Dyson is announcing its second pair of headphones today. The company’s quirky first effort, the Dyson Zone, focused on combining air purification and noise-canceling headphones into a single product. But this time Dyson is erasing the Bane mask and betting everything on customization.
The new $499.99 OnTrac headphones have replaceable ear cups and earcups, allowing you to completely change their style far beyond what is possible with products from other manufacturers. I’ve seen enough silicone covers and stickers for the Apple AirPods Max to know that people are eager to put their own stamp on the headphones.
The core of OnTrac — the headband, rotating gimbal arms, and controls (with joystick) — are quite similar to the Zone. The headband still has three lumps; the left and right contain battery cells, while the middle one is just regular soft head damping. It’s the outer covers where Dyson starts to mix things up.
The headphones come in four different colors. Basically, you choose the color you want the headband to be – because pretty much everything else can be customized later. “CNC Aluminum” has a gray finish with bright yellow ear tips; “CNC Copper” features a purple headband and matching earcups with shiny copper earrings; “Ceramic Cinnabar” has a light red (bordering pink) headband, matching matte earcups, and dark eartips. Then there’s the “CNC Black Nickel” and as the name suggests, this one is all black and looks tame compared to the rest of the lineup.
Of the ones I saw at the briefing in New York, CNC Aluminum appealed to me the most. The silver and yellow combination just gives me a fun audiophile vibe. The OnTrac earcups are foam, and Dyson will offer them in a total of seven different colors, plus seven different styles of outer cups. The caps come off with a twisting motion that only took a few tries to get down. Both metallic and matte options are available for $49.99 per pair. Feel free to mix colors as you see fit for some pretty crazy combinations. Dyson says there are “over 2,000 customizable color combinations for outer caps and ear cups”.
So the name of the game here is an unprecedented level of customization. But it takes more than that to justify a $500 pair of headphones. To that end, Dyson claims the OnTrac provides “best-in-class” noise cancellation with an eight-microphone system, and as with the Zone, you can monitor how much noise is around you with a companion smartphone app.
Another strong point is the long battery life: these headphones last for up to 55 hours of continuous listening on a single charge. That easily blows away Apple, Bose and Sony, but falls short of the 60-hour Sennheiser Momentum 4, which also provides active noise cancellation. There’s on-head detection so the headphones automatically pause music when you take them off.
The OnTracs feature 40mm drivers that “reproduce frequencies from as low as 6Hz all the way up to 21,000Hz, delivering deep sub-bass you can feel and clean highs at the top end of the frequency range. And these speakers are angled towards your ears for a more direct sound delivery. You can connect via a 3.5mm to USB-C adapter for wired listening, but there’s no separate headphone jack. In terms of Bluetooth codecs, OnTrac supports SBC, AAC and the lesser-known LDHC for better wireless audio. Unfortunately, it only works with selected phones from Motorola, OnePlus, Nothing and a few other brands. The Samsung and Google crowds are out of luck.
Dyson includes a collapsible case with OnTrac cans that offers limited protection; there is plenty of room for water or debris to get in, so that’s something to keep in mind.
Dyson is clearly not ready to give up on the headphone market after its very unorthodox first swing. I think the OnTrac headphones have a much greater sense of wider appeal. They have the same “I’ve never seen headphones like this” effect as the Zone – but without the “I’d never see them worn in public” part. I’m very curious to see how they fare once you factor in the unique style and focus on sound quality and ANC. Can they really hold their own against the heavyweight competition? I will share more about this soon.
For now, here are some more photos for those who would never bother to buy an OnTrac but still want to see it up close.
Photo (except main image) by Chris Welch / The Verge