Beats 360 headphones review: Modular, baby!

It's been a while since Beats has released new over-ear headphones with a totally new design

but that's what I have here, the Beats 360. They're kind of a whole new concept for Beats

so let's jump right into my review to find out what really impressed me about them

and what features I wish they had given their $350 price. Okay, way back when, like four or five years ago, there were some rumors that Apple was working on

a lighter sport version of the AirPods Max. Those sporty AirPods Max never turned up

but Beats, which has been owned by Apple for over 10 years, is positioning the 360 as a sports headphone

so maybe there was a green of truth to that rumor, though it morphed into a Beats product

Beats has always had ties with major sports figures and often teases upcoming products using athletes

as it did with this headphone, so it's not surprising it's going with a sports slant

The 360 is IPX4 splash-proof and sweat-resistant, which is common for earbuds

but it's rare for a full-size headphone to have a water-resistant design

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 couldn't do in hot weather

It's over 80 degrees in New York today. But the 360 is looking to capitalize on this trend

Aside from the IPX4 rating, the 360's other unique feature is the ability to customize its look with swappable earcup and headband cushions

You get a knit performance kit that matches the color of the headphones, which is available in four core color options, black, cloud, pink, and sky

Additional cushion kits cost $50, but at launch, Beech is selling them at the discounted price of $10, which is certainly a good deal

The knit ear cups come in a variety of colors, but you can also buy faux leather ultra plush cushions that feel like the ones on the Beech Studio Pro

The ultra plush are only available in two colors, black and cloud

What's interesting is that the headphones have a built-in sensor that detects what kind of ear cup cushion is on the headphone

and then calibrates the sound, noise cancelling, and transparency mode for whichever ear cup you're using

I like the headphones design as well as the whole concept of the swappable ear cup and headband cushions

Some people may think the headphones clamp a little bit too much initially but you can work the headband in to reduce that At 294 grams they weigh more than the 260 gram Beats Studio Pro headphones

but I ultimately found them slightly more comfortable wear than the Studio Pros. 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. That said, I do like their soft carrying pouch

instead of a zipper, it uses magnets, which makes the pouch easy to open and close

Like other Beats headphones, the 360 has physical control buttons, which I appreciate

and the headphone has a nice clean look to it. My only small design gripe is that the ear cups

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 adhering to the silicone finish

so you may have to wipe it down from time to time. Speaking of that, I asked Beats

about washing the knit cushions in the washing machine if you sweat on them a lot

They don't recommend it, but if you stick them in a cloth bag in the washing machine

and air dry them afterwards, they'll likely be fine, though the memory foam could degrade

with multiple washings. Keep them away from the dryer though. Okay, let's move on to performance

like the Studio Pro and some other Beats headphones and earbuds. These don't use Apple's H2 chip

but a custom design Beats chip. That chip is upgraded and Beats is calling it

its fourth generation tech platform. This allows the headphones to retain such Apple-exclusive features as always on Siri, personalized spatial audio with head tracking, and auto-switching between Apple devices signed into your iCloud account while being more friendly to Android devices

Unlike Apple's headphones and earbuds, Beats headphones and earbuds can link to the Beats app for Android, which allows fast pairing, firmware updates, and access to the headphones Find Hub feature for Android, plus auto-switching between compatible devices

However, for Apple users, there are some missing features found on the latest AirPods models, including 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 the headphones off your head

There's also no live translation feature and some other features found on H2 equipped AirPods

I should also point out that these headphones have no wear detection sensors so your music doesn automatically pause when you take your headphones off And a few times I forgot to turn off the headphones Also the headphones do not support wired listening with a USB cable or USB to 3 cable

That's kind of a bummer, but Beats says that's because the headphones are designed like true wireless earbuds

with a battery in each ear cup for balanced weight distribution and only a thin wire running between the two drivers

Those gripes aside, these are the best sounding Beats headphones I've tested to date

They have new custom designed dual magnet dynamic drivers. Combined with their amp deliver 12 dB 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 of course but some higher end models just seem to have a

bit more natural pure quality to their sound with slightly more depth to it and airiness to it still

the beats 360 deliver the sound you'd expect from a headphone in this price range i don't think many

people will be disappointed with it however some folks may be a little miffed that there's no way

to manually tweak the sound like you can with the latest AirPods as Apple now includes a basic

three-band equalizer and iOS 27 for AirPods equipped with the H2 chip. Okay, on to noise

canceling performance, which Beats says is 1.7 times better than the Studio Pro's noise canceling

With that improvement, it's now top tier and comes close to what you get with the AirPods Max 2 and

AirPods Pro 3. It did a good job muffling cabin noise on my plane ride from San Francisco to New

York and also did well tamping down ambient noise in the streets of New York and in the subway. I

also thought they did a solid job with mid-range 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 did a tad better

I noticed a faint whooshing sound with the Beats 360 that wasn't there with the AirPods models

so there are some small nuances to the ANC performance between the 360 and AirPods Max 2 and AirPods Pro 3 If I were running with the headphones I probably turn off the noise canceling and activate transparency mode because you will hear some footfalls when using noise canceling

The transparency mode does sound more natural than the transparency mode on the Studio Pro

and approaches the quality of the transparency mode you get with Apple's latest AirPods

which remains the gold standard. Last but not least, I was impressed with the voice calling

performance. 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 bit of wind noise that sounded

like faint static, but it wasn't too intrusive. All right, I'm in the streets of New York

the rather noisy streets of New York. We're down by the Holland Tunnel in downtown New York

I'm doing a voice recording to give you an idea of what my voice sounds like through these microphones with a lot of noise and the noise reduction

So let me know how clear my voice sounds or does it sound

That's my quick review of the Beats 360. Although I do have a few gripes around their lack of a wired option and wear detection sensors

there's a lot to like about them from both a design and performance standpoint

Not only do they deliver excellent sound quality, but their noise canceling and voice calling performance is top tier

And finally, battery life is also good. It's rated for up to 32 hours of playback time at moderate volume levels with noise cancelling on

which is eight hours better than the Studio Pro's battery life. 350 is a lot to pay for these headphones

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

but it wasn't that long before they were selling for closer to 200 in flash sales

While the initial deal here may be on the cushion kits at $10 a pop, I do expect 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. As always, let me know what you think about the Beats 360 and hit me up with any

questions in the comment section. Also, for a deeper dive into the headphone sound quality

check out my text review on CNET. I'm David Carnoy. Thanks for watching