I think Dyson’s OnTrac noise-cancelling headphones have one absolutely fantastic feature

Remember the Dyson Zone? Course you do – how could anyone forget them? A couple of years on from our first look at the air-purifying headphones, Dyson has done what it hinted at the time it might and made a pair of standalone noise-cancelling headphones called the Dyson OnTrac.

But I think they have one brilliant feature that really sets them apart – the typically-Dyson bold design can be made your own. That’s because you can add different removable ear caps and microfibre ear cushions that can be snapped on and off at will (and easily bought separately for $50/£50 from Dyson’s website).

So you’re not stuck with whichever of the four default designs you buy initially. That means there are over 2000 colour combos to choose from.

What’s more, the battery life is also up there with the best in class, too – 55 hours before you need to recharge thanks to batteries mounted in the headband.

I also think there are a few downsides. The elephant in the room is the price, which at $500/£450 is steep when you consider you can get some of the best noise-cancelling headphones for less than $300/£300. Dyson also didn’t say which chipset is inside but the company confirmed to us it doesn’t support lossless audio or spatial audio. They support SBC, AAC, and the niche LHDC.

They should sound good, with 40mm, 16-ohm neodymium drivers capable of reproducing frequencies from as low as 6 Hertz to as high as 21,000 Hertz.

We’ve had a chance to check the OnTrac (or should it be OnTracs?) out and will be bringing you our first impressions soon as well as a full review when we get hold of a sample. While we tried out the noise-cancellation, it was in a VERY noisy environment so we couldn’t get a good impression of it. Dyson says it has drawn from its noise suppression experience with its other products and spent a lot of time developing the noise-cancellation, which takes place 384,000 times per second, reducing up to 40dB. We’ll bring you our verdict on that in due course.

Dyson OnTrac designs

The four available designs are:

• CNC aluminium – our pick of the bunch with a silver finish and bright yellow ear cushions.
• CNC copper – copper ear cups with a blue headband and ear cushions.
• Ceramic Cinnabar – this one is different as the earcups and headband are ceramic rather than metallic. The default colour is a sort of rust-red.
• CNC black nickel – black headband, black aluminium earcups and black headband.

 The Dyson OnTrac will be available to buy from 1 August, but you can pre-register now.