Daisy Sound’s First Headphones Are Premium, High-Quality—and Just a Little Bit Cheaper

Jack Mulroe thinks the premium headphone marketplace is boring. Too focused connected black, samey-looking devices; excessively caught up successful the “spec wars” to fig retired what the precise champion headset is. He conscionable wants his California-inspired headphones to assistance radical chill.

“I conscionable saw a signifier of determination being benignant of a dormant space, honestly, successful the headphone market, wherever the astir caller culturally applicable marque was Beats,” Mulroe says. “It conscionable felt benignant of stale.”

Mulroe is the CEO and laminitis of a caller audio marque called Daisy Sound, headquartered successful California. It bills itself arsenic “a squad of concern designers from extracurricular the audio industry” aiming to shingle up the already saturated headphone scene. The Daisy One headphones, revealed connected Tuesday, are the company’s archetypal product.

These retro-styled headphones are meant to spell head-to-head with the large premium noise-canceling cans similar Apple’s AirPods Max and Sony’s WH-1000XM6. Those are headphones that usually retail for $450 to $550. The Daisy One undercuts them somewhat astatine $399. The extremity is to merchantability sleek noise-canceling headphones for somewhat little than the large dogs.

“I knew we'd beryllium competing against the bigs: Sony, Bose, Beats, Apple,” Mulroe says. “I didn't truly caput that competition. It’s going to beryllium each good.” But contention is fierce successful this abstraction crossed the terms spectrum, similar from London-based Nothing and its flashy over-ear headphones and Anker’s Soundcore fund options (one of which won WIRED’s unsighted test) to premium cans from Bowers & Wilkins oregon Grado.

The Daisy One so look nice. They’re meant to beryllium durable and long-lasting, made of aluminum with composite TR90 headstraps, a worldly wide utilized by headphone manufacturers. (“You tin conscionable yeet it,” Mulroe says, stretching retired the headband.) They are a small heavier than their competitors astatine 318 grams, oregon astir three-quarters of a pound. The receptor pads drawback connected and disconnected via magnetic connection. They enactment with Bluetooth but besides enactment USB-C and 3.5-mm auxiliary wired connections. The headphones travel successful 3 antithetic colour options—silver, a bluish shadiness called Pacific, and a greenish-brown called Kelp.

The plan is meant to evoke immoderate California chic, arsenic astir of the designers are based successful the state. Some of the Daisy unit are erstwhile engineers with Harman Professional Solutions, an audio institution owned by Samsung. The existent dependable strategy wrong is developed by Utah-based institution ((nxc)) systems, which Daisy contracts with. Stored connected the instrumentality itself are ambient soundscapes recorded successful California, similar water waves oregon the wood ambiance successful Big Sur. There is besides a guided breathwork workout to assistance radical chill retired successful stressful places similar airports.

The Daisy One headphones get astir 35 hours of artillery beingness with sound cancelling connected and 45 hours with it off. Despite the selling that these are reliable headphones designed to last, determination is nary mode to regenerate the battery. Mulroe says it’s thing the institution is moving connected for aboriginal models. The headphones person besides gotten mixed reviews truthful far, with immoderate aboriginal testers connected TikTok criticizing the transparency mode connected the headphones—which lets dependable successful truthful you tin perceive your surroundings—saying they permission a batch to beryllium desired. Mulroe is acquainted with that ailment and says it tin beryllium upgraded aboriginal connected via a bundle patch.