I’ve spent weeks with the Beats 360 — the design and sound both won me over jacob.krol@futurenet.com (Jacob Krol) | usagoldmines.com

Beats has been making over-ear headphones since 2008, when the original Beats Studio launched, and the Studio line has remained central to the brand ever since. The Studio Pro aren’t going anywhere, but the new Beats 360 are something different entirely.

Beats calls them “the next chapter” of its headphones story — and after spending the past few weeks with the 360, that confidence doesn’t feel misplaced. These aren’t just the Studio Pro with a new coat of paint; instead, they represent an entirely new direction for the brand.

“We wanted to create a new ID, a new look, and a new over-ear headphone for a different purpose,” Oliver Schusser, Apple’s VP of Music, Sports, and Beats, told me.

That idea is baked into practically every part of the 360. Beats set out to build much more streamlined headphones that are designed to move with you throughout the day, and feel at home everywhere from the gym to the office to an airplane.

And the first thing you notice is just how light they are.

Weighing in at 295.4 grams, they’re super-cozy, and after about 20 to 30 minutes of breaking them in, you might forget they’re on your head. Compared to the AirPods Max at about 386.2 grams or Sony’s WH-1000XM6 at 254 grams, these fall somewhere in the middle, but they actually feel far more streamlined than the number suggests.

The profile itself is remarkably thin, too. The drivers sit slightly farther from the ear than you’d expect on headphones this size — they’re custom-built for the 360 — but the overall design feels compact, and balanced on your head.

The controls are split between the two sides, too. The left earcup houses the power button and lets you cycle through listening modes, while the right handles volume and playback. There’s also a USB-C port on the left for charging.

It’s a simple setup, and after a few weeks, it becomes second nature.

That lightness wasn’t an accident — it was the whole brief. Schusser told me the 360 came out of watching how people actually live with their headphones.

“We wanted to create a new ID, a new look, and a new over-ear headphone for a different purpose. And that purpose is for people who live a very active lifestyle who are on the go,” Schusser said. “We wanted to build the perfect headphone for an active lifestyle. And of course, we wanted it to have all the great ingredients of Beats. We wanted it to look cool, sound amazing, but also be really light, be really comfortable, be water and sweat resistant.”

And that’s where the rest of the design starts to make sense.

The earcups and headband are fully customizable — swappable across the four launch colors (Black, Cloud, Pink, and Sky) and two distinct cushion materials: Performance Knit, built for workouts and noticeably more breathable, and UltraPlush, the more classic Beats feel with a tighter seal, using the same engineered leather found on the Studio Pro and Solo 4.

The Performance Knit cushion makes a real difference when you’re moving around, while UltraPlush gives you that more traditional over-ear headphone feel. You can also pull either cushion off entirely to wipe them down or toss them in the washer.

Then there’s the IPX4 sweat and water resistance, a first for Beats over-ear headphones, and not super common in the wider market. It’s a small detail that reinforces the whole idea behind the 360: these are headphones you can take to the gym, rather than ones you have to leave at home or risk damaging.

None of that customization happened by accident. Schusser said the swap mechanism was one of the more satisfying engineering wins on the whole project.

“Our engineers have come up with this really cool, simple way to sort of swap out the cushions, and it takes literally seconds, and it just makes the headphones so versatile and so flexible, and you can customize and personalize, and it’s amazing,” he told me.

He’s right about the versatility, as swapping earcups takes seconds, and the difference between the two cushion materials is noticeable. It’s a genuinely useful bit of modularity, not just something that looks good on a spec sheet, when you consider wearing these to a workout class, getting sweaty, and the swapping earcups as you head into the office.

A new sound for a new Beats

On the sound side, Beats built a bespoke acoustic platform for the 360, with custom drivers using three-layer diaphragms and dual neodymium ring magnets in each earcup — a purpose-built audio setup rather than a carryover from the Studio.

Beats says that architecture, paired with its most advanced ANC to date, delivers up to 1.75x more total noise cancellation than the Studio Pro, alongside Adaptive EQ, Personalized Spatial Audio with dynamic head tracking, and Dolby Atmos support.

Previous Beats headphones have delivered a hefty low end, but that signature has evolved, and comes into real focus with the 360. There’s less bass-heavy weight than on the Studio, but the payoff is that at practically any listening volume distortion is nearly nonexistent, and separation stays excellent across genres.

Take Further On Up the Road by Bruce Springsteen — I listened to this while on a plane with Active Noise Cancellation engaged, at about 70% volume, and couldn’t hear any engine noise. The track opens with a strong, crisp snare and bass drum before Springsteen’s vocals come in over the guitar, with background vocals filling in behind. It’s a great showcase for what the onboard audio can do.

For a modern pop test, Olivia Rodrigo’s Expectations pairs low end and high end almost from the first bar, as synth and drums kick in before her vocal takes center stage. Spatially, the head-tracked playback is genuinely impressive here, both indoors and while walking around outside.

Transparency mode is strong, too. It’s a little behind the AirPods Max in terms of how much outside sound it lets through, but what comes through the 360 sounds very natural. Voices don’t have that overly processed or artificial quality you can sometimes get from transparency modes, and for 349.99 / £299.99 / AU$499.99 headphones, they punch above their weight.

Talking of weight, the 360 aren’t the lightest headphones out there, but the ergonomics carry it — an even distribution between the earcups keeps the headband thin, and makes these feel far cozier than the spec sheet suggests.

The Beats chip is a bigger deal than it sounds

Connectivity comes from a custom-designed Beats chip, which is built off Apple’s own silicon work, and which is now in its fourth generation. As I’ve reported previously, that’s a significant unlock for the Beats team, letting it appeal equally to Apple and Android users rather than picking a side.

Just like AirPods and past Beats products, the 360 pair quickly and sync across your Apple devices via iCloud, so you can go from listening on an iPhone or iPad to jumping into a meeting on a MacBook Pro almost instantly. On Android, you get Fast Pair support through Google’s standard, and the Beats app for Android mirrors most of the same controls.

Each earcup functions as its own self-contained unit, housing its own audio, connectivity, and battery components. It’s another example of Beats rethinking the architecture around this new purpose.

There are nine onboard microphones in total: eight dedicated to active noise cancellation and three for voice pickup, with two shared between the systems. They work alongside an onboard AI model to handle voice detection, voice-assistant requests, and the handoff between ANC, Transparency mode, and Adaptive Audio.

Battery life is rated at up to 32 hours with Adaptive EQ when ANC and Transparency mode are off, and still up to 32 hours with ANC and Personalized Spatial Audio switched on. That’s a claim I’ve been testing throughout my time with the 360, including travel, and so far the battery life has held up well.

Beats has always leaned into limited-edition drops and collaborations, and the 360’s whole design seems built for exactly that kind of expansion — and Schusser didn’t hide the intent. “We’re going to do a lot of drops,” he said.

As mentioned, these headphones cost $349.99 in the US, £299.95 in the UK, and $499.95 in Australia, and rather than positioning the 360 as a replacement, Beats is keeping the Studio Pro around too, now at a reduced $299.99 / £249.95 / AU$479.95.

Beyond the four core colorways, Beats also sells standalone cushion kits in six Performance Knit colors — adding Navy and Volt — plus two UltraPlush options. These are priced at $49.99 / £49.95 / AU$49.95, but are available at an introductory price of $9.99 / £9.95 / AU$14.95 through October 31.

Asked where the color strategy could go next, Schusser pointed straight at sports: “This is actually a perfect product for […] team colors.”

It all makes the customization options more interesting than simply picking a color when you buy them. Right now, I have the Sky — light blue — 360 with a darker blue Performance Knit cushion and a black UltraPlush, and I swap the headband cushion to match whichever earcup I’m wearing that day. The 360 can change with you, whether that’s a different material for a workout, a new color for a season, or eventually one of the team-color drops Schusser hinted at.

I’ve really enjoyed my first few weeks with the Beats 360 — traveling back from Apple’s September event, testing them at home, then putting them through their paces on flights — and I’m impressed with the overall premium nature and this new direction for Beats.

The Beats 360 pair full sweat and water resistance with a thin, lightweight build and customizable earcups that let you land on a look you’re happy with — and one that can evolve, rather than feeling dated.

The sound is a modern take on the Beats signature — plenty of energy, but with clear separation and basically no distortion across the genres I’ve thrown at it — and paired with strong ANC, a natural-feeling Transparency mode, and a battery that’s held up through testing, there’s a lot packed into this new design.

There are a few misses. There’s no on-ear detection, so you have to turn these on and off manually, and there’s no support for wired playback.

Still, those omissions don’t really change what Beats is trying to do here. The 360 aren’t supposed to be another Studio Pro. This is Beats taking the over-ear headphone somewhere new — lighter, more customizable, more resistant to sweat and water, and built around an active, on-the-go lifestyle.

And after a few weeks with them, I can see the new ID Beats was talking about.