Beats has spent years watching people wear Studio Pros and Solo 4s into the weight room like they were armor. Spoiler: those cans were never built for sweat. Engadget’s Billy Steele just spent quality time with the fix—the Beats 360—and walked away with an 8.2/10 for a $350 pair that finally treats workouts as a first-class job, not a lifestyle filter.
The headline trick is customization with teeth. Twist off the entire ear cups (not just pads), swap the headband cushions, and Beats claims more than 250 color combinations if you mix and match. Two cushion materials ship into the story: Performance Knit for the gym, and UltraPlush (the pillowy Studio Pro vibe) for longer desk sessions. Extra Cushion Kits run about $50, with Knit packs in five colors plus a loud Volt yellow, and UltraPlush limited to black or white Cloud.
A true-wireless redesign that borrows Max energy
Visually, this is a clean break from classic Beats ovals. The slimmed headband nods at AirPods Max energy, and there is no cable between the cups—each side carries its own battery, antenna, and processing. New dual-magnet transducers and venting claim roughly 12 dB more driver power than Studio Pro guts. Steele found them surprisingly light, though the clamp still gets spicy on larger heads after long sessions.
Physical buttons live on both cups: listening mode and power on the left; volume and play/pause (with multi-click skip/call duties) on the right. Reliable? Yes. Easy to find by feel? Not really—three raised buttons sit at similar heights, so muscle memory is mandatory. The flat power button is especially hide-and-seek while worn.
Apple ecosystem polish, Android almost there
On iOS you get the usual Beats/AirPods buffet: one-touch and iCloud pairing, automatic switching, Audio Sharing, Find My, hands-free Siri, Personalized Spatial Audio with head tracking. Android lands Fast Pair, Audio Switch, Find Hub mapping, and assistant long-press—but you still need the Beats app for customization, widgets, Locate My Beats, and firmware.
What is missing will annoy flagship shoppers. There is no wear detection (gyro/accel are busy with Spatial Audio), so auto-pause is out. Live Translation, Conversation Awareness, and Personalized Volume never show up. And in a move that will make audiophile cable people hiss: no wired listening and no USB-C lossless path. Beats went all-in wireless.
Bass-forward tunes, serious ANC, marathon battery
Sound stays proudly Beats: powerful low end with more restraint than the brand’s early thump era, plus enough mid/high detail that textured guitars and synths do not get steamrolled. Adaptive EQ quietly retunes when ANC/Transparency are off. Spatial Audio with Personalized profiles works; Steele often left it off because bass got too bossy.
ANC is pitched as Beats’ strongest yet—about 1.75× Studio Pro “total noise cancellation,” nine mics, adaptive monitoring of fit and room. Steady drone noise (HVAC, white-noise machines) gets handled; human voices still poke through like they do on most rivals. Calls use a heavier AI speech stack: usable, clear enough for colleagues, not pristine studio glass.
Battery claim: up to 32 hours with ANC or Adaptive EQ on—eight hours past Studio Pro’s ANC figure. Steele’s unit still showed ~47% after 24 hours of testing, which matches Beats’ habit of under-promising longevity.
IPX4 is the quiet killer feature
Removable pads are not unique anymore. IPX4 sweat/splash resistance on over-ears still is. That rating plus knit gym cups is why the 360 exists as a category play against Bose QuietComfort Headphones (~$359): Bose usually wins pure ANC and control ergonomics, but it will not wear a splash rating to leg day.
Geeknewz take
The Beats 360 is not trying to dethrone Sony XM6 musicality or Bose silence. It is trying to be the rare premium over-ear that survives a HIIT class, then swaps to UltraPlush for Slack. Skip them if you need a cable, auto-pause, or feather-light clamp on a big head. Grab them if you hate earbuds, love color kits, and want Apple/Android pairing that does not melt when you sweat. At under $400 with an 8.2 from Engadget, that is a very Beats-shaped win.
Source: Engadget (Billy Steele)