lab under ideal conditions — you’re likely never to experience this as performance suffers mightily if the pads get dislodged or you break the seal. Because the pads are twist-to-lock, you could easily prevent ideal performance and not realize it. Similarly, if you don’t tighten down the headphones a little bit, sometimes you can leave gaps between the pad and your head — disrupting the seal.

The Beats 360 are decent at physically blocking out noise, especially in realistic environments. When the noise cancellation unit is active, the headphones can silence the hum of an air conditioner, but voices can make their way through, as the Beats 360 struggle a bit in that range. I primarily rely on ANC headphones to make an airplane cabin bearable, and the Beats 360 are decent — but not great — in this regard. At medium-to-high volumes with ANC active, the Beats 360 can overpower the loud hum of an airplane cabin, albeit with a lot of pressure.

There are many over-ear headphones with better ANC than the Beats 360, both in terms of power and comfort. That said, many of the pairs I’m inclined to rank above it — like the AirPods Max, Bose QuietComfort Ultra Gen 2, and the Sony WH-1000XM6 — cost more than the Beats 360.

How good is the Beats 360 Transparency mode?

These headphones have a much-improved transparency mode. When I’m wearing the Beats 360 with transparency active, it sounds like I’m not wearing headphones. I can hold a conversation and stay aware of my surroundings. It might’ve been nice to see an adaptive mode here, as a blend between the ANC and transparency modes. Transparency mode may be too good at times, as it picks up background chatter, nearby footsteps, and even my own breathing.

How do the Beats 360 sound?

With ANC or transparency mode on, the Beats 360 heavily over-emphasizes the bass, so kick drums and bass lines crowd out quieter details like hi-hats. Switching to the Off listening mode turns on Adaptive EQ, which reins in the bass so the rest of the mix comes through.

Reviewer’s notes

Editor’s note: this review uses a hover-enabled glossary to describe sound quality based on a consensus vocabulary. You can read about it here.

Can you use the Beats 360 for phone calls?

The Beats 360 have nine microphones in total. Eight handle active noise cancelation, and three beamforming mics pick up your voice on calls: one is dedicated to calls, while the other two pull double duty for ANC. Beats says it is using digital signal processors designed specifically for machine-learning algorithms to improve microphone quality. The headphones support speech enhancement and environmental noise suppression by default, helping the person on the other end of the call hear your voice rather than your surroundings.

Beats 360 microphone demo (Ideal conditions):

Should you buy the Beats 360?

I’ve pointed out quite a few Beats 360 flaws, and yet I’m certain these headphones are absolutely perfect for the right person. It’s surprising just how many people I notice in the gym wearing bulky over-ears without water resistance. The Beats 360 are built from the top down, specifically for this use case, from the truly wireless architecture to the IPX4 sweatproofing and interchangeable cushions.

Instead of buying a few pairs of earbuds or headphones for multiple purposes, the Beats 360 is a pair of wireless headphones you can use for (almost) everything. Like any audio product that tries to be a jack-of-all-trades, the Beats 360 makes compromises. The sound quality, and more importantly, the lack of wired lossless audio and manual EQ customization, is the biggest one.

But the headphones are more than serviceable. I left my AirPods Max behind for the Beats 360, and I didn’t miss a single feature. The AirPods Max do a handful of things better, but so do the Beats 360.

The $350 price of the Beats 360 is a bit steep considering the audio compromises, but I’m willing to bet discounts will bring these headphones down to the $300 sweet spot in no time.

An alternative I’d still recommend to the Beats 360 are the Beats Studio Pro headphones. Frequently on sale for under $200, the Studio Pro headphones have USB-C audio support and a 3.5mm jack, plus longer battery life. If a versatile selection of inputs, lossless audio, and longer battery life are important to you, consider the Studio Pro. On the flip side, if a comfortable fit and swappable ear cushions sound better for your daily life, don’t be afraid to grab the Beats 360.