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These might be the best looking headphones ever I’ve ever set my sights – and I’ve tested Very Of headphones. Think about the appeal of a pair of Beats, but for a 2024 audience. They look a lot like Dyson Zones, but they’re more sophisticated. Although quite heavy, the ear caps are much thinner than the Zones, so, they don’t pop out of your head like you’re a walking Cyberman.
However, it’s the colors that really make them popular, offering a unique proposition for wireless headphones. You can buy them in four different color combinations, with a different headband color, a different ear cushion color, and a different ear cap color (in two materials).
Default color combinations include a Prussian blue headband with CNC copper ear caps and Prussian blue ear cushions; a CNC aluminum headband with yellow ear cushions and aluminum ear caps; a ceramic cinnabar headband with deep iron cushion and ceramic cinnabar cap; and a CNC Black Nickel colorway with dark iron cushions and nickel ear caps.
But this is where it gets exciting. You don’t have to stick to base ear cap colors and ear cushions. If you want to get creative and really personalize your gear, there are over 2,000 different possible color combinations to choose from. The super quirky among us can even use four different hat and cushion colors in a bold Frankenstein creation.
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There are seven different ear cap colors, including blue, khaki, and titanium, as well as seven different ear cushion colors, including ultra blue, oyster pink, Prussian blue, and more. Dyson has a digital lab where you can visualize all the different color combinations in 360 degrees, giving you a completely customized look.
However, these additional caps and cushions are sold separately, so you’ll have to pay more per ear cap and cushion set. The new pair of ear cushions and ear caps are priced at £49.99 per set.
Swapping is easy, you simply turn either the ear cap or ear cushion in a counterclockwise direction until it clicks and then it will come off. You can then change the ear cap or ear cushion to the color of your choice by clicking and rotating it clockwise. It’s really easy to do with a little practice.
I’m testing the CNC Copper color combination with a Prussian blue headband and black ear cushions, but whatever color combination you choose, the Dyson Ontrack are a striking pair of headphones that look absolutely fantastic.
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The micro-suede ear cushions are incredibly comfortable, have no harsh clamping force, and the multi-pivot gimbal arms help relieve any excess ear pressure. Fully adjustable, the arms extend out in stages, allowing you to gauge how far they extend. However, they aren’t the most secure, so they wouldn’t be good for running – any serious movement of my head, and the canes were close to falling off.
What I really liked about the design was that Dyson decided to put two high-capacity batteries in the headband, so it feels like the weight is distributed more evenly on the sides of my head rather than in my ears. Due to the positioning of the batteries at the bottom of the headband, Dyson is able to deliver a good amount of juice to the headphones. You get 55 hours per charge (or two weeks’ worth of listening), even with ANC on.
The Ontrack never felt uncomfortable or too heavy, even after a few hours of wear, and the soft cushioning on the middle portion of the headband helped it sit gently on my scalp.
However they don’t fold up or away, meaning the headphones are less likely to get caught in your hair. The slide-in carrying case is another nice design choice – headphones with hard shell cases took me a long time to figure out how to use, as you have to fold the ear cups a certain way to fit inside. In contrast, the Dyson headphones fit easily into the accompanying case.
Control
The controls on the Dyson Ontrack are almost exactly the same as the Dyson Zone. You can also double tap (rather firmly) on either ear cup to switch between active noise cancellation and transparency mode (more on this below). Meanwhile, there’s a circular joystick on the right ear cup, which controls audio – toggling it up or down increases or decreases the volume; Pressing once pauses and resumes playback; Moving it left and right skips a track, and pressing and holding it activates the voice assistant. It is very easy to use.
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The compartments also switch off after 30 minutes of use. These feature on-ear detection, so your music will pause when you remove the headphones from your ears and resume when you put them back on.
active noise cancellation
These may be some of the best noise-canceling headphones I’ve ever tested — as good as (and maybe even better than) the Bose QuietComfort Ultra. I could barely hear a thing with active noise-cancellation on. It felt like I was in a black hole, devoid of sound. The only thing that remained was the sound of racing cars outside and my family cheering for the Team GB athletes while watching the Olympics below.
How is it so good? Dyson says the OnTrack features a custom ANC algorithm that uses eight microphones inside the headphones to sample the external sound 384,000 times a second, canceling out up to 40 dB of unwanted noise. This is quite remarkable.
The Transparency mode was also good, but not as good as the AirPods Max. Although a large amount of sound was let in, it suppressed some outside noise. However, it didn’t affect my nerves much – it’s still good, but not the best. However, I did notice that there was no noticeable hiss when the transparency mode was on, which I hate when it comes to some wireless headphones.
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However, ANC is not adaptive, so it won’t change according to your environment. You’ll have complete silence when you listen to your headphones with ANC on.
sound
Although these don’t have lossless audio, they still sound really good. These feature 40 mm, 16-ohm neodymium speaker drivers, which reproduce frequencies ranging from 6 Hz to 21,000 Hz. This means you get deep sub-bass and clear highs.
The deep sub-bass really came to the fore when listening to tracks like Skrillex’s “Push.” It felt like I was at a concert, with the speakers playing to my ears with perfect clarity. The bass boost setting made the effect even heavier.
High-frequency sounds and vocals stood out crystal clear on tracks like Amy Melfi’s “I’m Woman.” To be honest, they sound fantastic, delivering buttery smooth audio with no distortion. One of the best sounding headphones I’ve tested, and that was on regular AAC.
They were almost completely lag-free when testing with me iPhone 15 Pro Max – something I’ve rarely seen on headphones that aren’t manufactured by Apple. In terms of connections, you can connect them via AAC, SBC and LDAC, which gives you lossy-like audio, but not lossless via AptX or AptX Adaptive. You can also plug it in via USB-C for wired listening.
features
While these headphones undoubtedly look great and have impressive ANC and sound quality, they are a little lacking in terms of features.
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There are a few strange omissions: Dyson didn’t include any kind of spatial audio on these cans – just bog-standard sound, and there’s no multipoint connectivity, which would let you connect it to more than one device at once. You also don’t get cool features like conversation boosting (which lowers the volume and turns on transparency mode when you start talking).
These features are routinely available on mid-range headphones, let alone high-end headphones, which the Dyson Ontrack are said to cost £449.99 (the same price as the AirPods Max and Bose QuietComfort Ultra).
So what do you get? Inside the app you get detailed information about your headphones. What’s really cool is that it includes an always-on sound exposure monitor, which tells you the sound level inside the ear and the level of outside sound (in decibels) over the last 30 seconds. It’s a really nice little feature, and very Dyson. It told me whether the headphones’ external and in-ear sound was loud or just right, so I knew when to turn off my music and when to turn on ANC.
You also get a three-stage equalizer, which lets you choose between Advanced Mode, Bass Boost Mode, and Neutral Mode. Enhanced focuses on higher frequencies for a crisp sound with prominent treble and vocals, while Bass Boost focuses on lower frequencies for a heavier sound with stronger bass. Neutral gives you a flat, even sound.
The battery life is very impressive, beating out the competition. As mentioned earlier, you get 55 hours of battery life even with ANC on. That’s a lot compared to the AirPods Max, which only have 20 hours, and the Bose QuietComfort Ultra, which gives you 24 hours with ANC off and only 18 hours with it on.