Beats 360

Pros & Cons

- Comfortable all-new Beats over-ear design with swappable earcup and headband cushions

- IPX4 splashproof and sweat-resistant

- Excellent sound

- Strong noise-canceling only slightly behind AirPods Max 2's

- Top-tier voice-calling performance, more natural-sounding transparency mode

- Spatial audio with head-tracking, auto-switching between Apple devices and always-on Siri

- More Android-friendly than Apple's AirPods

- No wired audio option

- No wear-detection sensors

- No Apple H2 chip

- Fairly pricey

Four or five years ago, there was chatter that Apple was working on a lighter, sport version of the AirPods Max. Those sporty AirPods Max never materialized, but Beats, which has been owned by Apple for over 10 years, is positioning its new 360 over-ear headphones ($350) as a hybrid sports model. So maybe there was a grain of truth to the rumor after all, even if the device morphed into a Beats product.

Either way, there’s a lot to like about the Beats 360. They deliver top-tier sound, noise cancellation and voice-call performance in an IPX4 water-resistant modular design with easily swappable earcup and headband cushions available in various colors. Overall, I was quite impressed, though they lack a few features typically found in today’s premium noise-canceling headphones, including wired listening.

Read more: Best Headphones of 2026

Beats 360 design

Beats has always had ties with major sports figures, and often teases upcoming products using athletes, as it did with these headphones, so it’s not surprising it’s going with a sports slant. Oliver Schusser, president of Beats, told me that many of its athlete brand ambassadors, including NBA great Lebron James, are much more invested in using Beats products than just making an appearance with them in a promotional photo or video shoot. They often provide feedback about the product’s design and performance, and some of it can be critical. However, he says in the case of the 360s, “they’ve never gotten such great feedback” from the athletes. (Fair enough, but I’m not sure any of them have tried as many headphones as I have.)

Again, the headphones are IPX4 splashproof and sweat-resistant, which is common for earbuds, but rare for full-size headphones — at least officially. More folks, not just power lifters, are using over-ear headphones at the gym, including the AirPods Max. Some people even like to run with them, which I personally don’t like to do, particularly in hot weather (they do work well as ear muffs in colder weather), but the 360s are on trend.

Aside from the IPX4 rating, the 360s’ other unique feature is the ability to customize their look with swappable earcup and headband cushions. Each pair comes with a Knit Performance Kit that matches the headphones, which are available in four core colors: black, cloud, pink and sky blue. Additional Cushion Kits normally cost $50, but Beats is selling them for $10 at launch — a solid deal.

A few other over-ear headphones, including Nothing’s CMF Pro Headphones ($80), have swappable earpads, and the customization option is appealing, especially when it doesn’t cost too much. As Schusser remarked, “If you buy one or two extra cushions and headbands, it feels like you’ve bought two or three pairs of headphones overall.”

The Knit earcups come in a variety of colors, but you can also buy faux leather UltraPlush cushions that feel like the ones on the Beats Studio Pro. The UltraPlush are only available in two colors, black and cloud. What’s interesting is that the headphones have a built-in sensor to recognize the kind of earcup cushions you’re using and calibrate the sound, noise cancellation and transparency mode accordingly.

When I first saw the headphones in leaked photos and in person, they looked a little cheap to me. But when you pick them up and hold them, they look and feel more premium. At 294.5 grams, they weigh more than the 260-gram Beats Studio Pro headphones. They also seem sturdily built, with a smooth metal slider in the yoke and no creaky plastic. They fold flat, but don’t fold up like the Studio Pros.

Even if certain athletes including FC Barcelona’s Lamine Yamal are setting fashion trends by hanging their 360 headphones on the outside of their luxury handbags (he apparently has a collection), I like the included soft carrying pouch and used it to protect the headphones when I had them in my not-so-luxurious backpack. Instead of a zipper, the pouch seals shut with magnets, which makes it easy to open and close.

Some people may think the headphones clamp a little bit too much initially, but you can work the headband in to reduce that by stretching it open a bit, and I ultimately found them slightly more comfortable to wear than the Studio Pro.

Like other Beats headphones, the 360 have physical control buttons, which I appreciate, and they have a nice, clean look to them. My only small design gripe is that the earcups have a soft-to-the-touch silicone finish on their inner half. It looks and feels nice, but I found a few strands of hair and other particles stuck to the silicone finish, so you may have to wipe it down from time to time.

Beats doesn’t recommend washing the knit cushions in the washing machine if you sweat on them a lot (yes, I asked about that). However, I stuck them in a little cloth laundry bag in the washing machine, and air-dried them afterward; they came out fine. That said, the memory foam could degrade with multiple washings; definitely keep them away from the dryer.

Custom Beats chip instead of Apple’s H2

Like the Studio Pro and some other Beats headphones and earbuds, these don’t use Apple’s H2 chip but rather a custom-designed Beats chip that’s equipped with Bluetooth 5.3. This allows the headphones to retain certain Apple-exclusive features such as always-on Siri, personalized spatial audio with head tracking and auto-switching between Apple devices signed into your iCloud account, while also being more compatible with Android devices. Unlike Apple’s headphones and earbuds, Beats headphones and earbuds can link to the Beats app for Android, which allows for fast pairing, firmware updates and access to the headphone’s Find Hub feature for Android, plus auto-switching between compatible devices.

However, for Apple users, they’re missing some features found on the latest AirPods models, including a Conversation Awareness mode that lowers the volume of your music and shifts from noise canceling to transparency mode once you start talking so you can have a conversation without taking off the headphones. The 360s are also missing Live Translation and several other features found on H2-equipped AirPods.

These headphones don’t have wear detection sensors, either, so your music doesn’t automatically pause when you take them off. The 360s do have an auto-off idle timeout in case you accidentally leave them on, like I did a few times. It varies with what mode the headphones are in, but Beats told me the headphones will power down after seven hours of inactivity when noise-canceling is enabled. That number is geared toward frequent travelers who like to sleep on planes with noise cancellation on but no audio playing. It would be nice to have adjustable auto-off options in the settings, as Sony headphones do.

Also, as I previously mentioned, the headphones don’t support wired listening with a USB-C cable or a USB-C-to-3.5mm cable. That’s kind of a bummer, but Beats says it’s because the headphones are designed like true wireless earbuds, with a battery in each earcup that allows for balanced weight distribution and only a thin wire running between the cups.

Best-sounding Beats to date

Missing feature gripes aside, these are the best-sounding Beats headphones I’ve tested to date. They have new custom-designed dual-magnet dynamic drivers that, combined with their amp, deliver 12 decibels higher output than the Beats Studio Pro, which means they play louder.

In my tests, they sounded cleaner with better overall clarity and better defined bass than the Studio Pros. At times, I felt the bass was a bit more subdued than what I was used to with earlier Beats headphones, with more balanced sound overall. But fear not: The bass energy is there once you hit a track with heavy bass. It hits hard but isn’t boomy.

I can’t say these sound better than the Airpods Max 2 and some other premium headphones I’ve tested. It’s all a bit subjective, but some higher-end models just seem to have a bit more natural, pure quality to the sound with slightly more depth and airiness to it. For instance, I compared the Beats 360 to the new Sonos Ace Ultra headphones, which retail for $449 and offer slightly more elevated sound that just has a little more texture and richness to it.

With all the powerful digital processing in today’s Bluetooth headphones, it can be hard to make them sound as good as a quality pair of analog wired headphones — or even come close. The AirPods Max 2’s audio quality improves noticeably when you use Apple’s $39 USB-C-to-3.5mm cable.

All that said, the Beats 360s deliver the sound you’d expect from headphones in this price range. I don’t think many people will be disappointed with them. However, some folks may be a little miffed that there’s no way to manually tweak the sound as you can with the latest AirPods, as Apple now includes a basic three-band equalizer in iOS 27 for AirPods equipped with the H2 chip.

Improved active noise canceling from Studio Pro

Thanks to a new microphone array and the more powerful processor running things, Beats says the 360s’ noise-canceling performance is 1.75x better than the Studio Pro’s noise-canceling capability. With the improvement, it’s now top tier and comes pretty close to what you get with the AirPods Max 2 and AirPods Pro 3.

The ANC expertly muffled cabin noise on my plane ride from San Francisco to New York and also ably tamped down ambient noise on the streets of New York and on the subway. They also did a solid job with midrange and higher frequencies, where people’s voices live.

In my tests at home with a noisy HVAC unit, the AirPods Pro 3 and AirPods Max 2 did a tad better. I noticed a faint whooshing sound with the Beats 360s that wasn’t there with the AirPods models, so there are some nuances to the ANC performance between the 360 and the AirPods Max 2 and AirPods Pro 3.

If I were running with the headphones, I’d probably turn off the noise cancellation and activate transparency mode because you’ll hear some footfalls otherwise. The transparency mode does sound more natural than the transparency mode on the Studio Pros and approaches the quality of the transparency mode you get with Apple’s latest AirPods, which remains the gold standard.

Top-tier voice-calling performance

Beats says it’s not only equipped the 360 headphones with a three-microphone beam-forming system, but a completely new voice-processing architecture built around a new system-on-a-chip platform that has nearly twice the processing power of the previous generation of Beats’ proprietary platform, along with new AI-trained algorithms.

The results are truly impressive. Callers said they could hear almost no background noise when I spoke to them from the noisy streets of New York and that my voice sounded mostly clear. In windier conditions, the headphones also did well, with callers saying they could hear a touch of wind noise that sounded like faint static, but it wasn’t intrusive. These are easily among the best headphones I’ve tested for voice-calling performance. (Check out a voice-recording I did on the noisy streets of New York in my companion review video.)

Beats 360 final thoughts

Although I do have a few gripes around their lack of a wired option (not having it can be problematic on a plane) and wear-detection sensors, there’s a lot to like about the Beats 360 headphones in both design and performance. Not only do they deliver excellent sound quality, but they also feature high-grade noise canceling capabilities and top-notch voice-calling performance. And finally, battery life is also good — it’s rated for up to 32 hours of playback time at moderate volume levels with noise canceling on, which is eight hours better than the Studio Pro’s battery life.

At $350, these headphones are pricey, but the thing about Beats headphones these days is that their list price tends to be a lot higher than their street price. The Beats Studio Pro also listed for $350 when they first came out (they remain on the market at $300 list), but it wasn’t too long before they were selling for $250 or less in flash sales.

While the initial deal here may be on the cushion kits at $10 a pop, I expect the pricing for the core headphones to follow a similar path to that of the Studio Pro. In other words, we should see some nice discounts crop up as we head into the holiday buying season, which would make them a good value.