Dyson OnTrac Wireless Headphones Review

The Dyson OnTrac are Bluetooth headphones and come in a few different stock colorways: 'CNC Copper,' 'CNC Black Nickel,' 'CNC Almunium,' and 'Ceramic Cinnabar.' You can choose different ear pads and 'ear caps' to alter their look. Our 'CNC Aluminium' model has shiny silver housings and sunflower yellow ear pads that you can easily turn and remove from the mostly darker graphite-colored frame. Like the previous Dyson Zone Wireless, they share a similar metal headband with three discrete pads, though the OnTrac omit the 'visor.' While Dyson is known for bold and functional designs, these look more like conventional Bluetooth headphones than the oversized fan- and visor-equipped Zone that drew comparisons to Optimus Prime and Bane from the Batman DC Comics universe.

The Dyson OnTrac are pretty hefty, but they're comfortable and don't clamp too hard. Their ear pads are plush and help distribute their weight. The headband is covered in ample padding, too. Despite the ear pads being on the larger side, there's actually not much room to fit your ears without them getting squished by the pads and breaking the over-ear seal. So, if you've got larger-than-average ears, you might find they're not as comfortable. Unfortunately, the headband doesn't fully relieve your crown of the headphones' weight despite having three pads spread across the headband. On most people, only the center pad makes contact unless you wear a hat or have big hair.

The Dyson OnTrac's controls are good. Their command scheme uses a combination of touch controls, a joystick, and buttons. A single button on the left earcup handles power and connectivity, while the clicky joystick on the right earcup manages playback and call controls. The joystick is pretty intuitive if you've previously owned Bluetooth headphones with vertical and horizontal command gestures, but if you're careless, you can accidentally misfire with a diagonal gesture.

Listening modes such as ANC and transparency use the touch-sensitive 'ear cap.' Interestingly, the touch-sensitive surfaces need to be calibrated through the companion app, lest you find yourself smacking the sensors and wondering why nothing is happening. That said, the touch controls aren't very responsive even once calibrated.

The headphones emit distinct lights, tones, and beeps when you reach max volume, enter ANC mode during Bluetooth pairing, and once a connection is established.

The headphones are passably portable. They don't fold down smaller. Even though the ear cups swivel to lay flat, they're still wide ear cups. They're also on the heavier side, but at least you're not contending with a cable, and they're still slimmer than the Dyson Zone Wireless.

Their case is good. It's made from two hard shells connected by a thin piece of fabric. When the case is empty, it uniquely collapses like an accordion file folder to save space. Inside, it's lined with a soft fabric and a pouch for the cable. While it's not as overbuilt as the Dyson Zone Wireless' case, and the OnTrac's headband is left exposed, at least the case's size can fit into most backpacks without leaving something behind.

The Dyson OnTrac are well-built. Their frame is entirely made of metal and fabric unless you get the variant with ceramic 'ear caps'. The headband feels solid, as do the hinges, which aren't too stiff or loose. You can remove the 'ear caps' with a small twist to each. The ear pads have a good balance of give and stiffness, and they attach to the frame with a built-in ring to make swapping them out very easy: to remove or attach them, you give them a small twist, like the 'ear caps.'

While the metal yoke feels resilient, the finish quickly began showing faint marks from the notched size adjustments during our review period. Similarly, the metal parts pick up fingerprints easily. Most concerning is that the cloth-covered padding seems to absorb oil and dust very easily, so if you wear make-up like foundation or if you live in a humid environment, the fabric is liable to stain and discolor. You can always buy a new set of ear pads, but if the fabric was more liquid-repellant, you wouldn't need to do that.

These headphones are stable. They'll shift around a bit if you look down or tilt your head, but the ear cup and padding design keep them on your head. However, they're still fairly heavy over-ears, so if you get really into a song and start whipping your head around, they'll move.

• Dyson OnTrac headphones
• USB-C to USB-C cable
• Carrying case
• Quick Start Guide
• Warranty

The 'Balance' default EQ (with ANC on) sound profile of the Dyson OnTrac is fairly bass-heavy. An extra dose of low-end adds rumble and punch to kick drums and bass guitar, which carries through the low-mids for a bit more clutter. Keys, lead instruments, and vocals come through as clear with balanced intensity. The treble range is somewhat uneven, with alternatingly detailed articulation that warms up a bit, followed by piercing emphasis on harmonics for instruments like cymbals. Finally, the highest frequencies roll off, creating a more closed-off sound.

Disabling ANC changes the frequency response with less bass boom and rumble, de-emphasis in the low-mids, and a more forward sound in the rest of the midrange, while the highs remain almost the same. The headphones' EQ presets mainly alter the bass emphasis and don't change the treble range, so you'll need to use a third-party custom EQ app if you want a different-sounding top-end. Like most headphones, the frequency response changes when the mic is active during calls, sounding quieter and prioritizing the mids and treble ranges.

Their frequency response consistency is okay. Bass sounds pretty similar across different wears and wearers, but major differences exist in the mids and treble. This alteration occurs regardless of whether you wear glasses (which typically can break the ear pads' seal). If you have a large head or big hair, you'll also hear a different tuning. The ear pads have a small space within which to fit your ears, and this affects how evenly the headphones sit on a lot of people, so be sure to place them carefully. Interestingly, these have been certified by U.S. Ergonomics for fit, but arguably, their soft ear pads sacrifice a consistent frequency response.

The Dyson OnTrac follow our bass target remarkably. If you like ample thump, rumble, and punch in tracks like these provide that for genres like EDM, hip-hop, and Stoner metal. On the other hand, if you want more or less bass, the 'Bass Boost' and 'Neutral' EQ settings mainly just alter the low-end.

The headphones have incredible mid-range target compliance that's a bit beefed up in the low-mids and slightly intense in the high-mids. Riffing guitars, horns, and vocals in soul songs like How Long Do I Have to Wait for You? by Sharon Jones and The Dap-Kings sound clear.

Their treble's target compliance is good. The low-treble range is mostly a bit de-emphasized, causing details and articulation to sound warmer. However, a strong peak in the mid-treble exaggerates the harmonics of cymbals, which sounds piercing, before the treble tapers off in the highest frequencies, which sounds closed-off.

The headphones' peaks and dips performance indicates they do a decent job of handling their own sound profile. The peaks and dips are quite tight from the bass to the low-treble ranges. Only in the treble range does it jump around with dips in the low treble that stretch into prominent peaks that cause piercing sibilants (S and T sounds) before dipping back down. You might not notice those highest dips and peaks, depending on your hearing.

The Dyson OnTrac have excellent imaging performance. Like the previous Dyson Zone Wireless, the drivers are well-matched, which indicates tight quality controls and ergonomics. Group delay is below the audibility threshold for tight bass and transparent treble. However, there are narrow phase response mismatches that are difficult to hear in real-world content, but very perceptive ears might notice these. They fall within good limits for weighted amplitude and frequency mismatch for a stable stereo image. Imaging varies between units, so these results only apply to our unit.

These have a poor passive soundstage, which is expected for closed-back headphones. They don't have an open or immersive sound because the audio doesn't interact with your environment, so it sounds like it's mostly coming from inside your head.

Their weighted harmonic distortion is decent. At normal listening volumes, high frequencies have greater amounts of distortion, which you may not notice, but it can affect the purity of your audio somewhat.

These are the settings used to test the Dyson OnTrac headphones. Our results are only valid when used in this configuration.

These have a satisfactory full range noise isolation performance. The ANC focuses primarily on mid-bass to low-midrange noises to filter out boomy noises, but it doesn't affect super low-pitched noises like deep rumbles. Their closed-back design enables isolation to cover mainly the mids through treble and tames the sounds of bright noises like clatter in a busy cafe.

You can check out how well they handle environmental noise with ANC off and in Transparency mode. If you buy the brand's In-Flight Adaptor Kit so you can plug them into any AUX output port or the two-prong headphone jacks found on in-flight entertainment units, ANC is disabled, which sort of defeats the point of taking noise cancelling headphones on a plane. The bump in the lower frequencies is an artifact of our testing rig, and the headphones don't noticeably amplify low frequencies.

In common scenarios, these do a very good job of isolating noise. The combined noise canceling and isolation don't attenuate the deep rumble of a jackhammer on the street, but they reduce the low hum of airplane din. Generally, chatter is rendered quieter alongside keystrokes in the office. High frequencies are blocked, but not as effectively as those midrange sounds.

These headphones don't have a wind reduction mode to help mitigate noise created by wind interacting with the ANC system. They're sensitive to the angle at which the wind hits the mics.

These headphones' leakage performance is good. A thin, bright version of your audio is audible in a quiet space, but it's not so loud as to bother colleagues at the office.

The microphone system renders your voice so you sound like yourself, but it lacks weight, especially if your voice is deep. Because the built-in noise reduction system can't be disabled for testing with our rig, the harmonic distortion and gain figures appear worse than the real-world experience of using the mic. However, the audio demo clip of the mic is representative of its performance, so give it a listen.

The noise handling performance is adequate. The mic system suppresses consistent background noise well, but it also somewhat affects the quality of your speech. Intermittently loud background noises challenge the noise handling more, and other voices don't get fully filtered out.

The Dyson OnTrac have excellent battery performance. The manufacturer advertises that they can reach 55 hours with ANC on, and in testing, they lasted about 51 hours, which is longer than the Dyson Zone Wireless battery life. They also have a quick charge function, advertised to offer nine hours on a half-hour charge or 2.5 hours after 10 minutes of charging. Plus, there's a standby mode if they're left idle to conserve the battery. How long headphones last varies depending on factors like volume and listening mode.

The MyDyson app is decent; you can watch a video tour. It covers basic functions like listening modes (which you can't adjust the strength of) and EQ presets, which mainly only alter bass. Surprisingly for premium headphones, you can't make your own custom EQ adjustments. You need to use the app to calibrate the touch-sensitive control surface. One of the more unique features included is a short visual timeline for monitoring audio levels of both what you're listening to and your environment. Besides that, it displays battery levels and connections. The rest of the app is dedicated to user guides, support, and showing you accessories and other Dyson products.

The headphones include a USB-C to USB-C cable, which can only charge the battery. At an additional cost, you can purchase an In-Flight Adaptor Kit that allows the headphones to play back wired audio—it lets you connect to a standard 1/8-inch (3.5mm) analog port or the two-prong jack you'll find on planes to the headphones' USB-C port. The cable adds a second USB-C port so you can charge the headphones simultaneously, which means you can go from wireless to double-wired. Using the cable disables the ANC, according to the manufacturer. Because we haven't purchased the cable, it's unclear if the mic stays active when you use the In-Flight Adaptor cable. As is, out of the box, these don't let you access wired audio.

These headphones have great Bluetooth connectivity. They support multi-device pairing with two devices. Although not listed, we found they support LHDC for higher-quality audio than SBC, though you may want to check if your device supports the LHDC codec. The headphones also support AAC. That said, their latency is high enough that you can experience a lipsync mismatch with video streaming, although some apps and devices compensate for latency.

Unless you purchase the In-Flight Adaptor, these headphones only connect to PCs via Bluetooth for audio and mic support. We didn't buy the cable, so we don't know if it turns off the mic.

Out of the box, you can't connect these headphones to your PS console because they're Bluetooth-only, but you can purchase the brand's In-Flight Adaptor to connect to the controller's headphone jack. We don't have this cable, so we don't know how well it works or if the microphone still captures your speech.

These are Bluetooth headphones, so you can't connect them to your Xbox unless you purchase the manufacturer's In-Flight Adaptor. This cable lets you plug the headphones into the controller's headphone jack. We haven't tested this because we don't have the cable, so we don't know if the mic still works when wired.