Dyson OnTrac Headphones Review – Consumer Reports

What makes the OnTracs stand out? Dyson’s products are known for their high-end materials and elevated design language and the OnTracs are no exception. They’re a joy to touch with high-quality plastics, beautifully finished metal surfaces, and plush ear pads.

Color, too, is a Dyson hallmark, and the OnTracs come in a variety of color options, including Black Nickel, CNC Copper, Ceramic Cinnabar (a slightly desaturated red), and CNC Aluminum. If that’s not enough choice, the company lets you swap out the ear cushions as well as the outercaps, both of which come in seven colors, for $50 each. So it’s not hard to find a color combination that pushes your buttons.

Just as important, the Dysons are easy to use, with a solid-feeling mini-joystick-style control on the right earcup to adjust volume and advance tracks. Dyson also includes buttons, rather than touch surfaces, for Bluetooth pairing and to turn the OnTracs on and off.

Our testers find much to like about the OnTracs’ sound quality. There’s a distinct family resemblance with the Zone and that’s a good thing. They deliver deep bass with good impact in the Enhanced mode—that’s the default—but changing the tone setting on the app to a more neutral option improves the sound with most music. You give up a bit of extra low-end whomp in exchange for moments like hearing the snapping of the strings against the fingerboard on Christian McBride’s bass solo on “Fried Pies.”

The OnTracs have a slightly different tonal balance than their predecessors, just a bit warmer than the coolish character of the Zones. That tweak will likely make the OnTracs good companions for long listening sessions or even all-day wear.

The OnTracs also claim superb battery life, playing as long as 55 hours between charges, according to the manufacturer. A head-detect function that pauses the audio in the headphones a few seconds after you take them off and turns the music back on when you put them on helps with that. The headphones also turn off completely after a half-hour of inactivity. 

The noise cancellation is a winner as well. Our testers find the OnTracs to be as quiet as the proverbial church mouse, acing our lab test of the function.