As Rolling Stone approaches 180 Studios just off The Strand in the heart of London, the excitement is palpable.
The launch of any new product from Dyson, the cyclone vacuum behemoth, has a touch of drama about it.
This occasion is no different.
As we enter the darkened art space, spots light up a blue stage where DJ George Plant is seamlessly blending house, techno and funk. Music fills the room and we benefit from the talents of the mixologist behind the makeshift bar.
Also in the house is Jake Dyson, son of entrepreneurial engineer James Dyson, the enigmatic scientist who spent 15 years building 5,127 prototypes that eventually became the DC01 – the world’s first bagless vacuum cleaner.
From revolutionising the way we clean our homes, James Dyson went on to reinvent the way we breathe with a line of air purifiers, and transformed haircare with hair dryers and straighteners. Now, Dyson has tuned in on the world of audio.
Following a gracious response from the global media audience, Jake Dyson recounts the history of the company. Its team, we learn, has spent 30 years in anechoic chambers, studying sound and how to dampen it across all of its products.
“We have the highest speed motors and the highest pressure of air in our vacuum cleaners, our hair dryers and our hair stylers.” He adds, “20% of our engineering effort and research goes into controlling sound.”
And it’s research that has led to the big reveal.
OnTrac Headphones
Dyson OnTrac Headphones are the company’s first audio-only over-ear headset. Its first high-fidelity, audio-only, noise cancellation devices.
“There are eight microphones spanning across the two ear cups,” he explains. “These microphones detect all external noises, cancelling out those noises and reducing the sound by 40 decibels and cancelling out 97% of the audio frequency range from your ears.”
The new Dyson app, we learn, will also help protect your ears. “Those microphones record that sound and feed back to you on an app the sound that you’ve been protected by and that’s been noise cancelled,” he continues. “So, if an ambulance goes past you or a police car, you’ll see a spike on your app. We want to show you how we’re protecting your ears from too many bad noises and also the effectiveness of that noise cancelling.”
The OnTrac’s specs are impressive.
“There are two neodymium speakers in the headset, one in each ear. These speakers are angled 13 degrees, delivering sound straight into your ear. It powers a deep bass and high- end brilliance of sound, giving a sound quality between 6 Hz and 21 kHz,” he explains, proudly holding up a pair of the headphones.
Under the headband, a compact, high-capacity lithium battery which gives the user 55 hours of non-stop listening. That’s enough to fly to Australia and back… and the night that you’re awake when you get back.
Dyson’s new move is a bold one. The headphone market has recently seen Sonos entering an arena already populated by the likes of Bose, Sony, Sennheiser and more, but Dyson is confident that its new product offers the company’s unique perspective in both design and invention.
These headphones are created to sound as good as they look, the result of Dyson’s brainstrust testing everything from Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture to hard rock and K-pop.
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Want customised kit? You’ve got it. The initial release includes a variety of colourways from CNC Aluminium to CNC Copper, Ceramic Cinnabar and CNC Black Nickel, plus a host of coloured ear pads and outer caps are available, for 2,000 possible combinations.
“Dyson’s audio engineering mission is to preserve the integrity of the artist’s sound wave, free from interference,” comments Jake Dyson in a press release. “We also wanted to create a set of headphones that people would cherish, be excited by, and be proud of.” On the strength of what we witnessed and heard and the quality of their new product, Dyson should be just as proud as the customers who will be wearing them.”
The devices are available direct from Dyson.com.au at A$799.
