Dyson Ontrac: it’s no longer time for minimalism in headphones

The strength of the Dyson Zone, Dyson’s first pair of headphones, lay in its concept: a device designed to eliminate the pollution faced by those who move around in the city. Two types of pollution: air pollution, thanks to a built-in purifier, and noise pollution, thanks to noise cancellation. A futuristic product, perhaps too futuristic, with an almost manga-like aesthetic, bordering on dystopian, to appeal to the Southeast Asian markets where Dyson has established itself.

The beauty of Dyson’s second headphones, the Ontrac, which has just been launched, lies entirely in the product, without losing sight of the concepts. Dyson appliances, chief engineer Jake Dyson, son of founder James, tells Domus, are always designed ‘to solve a problem’. As you might expect from the company with the highest number of engineers in the world. Our mission is simple: to solve the problems that others ignore,’ reads the sign at the entrance to Dyson’s Milan headquarters. The quote comes (obviously) from James Dyson.

The Ontrac is the first step in a new range of Dyson appliances, in which the company will invest 250 million over the next few years. It takes technology from the Zone, for example, and uses the battery technology that previously powered two cleaning motors, giving the Ontrac a monstrous autonomy of around 55 hours. This made it possible to develop the machine very quickly, in just a few months.

The Ontrac also rises from the ashes of another Dyson phoenix: the car that never got off the ground for reasons of economics rather than engineering or design, as has been pointed out many times. The 571H - code-named the Ontrac - was developed at Hullavington, a war hangar near Dyson’s historic Malmesbury headquarters, which had been regenerated as a headquarters specifically to work on the Dyson car.

At the London unveiling, which preceded the official launch of the Ontrac by a month, at the ultra-cool location of 180 Studios in Temple, in the same building as the editorial offices of Dazed & Confused, Dyson’s storytelling is straight as a train. Audio equipment, Jake Dyson reiterated the next day during a meeting with Domus in Malmesbury, “hasn’t changed in 50, maybe even 80 years”: entering the sector is therefore “an opportunity” to change things radically, as was done with vacuum cleaners or, more recently, beauty. The reference is to the Walkman, which was totally revolutionary: ‘everyone was proud to have one’, says Jake Dyson.

To develop the Ontrac technology, Dyson hired ‘one or two sound engineers’, but otherwise relied on in-house resources. We like to learn on our own,’ says Jake Dyson proudly. Experimentation, persistence in finding new solutions and an unwavering belief in the possibilities of engineering are core values here in Malmesbury. The technological heart of the new headphones is the noise cancellation system, a combination of passive and active, the latter based on 8 microphones that ‘listen’ 384,000 times per second, the result of a long study of sound that also defined an optimal sound spectrum between 6 and 21,000 hertz. Sound is a wave, reduced to numbers, analysed and optimised in the Hullavington laboratories.

Revisiting the Ontrac a month after the London event, away from the frenzy, and comparing its lines to other headphones we’ve come to regard as standards (Sony’s WH-1000X Mark 5, the new Sonos Ace, Apple’s Max and the beautiful modular Aiaiai), the Malmesbury company’s radical aesthetic approach stands out. Forget less is more. The ear cups are huge and round – ‘we don’t like the oval shape,’ explains Jake Dyson, ‘also because it doesn’t guarantee optimal acoustic isolation’ - the micro-suede padding is generous, the battery compartments run along the headband. Metal and fabric alternate and mix, proportions are stretched, exaggerated; there’s something of the AirPods Max aesthetic, but it’s overwhelmed and reconfigured, every hint of lightness replaced by fullness, every void redefined. Were it not for the fact that this is a tired term, we would call it a cyberpunk aesthetic. And then there are the extra earcups and cushions in additional colours, which you can buy and swap with the existing ones, for a total of 2000 colour combinations. Your super-dark headphones can become very colourful with just one click on the Dyson store. One Ontrac is unlikely to look like another.

“I find it confusing to walk into an electronics store and see all these black headphones,” says Jake Dyson, emphasising that the Ontrac is fully in line with Dyson’s design language, which has always been about exposing functional elements. We want to show how the product is, how the good part of the components are laid out, and the minimal amount of material around it.

Jake Dyson

And he continues: “We’ve always taken the function of a product and tried to make it interesting and magical,” he explains, holding the headphones and showing them off during our closed-door meeting in Malmesbury. What makes these headphones different, he explains, is ‘design and customisation’ and the idea of ‘giving people very high quality music at the same time’. The aim is to position the company as a major player in a fast-growing segment. With a high price tag of around 500 euros, the Ontrac lacks some of the features you would expect: Dolby Atmos compatibility, multipoint connection to two devices, the ability to play lossless audio. It remains to be seen whether these will be perceived as shortcomings or compromises in a pair of headphones that have one great virtue: they really are different from all the rest. And having won over a lot of the cool kids with beauty products over the past few years, Dyson will certainly have a nice boost when it comes to promoting the Ontrac to Gen Z and Millennials.

Opening image: Courtesy Dyson