It’s official. Big headphones are back. After the reign of earbuds and everything that looked like them, statement-making, over-the-ear pairs seem to have captured the imagination of everyone from self-confessed “headphone-head” Jenna Ortega to Hailey Bieber.
Truth be told, for the musically inclined, over-ear headphones never really went out. Not only are they big on sound, they last longer and are comfortable to keep on for hours at a time. But now, the larger, bulkier headphones have crawled out of the fringes and become the cool-girl pieces to take out on your hot-girl walks, while the earbud is a laughably memeable signifier of the self-important workhorse.
The first thing you notice about the OnTrac is its dual-toned metal exterior with an industrial vibe—an instant giveaway that it is made by Dyson. Like most headphones today, the sides of this piece have all the touch controls. The power button is on the left, and it’s nice because it’s big enough for a tech-unsavvy person like me to identify it blind. On the right, there’s a multi-purpose joystick that helps you toggle the volume, pause, play, and go forward or back.
The Bluetooth connected immediately without repeated tries and restarts. And its impeccably strong range was an accidental discovery I made while walking the 50 steps to the coffee machine without my iPhone (my usual headphones start crackling by the time I press ‘Americano’). And the noise cancellation? Let’s just say I didn’t hear a word while on Isolation mode. Which is both a good thing—it helped me concentrate on work and finish this article—and a bad—I may have missed out on some very important work gossip. Full disclosure: had I switched on the Transparency mode, I would’ve been able to listen in on all the activity.
Their head-detect sensor is particularly intuitive as it pauses the audio the second you take off your headphones and resumes when you put them on. This feature is helpful for those (me) who’re forced to remove their headphones several times a day when an errant colleague randomly taps you on the shoulder to ask not-so-important questions that lead into full-blown conversations, all while Jungle’s entire album is playing on repeat. This doesn’t happen with Dyson—it pauses when you’re not listening, unlike your colleague.
