Jack Mulroe thinks The premium headphone market is boring. It focused heavily on black, uniform materials; they are too caught up in the “special war” to know what it is the best headset is. He just wants his California-inspired headphones to help people relax.
“I just saw the design kind of dead space, honestly, in the headphone market, where the most recent culturally important brand was Beats,” Mulroe says. “It felt like the past.”
Mulroe is the CEO and founder of a new audio brand called Daisy’s voiceheadquartered in California. It bills itself as “a team of industrial designers from outside the audio industry” aiming to shake up the already crowded headphone space. The Daisy One headphones, unveiled on Tuesday, are the company’s first product.
The retro-styled headphones are meant to go head-to-head with massive noise-canceling cans like Apple’s. AirPods Max and Sony WH-1000XM6. Those are headphones that typically sell for $450 to $550. The Daisy One undercuts them a bit at $399. The goal is to sell stylish noise-canceling headphones for a fraction of the price of the big dogs.
“I knew we were going to be competing against the big guys: Sony, Bose, Beats, Apple,” Mulroe says. “I didn’t really care about the competition. Everything will be fine.” But the competition is strong in this space in the price spectrum, such as from London-Nothing and its beauty headphones on the ear and Anker’s Soundcore budget options (one of the won WIRED’s blind test) for payment cans from Bowers & Wilkins or Bridge.
Courtesy of Daisy
Daisy One really looks good. They are meant to be durable and long-lasting, made of aluminum and TR90 headbands, a material widely used by headphone manufacturers. (“You can only still,” Mulroe says, holding out the headband.) They’re slightly heavier than their competitors at 318 grams, or about three-quarters of a pound. The earbuds turn on and off via a magnetic connection. They work with Bluetooth but also support USB-C and 3.5-mm wired connections. The headphones come in three color options—silver, a blue shade called Pacific, and a green-brown color called Kelp.
This design is meant to evoke the beautiful style of California, as many of the designers are based in the state. Some of Daisy’s employees are former engineers and Harman Professional Solutionsan audio company owned by Samsung. The actual sound system inside is made by a Utah company ((nxc)) systemswhich Daisy contracts with. Stored on the device itself are soothing sounds recorded in California, such as ocean waves or forest landscapes in Big Sur. There are also breathing exercises to help people relax in stressful places like airports.
The Daisy One headphones get about 35 hours of battery life with noise canceling on and 45 hours with it off. Despite the marketing that these are reliable headphones built to last, there is no way to replace the battery. Mulroe says it’s something the company is working on for future models. The headphones have also received mixed reviews, and some early try them on TikTok criticizing the transparency of the headphones—which let sound in so you can hear your surroundings—saying they leave a lot to be desired. Mulroe is aware of the complaints and says they can be improved later through a software patch.
