Dyson OnTrac headphones review: Dare to be different

I remember when I first saw the Dyson Zone – the British company’s first dabble in audio. As futuristic and niche as they were (if you’ve never seen them, Google them and you’ll understand what I mean), they were still decent from a sound quality perspective. Ditch the filter across your face and you’d have yourself a good set of over-ear cans, even if they were on the larger side. 

The Dyson OnTrac then – the second set of headphones to arrive from the company – dial things down a notch. I say dial because, well, they are still bold on the design front. But they do at least ditch the air filtration idea and rather than putting a mini Dyson fan on your face, they go for gold when it comes to customisation. I’ve been using the Dyson OnTrac headphones since before their UK launch and this is what they do well, what they are missing and what features they offer. 

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The Disconnekt Downlow

The Dyson OnTrac headphones are bold and bright in design, offer an insane battery life, deliver good sound performance and good noise cancellation. They are heavy and bulky to wear and they lack in features compared to competitors but there’s something a little different to the norm here. The controls are nice to use and the customisation deserves to be applauded, even if it will cost you more. If you’re looking for a good set of over-ears with solid performance and the option to express your personality, the Dyson OnTrac headphones are a good choice – and pretty much your only choice.

Buy from £549.99 on Dyson

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The reasons you should choose Dyson OnTrac headphones

The Dyson OnTrac headphones are visually striking, there’s absolutely no denying that. They may or may not be to your taste, but that doesn’t take away from the fact they break the mould of what many over-ear headphones look like. Apple did too with its AirPods Max, opting for coloured aluminium cups in place of the black and light plastic we’d become accustomed to from leaders like Sony and Bose, but Dyson has taken it one step further. 

The Dyson OnTrac don’t just come in a series of colours, but you can mix and match the ear caps and ear cushions for an entirely customisable experience. There are four main headphone colours, seven ear cushions and seven ear caps for hundreds of combinations. Do I want to walk down the street with one orange ear cup and one khaki green? Well no, but I love that it’s an option, and I think that should be applauded as it’s not typical of over-ear headphones to be so wonderfully bright, bold and expressive.

The build quality is excellent, including the small joystick on the right ear cup that I very much appreciate. It’s more premium and solid than the Content Key feels like on the Sonos Ace headphones and it’s easy to use too, moving up and down for volume, left and right for track selection and held down to launch your phone’s assistant. A power button that looks just like the one on Dyson’s Supersonic Nural smart hair dryer is on the left ear cup, which also puts the OnTrac headphones into Bluetooth pairing mode, while a USB-C port is also on the left to charge the OnTrac headphones when they run out of their 55 hours of juice.

When it comes to sound performance, I thought the Dyson OnTrac headphones were impressive. I listened to them alongside the AirPods Max and Sonos Ace – both of which are in a similar price bracket – switching between all three regularly and I thought the Dyson’s did a really solid job of keeping up with the other two (both of which I also rate). There’s excellent bass, with low end frequencies very well represented, and that’s even truer if you turn on the Bass Boost in the MyDyson app. It’s not quite the Bass Boost button of the Sony ULT Wear for immediacy, but it definitely kicks things up a notch for when you want that deep but controlled thump in your ears.

Trebles and vocals are delivered well too, as is the mid-range and while I did think there was more detail from the AirPods Max in terms of being able to hear individual instruments in certain tracks I listened to, the OnTrac headphones definitely offered clarity and great balance overall. The frequency range is wider than others at 6Hz to 21,000Hz but given a human can only hear up to 20,000Hz (and that’s without deterioration of age), I’m not even going to pretend I could notice if that’s something these headphones achieve. It also requires the content to offer these levels too of course.

Noise cancellation on the OnTrac did a solid job. Usually I would test noise cancelling on a plane as really I think that’s where you truly see its capabilities, but I was not heading for sun before my review period was up. Instead, I played plane engine noise on the Sonos Roam 2 right next to me, whilst having two under 6-year-olds on school holidays in the background. If that isn’t a good alternative noise cancelling test, I don’t know what is. You don’t get the suction feeling you get with some ANC headphones, which you may or may not like, but you do get peace with ambient noise blocked out.

I could still hear the underlying hum of my interpreted plane engine, but I could with AirPods Max and Sonos Ace too, and it is very clear when ANC is on and when it is not on the Dysons. It’s also a double tap on the side of either ear cup to change modes and that I throughly enjoyed over trying to find a button but it’s worth mentioning that really does need a firm tap and occasionally a couple of tries.  

Last thing to mention for this section is the accompanying case for the OnTrac headphones, which is an engineering feat. These headphones don’t fold, but the case to protect them is far superior to the AirPods Max handbag style, and the Sonos Ace’s hard shell with its flimsy zip. The Dyson case has a hard silicone shell that folds completely flat when the headphones aren’t in it – handy if you need to reduce bag space when you are wearing the headphones on your head or around your neck. The case is not smart in it won’t put the headphones into sleep mode like Apple’s does, but it looks significantly more sophisticated and there is a handy pocket for the braided cable inside too.

What the Dyson OnTrac headphones could do better

There are a couple of things the Dyson OnTrac headphones could do better. They don’t offer spatial audio or Dolby Atmos support for starters and while I didn’t feel like I lost a huge amount with the OnTrac headphones compared to AirPods Max or Sonos Ace, even when listening to a specific spatial audio playlist on Apple Music, it’s an odd omission at this price range. Some prefer stereo sound over Atmos mixes and if that’s you then you’ll probably love Dyson’s OnTrac. If you like the experience of feeling music around you though, the OnTrac headphones do lack a little in this department compared to others like the Sonos Ace and AirPods Max, both of which have head tracking elements too that add to the more immersive listening experience.

The OnTrac headphones are also bulky and heavy and there’s really no getting away from that. They weigh more than AirPods Max (which themselves are not light) and while you do get used to the weight distribution that sits predominantly on the very top of your head, it’s a nice feeling when you take them off after extended use, a little like Apple Vision Pro.

The headband features harder foam than the ear cushions and it is made up of three sections, with the two side sections not actually touching your head. You can adjust the size at the top, and the ear cups spin on a steel frame for adjustment there too. The ear cups have a lovely soft foam that moulds to your ear, and they are actually very comfortable, as is the soft-to-touch velvety material that covers them.

Features are a little lacking too however – I’ll go into more detail on these in a second, but you can only connect to one device at a time, and that’s a little frustrating. Where Apple AirPods Max seamlessly transition between my iPhone, iPad and my MacBook for example, and Sonos Ace also have a multi-connection feature you can turn on for two automatic connections, that’s not an option on Dyson OnTrac. It means if you have them connected to your iPad but you want to take a video call on your Surface, you can’t use the headphones as you wouldn’t be able to disconnect and reconnect fast enough.

Dyson OnTrac headphones features

Setup is simple for the OnTrac headphones but if you want to get the most out of Dyson’s cans, you’ll need to use the MyDyson app. It’s pretty much the same for most devices, the accompanying app offers a couple of extra features that you don’t get from the basic Bluetooth settings. Before I go into more on features, make sure you connect to ‘Audio OnTrac’ when setting up. MyDyson OnTrac appears in the connected device list by default (on iPhone anyway) as you start setting up, but this isn’t what you need to connect to in order to hear your tunes as that’s just the app element. Just something to keep in mind during setup.

Within the MyDyson app, you can switch between Isolation (active noise cancellation), Transparency and Off using a slider. You can of course tap either ear cup on the headphones themselves to do this too, as I mentioned, but it’s handy to know which mode you’re in to start with. 

Along with changing the noise modes, you can also choose between three equaliser sound profiles. You can’t adapt the sound profiles in terms of bass and treble sliders like you can with Sonos speakers and its Ace headphones, but you can choose between Enhanced, Bass Boost and Neutral. I preferred Enhanced overall, which focuses on higher frequencies with prominent treble and vocals, but Bass Boost was fun for some playlists and Neutral is a good middle point.

The MyDyson app also allows you to turn Wear Detection on or off so the OnTrac headphones will automatically pause audio when you take them off and start up again when you put them back on. The battery percentage is at the top too so you’ll know when it’s time to recharge. Elsewhere, there’s data on sound exposure, with graphs showing your in-headphone sound exposure presented against external sound exposure with decibels running up the side to show you the levels of noise you’re subjecting your ears too. You’ll get an ‘OK’ or ‘Loud’ indicator, with the idea being that you shouldn’t expose your ears to noise levels over 85dB for too long so if the graph is red, you should be taking it down a notch. Apple Watch has warnings for noise exposure too so it’s not new to highlight it as such, but seeing it on a graph is interesting.

That’s about it on the feature front with OnTrac. You won’t find things like auto switching between devices like Apple AirPods, the ability to switch between a soundbar and your headphones like Sonos Ace, or things like conversation awareness mode, adaptive audio depending on surroundings or your notifications being announced. That may not matter to you and if that’s the case, then the OnTrac headphones may be a great shout for you, but if those kinds of extras do appeal, then it’s worth being aware of the OnTrac headphones’ limitations on this front. 

Should you buy the Dyson OnTrac headphones?

The Dyson OnTrac headphones are bold and bright in design, offer an insane battery life and they deliver great sound performance and solid noise cancellation. They are heavy and bulky to wear, they lack in features compared to competitors and they are very expensive compared to excellent options like the Sony WH-1000XM5s and Bose’s QuietComfort.

That said, they offer something a little different to the norm, the controls are nice to use and the customisation deserves to be applauded. If you’re looking for a set of over-ears with great performance and the option to express your personality with a bit of mixing and matching, the Dyson OnTrac headphones are a good choice – and pretty much your only choice.

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