Dyson boosts its audio offering with new OnTrac headphone design

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In a former Royal Air Force base located a two-hour drive from London, a team of engineers works on future product launches for the company Dyson.

Dubbed the Hullavington Campus — the company’s second ‘technology campus’ in England — the cavernous hanger is home to a variety of testing and creation studios where products ranging from vacuum cleaners to air purifiers to hair tools are designed, tested and finessed.

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During a recent visit, the company opened the (numerous) security card-protected doors of the compound to a group of international journalists in order to talk about its latest product launch: the OnTrac headphones.

The company’s first audio-only headphones — the Dyson Zone launched in 2023 with a hybrid air-purifier-audio design — the OnTrac headphones are billed as offering features like ‘best-in-class’ active noise cancellation (ANC) and 55 hours of ‘immersive’ listening.

“With over 30 years of experience in aero-acoustics, we’ve mastered sound physics,” says Jake Dyson, chief engineer and son of company founder James Dyson.

Building from the audio technology used to create the Zone design, the OnTrac model took Dyson engineers about nine months to create.

“Too long,” Dyson jokes about the timespan from first idea to product completion. “Certainly the Zone was radical, no one has ever done that before. And that’s given us a base point for a wonderful product to enter the audio market.”

Boasting a redesigned shape — the OnTrac is, predictably, less bulky than the Zone thanks to the absence of the purifying mechanisms — the OnTrac features new software that allows it to be paired with the MyDyson app. In the app, users can access real-time metrics such as in-ear and external volume sound tracking with alerts for potentially harmful levels, audio level preference and more.

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“Being able to see the city pollution, being able to see what you’re protecting your ears from, whether it’s a police car or a jet engine. Those are the kinds of things I think people will be interested in,” Dyson says.

Another distinctive aspect of the new Dyson headphones design is the customization capabilities provided by the swap-able ear cups and high-grade foam cushions, which are available in a rainbow of shades. In fact, the company says more than 2,000 colour combinations can be created from the four headphone bases — CNC Aluminum, CNC Copper, Cinnabar, and CNC Black Nickel — and the seven cups and seven cushions.

“It’s a product to be proud of, as a piece of design, just as the Sony Walkman used to be on your belt,” Dyson says of the colourful audio creation. “I don’t really see that with other headphones. I see them as a plastic tool. So, we want to bring a product that people are proud of and really adore.”

Available in Canada on Aug. 1, the headphones retail for $699.99. Additional coloured ear cups or cushions are $69.99 each.

When pressed to pick an aspect of what sets the new OnTrac headphones apart from other high-end headphone options on the audio market, Dyson primarily pointed to comfort.

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In addition to design aspects such as multi-pivot arms to help relieve ear pressure and battery positioning in the headband in order to help distribute weight, the headphones were tested on a variety of head shapes in the hopes of creating a near-perfect fit.

On a work bench inside one of the many rooms of the converted airplane hanger, an engineer showcased various aspects of testing and design that were incorporated into the OnTrac, including a collection of different-shaped heads; the disembodied head dimensions gleaned from data collected from people around the world.

“We were thinking about a very broad range of heads,” Dyson says. “We call it the 95th percentile, which is geographically where the head sizes and shapes … We’ve done a lot of research.”

Testing also included the use of a computer-linked machine that mechanically pulled and pushed the headphones with a repetitive motion in order to measure force and pressure points exerted by the headphones on a head.

With two headphone designs on the market, Dyson acknowledges there’s plenty of room to grow for the company within the audio space. And he’s looking forward to shaking things up there.

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“I think that’s quite exciting, to be a new kid on the block,” Dyson says of the company’s position in the audio space. “There’s a lot of established brands. But, I wouldn’t say there’s a lot of movement going on there, necessarily. I think there’s always improvements in music technology. Not as big as we would like, and not as fast as we would like.

“I certainly don’t think there’s enough design going on in that area.”

Noting there are more products in the category planned for the future — “obviously, we wouldn’t do this unless we had a lineup of new products to come,” he says matter of factly — Dyson has pledged a hefty investment (some GBP$250 million) over the next three years.

“Our researchers are looking at several things. Speakers themselves and audiology (hearing health),” Dyson reveals. “I’m actually half deaf, and I have a hearing aid. I have a particular interest in audio health.”

Noting ear health is a “big one” in terms of areas of focus for Dyson’s audio plans going forward, the interest matches a growing need for products that address hearing loss as, according to Statistics Canada, about three in five Canadian adults have hearing loss, tinnitus or both. According to the WHO, by 2050, about 2.5 billion people are projected to have a degree of hearing loss.

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“Ear health is a big one,” Dyson says. “We enter categories that other people are leading because we’re not afraid to play there. We believe that we can make a difference. And we wouldn’t do it otherwise.”

Postmedia News was a guest of Dyson in England. The brand neither reviewed nor approved this article.

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