Beats 360 Flagship Packs 1.75x Better ANC And A 32-Hour Battery For $350
Apple-owned Beats has unveiled the Beats 360, an all-new flagship set of over-ear wireless headphones priced at $349.99. Sitting right above the Studio Pro in the brand’s lineup, the new cans take direct aim at high-end competitors like Bose's QuietComfort Ultra 2nd Gen and Sony's WH-1000XM6 while introducing a modular, customizable physical design alongside beefed-up internal hardware.
The headline feature is a modular cushion system, which is a first for the Beats brand. Owners can swap out both the headband padding and ear cushions using magnetically aligned, snap-in attachments. To facilitate this, Beats offers replacement kits in up to six color options, depending on the material: Performance Knit (Black, Cloud, Pink, Sky, Navy, and Volt) and UltraPlus (Black, Cloud, Pink, and Sky). What's the difference?
Beats describes the Performance Knit cushions being crafted from plush memory foam and wrapped in a breathable knit for a light and airy feel, and the UltraPlus, which Beats stylizes without a space, as "seamless engineered leather" for all-day comfort.
Beyond the modular cushion system, Beats is touting a major improvement to active noise cancellation (ANC). Powered by eight microphones—out of nine total—Beats claims the ANC is 1.75x more powerful than the implementation on the Beats Studio Pro. According to Beats, it's the most advanced ANC to date.
The Apple-owned outfit also touts an all-new acoustic architecture featuring custom-designed, dual-magnet 40mm dynamic drivers equipped with sensitive three-layer diaphragms and paired with a custom high-dynamic-range amplifier.
Other features include support for Spatial Audio with dynamic head tracking (like Apple's AirPods Max 2), Dolby Atmos, a built-in accelerometer and gyroscope in the left earcup to track head movement, an adaptive EQ, and an IPX4 rating for sweat and water resistance, which is a first for a set of over-ear Beats headphones.
As for battery life, Beats says its new flagship headphones deliver up to 32 hours of playback, a metric it says can be achieved either with Adaptive EQ turned on and both ANC and Transparency mode turned off, or with ANC and Spatial Audio enabled. A quick 5-minute charge via USB-C purportedly nets an hour of playback.
You can preorder the Beats 360 now for $349.99. Beats 360 Cushion Kits run $49.99, though an introductory offer is making them available at a heavily discounted $9.99 rate.
