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Sound7
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Design7
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Comfortability7
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Size and weight5.5
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Connectivity7
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Power7
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Price7.2
This one is a bit weird because it’s a review of a product but also a plea for another product.
Bear with me.
The Dyson OnTrac headphones have recently fallen onto my desk, but are a bit late to the party for a full-blown YouTube review, so I’ve decided instead to take to these digital pages and tell you why this impressively brave product is simply making me think of an entirely different pair of headphones from a totally different brand.
It’s only fair I start with a mini-review of the Dyson OnTrac headphones, though. They deserve it, after all.
Dyson OnTrac specs and pricing
There’s no mention of driver size on the official OnTrac specs page, but Dyson is making serious noise about the fact its headphones have a frequency response of 6Hz to 21kHz. Other headphones, they tell us, only extend between 20 to 20,000 Hz.
The OnTrac are made from aluminium and offer four colour choices, although users can customise their pair further by ordering different coloured ear cushions and outer caps. The result is a pair of headphones that can be fully personalised, depending on your colour combo preferences.
They offer an impressive 55 hours of battery life, with a 30-minute charge delivering nine hours of playback. Bluetooth 5 is on transmission duties, although there’s no multipoint connectivity, which is a weird omission.
Active noise cancelling is fully ticked off, and there are eight mics to assist with removing unwanted external noise. The noise cancelling feature is turned on and off via touch controls, but Dyson thankfully saw it fit to include physical controls for everything else.
The OnTrac are suitably Dyson-priced at £449.99 in the UK and $499.99 in the US. You can buy them today.
A seriously brave product
I want to stop for a moment and acknowledge that Dyson has done something very brave with the OnTrac. This isn’t its first pair of headphones (who can forget the Zone with their crazy air purifier ‘travel visor’ attachment?), but this is still a brand that’s more known for its ability to dry your hands and clean your floor than it is to feed top quality audio into your ears.
The headphone market is fierce both in terms of competition and brand loyalty. To enter it with a brand-new pair of noise-cancelling headphones, you need to have something very special to show everyone.
That alone is a tough ask, but to enter the market with a pair of headphones that are priced at the premium end of the spectrum is tantamount to brand suicide. That might sound a bit over the top, but trust me, having reviewed headphones for many years, I wouldn’t want to do it myself. Sonos has recently demonstrated how hard that task is with the Ace headphones, and that’s a brand with serious cache in the audio arena.
So, in my humble opinion, Dyson’s decision to launch the OnTrac this year at a price point which dwarfs the tried-and-tested competition from the likes of Sony, Sennheiser, and Bose leaves just one question on the table.
Are the Dyson OnTrac any good?
They’re ok.
I like the fact you can customise them. They also look interesting and rather premium, even if, in the hand, they’re not quite as premium feeling as the price tag suggests they should be.
The OnTrac are also a very acquired taste on the head. For someone like yours truly, who is follically challenged, they look way too big and unusual for my taste when placed on my bonce. They’re a heavy pair of headphones, too – 66 grams heavier than AirPods Max, to be exact.
Thankfully, they’re not uncomfortable. Indeed, Dyson bills the OnTrac as offering all-day comfort, and you can wear them for long stretches without too much fatigue setting in. I just know they’ll be too heavy for a lot of people, given the comments I see about the porky AirPods Max whenever I cover them on my YouTube channel.
Part of the weight is, I think, due to the 55-hour battery performance. Dyson has decided to attach batteries to the headband, which aids comfort, but adds unnecessary heft. I’d take a regular 20-30-hour battery life if it meant a lighter pair of headphones.
The case isn’t great, either. It’s better than the AirPods Max case, but that still sets the lowest bar possible. Dyson has, at least, seen it fit to cover as much of the headphones as possible, but it remains more of a slip-on jacket than it does a proper headphone case, and it makes an already huge pair of headphones appear even more colossal; they’re a pain in the backside to travel with, as a result.
The sound produced by the OnTrac is ok. It’s not mind-blowing – just good enough with most genres of music. I look for excitement when it comes to consumer headphones; those that I place on my head and which immediately put a smile on my face get top marks – the OnTrac didn’t do that. The quoted frequency range is indeed impressive, but it doesn’t seem to translate to a very engaging listening experience.
The noise cancelling is pretty good, but it should be for the price. The transparency mode (where the outside world is let in with a double tap of the earcup) is passable, but nowhere near as good as AirPods Max. But, then, nothing is.
The Dyson OnTrac headphones are, technically, just ok. That’ll be enough for fans of the brand, but it just makes me think of AirPods Max 2, and the opportunity Apple has.
Why we need a BIG AirPods Max 2 update
The Dyson OnTrac headphones demonstrate that Apple can get away with high prices and weird design choices (although, admittedly, not quite as weird as the OnTrac) for its headphones. A lot of people have bought – and continue to buy – AirPods Max and Apple hasn’t seen it fit to update them (or the pricing) since 2020.
Compare the OnTrac against AirPods Max and I completely understand why most people would pay a bit more and opt for the latter. The AirPods Max sound (objectively) better, have better noise cancelling, and have the best transparency mode on the market. Dyson also doesn’t have any form of an ecosystem (unless you count their hand dryers and vacuum cleaners) and, as mentioned earlier, isn’t known for its prowess in consumer audio.
Apple can – and should – smash brands like Dyson in all of those areas. They do this, regularly, in other areas of the market, but AirPods Max have always been a frustrating product. A silly case, Lightning charging, and a preference for high-quality materials over all-day comfort have marred an otherwise fantastic pair of headphones.
There have been a lot of AirPods Max 2 rumours. Indeed, by the time you read these words, Apple’s next-generation over-ears might even be available to buy. But the rumours paint a picture of a follow-up that is nothing more than USB-C powered and customisable with a new array of colours. That isn’t enough.
I’ve talked about this before, but we need AirPods Max 2 to have a proper case, a more refined sound, USB-C charging, and a lower price – even if that means reducing the component quality slightly (which would in turn help with that troubling weight issue).
Final thought
I really admire Dyson’s bravery. The OnTrac headphones are weird, expensive, and don’t really live up to the hype. But they’re ok, and that’ll be enough for fans of the brand and for anyone who wants something that can be highly customised (visually) and which is different to the over-ear headphone stalwarts.
The established brands in the headphone market needn’t worry about this latest entrant, but it’s a timely reminder that Apple should be putting as much effort into the next generation of AirPods Max as possible.
Will Tim and co. do what I want them to do with AirPods Max 2? Probably not – at least, not if the rumours to date hold any substance. Therefore, if AirPods Max 2 are already in the can (which is likely) and are indeed the iterative change we’re expecting, AirPods Max 3 had better follow in the not-too-distant future with a much bigger update.
Before you go
