Apparently, they won’t suck in the audio department
Sir James Dyson. Designer. Inventor. Billionaire. You’ve probably seen his name on vacuum cleaners, bladeless fans, bathroom hand dryers, and other overengineered products meeting multiple purposes with inordinately high price tags. And now, you can add wireless headphones with active noise canceling and air filtering to the list.
First announced all the way back in late March, the Dyson Zone — the headphones, not a place — seems to be designed for rich digital audiophiles with airborne allergies.
To be sure, you’re getting a whole lotta headphone for the money: eight mics contribute to the active noise cancelation system to reduce outside ambiance by as much as 38dB. Distortion is touted to be extremely low (0.08% at 1kHz, 94dB) with wider-than-average frequency reproduction 6Hz to 21kHz and there’s a special EQ profile that “optimises the frequency curve for clear, pure audio,” whatever that’s supposed to mean for part of the niche audience that might already have had a go at setting their own peaks and valleys.
On its own, considering the advertised 50-hour battery life the Dyson Zone has, these would easily hit our best wireless headphones list, even at a significantly higher price than, say, a Bose QuietComfort 45. We’d like to know what audio codecs we’re dealing with, but we can forgive a few things if the mastheads are executed properly.
Here’s where the Dyson Zone gets more Dysony: the earcups are able to draw in air and channel it through to the wearer’s lungs through an attachable, non-contact visor — how often will you put on your Bane voice? The Zone features a purification system centered around electrostatic filters capturing 99% of particulates as small as 0.1 microns. The company has also fitted in carbon filters to get rid of noxious oxides and ozone common to urban pollution. The Zone is able to track and feed users information on noise and air pollution in their immediate area through the MyDyson app.
We’re ultimately not surprised about the mission nor about how Dyson is going about it — it has a track record of this kind of stuff, you know. But having both come into play in one product and, more importantly, simultaneously… well, turning on the filter and having ANC on cuts the battery life down to just four hours and it takes three to charge the cans back up. And with Gizmodo noting that at 670 grams, the Dyson Zone outweighs Sony’s WH-1000XM5 and the AirPods Max combined, it’ll take a lot more dedication than just the $949 you’ll need to plop down to get your hands on these headphones.
If you’d like to be an early adopter, that dedication means booking an appointment at your local Dyson Demo store when the Zone launches in the United States, United Kingdom, Hong Kong, and Singapore this March. It’ll also be available in China starting in January.
