Look like Bane, spend like Batman with Dyson's $949 headphones If you've ever thought "I wish my incredibly expensive Bluetooth headphones were double the price and included a detachable mask that shot purified air at my face," Dyson has the product for you. The Dyson Zone headphones come with a removable "visor" that uses a pair of compressors and electrostatic filters to "project …
The very best headphones from the sound purity point of view (as proved by broadcasters including the BBC) are the well established Beyer DT 100 and the supposedly marginally improved DT 150. The DT 100 has the advantage of an entire range of spare parts (literally every component) whereas the DT 150 has a rather more limited range of spares. They come in (in the UK) at around £150 for the DT 100 and a few quid more for the DT 150. Some tests show that the DT 150 is actually not quite as good on distortion but the difference is typically marginal.
However they don't blow air at you.
"The very best headphones from the sound purity point of view (as proved by broadcasters including the BBC)"
Oh, then you've never heard a pair of Sennheiser Orpheus or a set of Stax Lambda Pro / 404's, properly driven by a high-end amp, either with full-tilt high-end sources, have you??
Yes, I compromise from my Stax setup when I'm not sitting still at home, but Beyer DT100's the 'best'? Errr....
Anyway, I am going to (reasonably) assume that these $949 Dyson headphones have the sound quality of $99 headphones with a fan motor attached to them to eat up the balance of your hard-earned, yet stupidly-spent, money.
Anyway, I am going to (reasonably) assume that these $949 Dyson headphones have the sound quality of $99 headphones with a fan motor attached to them to eat up the balance of your hard-earned, yet stupidly-spent, money.
Since the frequency response apparently only goes up to 21KHz, and most $99 headphones are going to go up to about 30KHz, I'd say they're more like $19.99 children's toy headphones.
I can only assume that, somehow, an early prototype ended up getting contaminated with Bolivian marching powder and this was accidentally blown up the noses of the collective design team.
Why else would a product like this ever escape from the - frankly rather dubious - mind of a creative?
It's not shit, that's pretty much the upper necessary limit. Listen to some BA-packed chifi IEMs if you want to hear something that goes into ultrasound but is still terrible. How tightly the headphones reproduce the target curve will play a much greater role in how good they sound than their ability to reproduce ultrasonics.
The upper limit needs to be significantly higher, to get a decent frequency response curve. If the "limit" is 22KHz (or 21, or whatever it actually is) then you'd expect the actual response at that frequency to be pretty dull. Yes, most adults can't hear beyond about 20KHz, but some can, and most young children can hear well beyond that, and let's face it, these things look like they were designed for a child, albeit one with very rich parents.
Hadn't heard of them before this (yeah, yeah, square) so followed the link provided. And am now left with so many questions about those as well (such as, each ear has a case-detect sensor, presumably for those whose the left ear is upper and the right lower, but are these sensors fully Unicode-capable, for when I'm listening in a foreign language?).
Clearly, what the Apple and Dyson products (probably others as well) are demonstrating is that something has changed drastically with the headphone wearing portion of the population. Some dreadful series of mutations (perhaps caused by the acceptance of Beats by Dre?) which mean that now some are so hideously deformed they need to hide behind the Dyson visor whilst others merely have to worry whether one side of their head is gravitationally warped compared to the other, hence needing separate Apple-supplied accelerometers?
This is actually danagerous to health of those around the user and should be banned. Blowing air onto & into the user's mouth and nose will spread any pathogens to the surrounding area as it is not then filtered. It's moronically stupid and dangerous and will cause more infections and potentially kill people, not the wearer, no that selfish prick will be fine...
A fan powered costume caused a super spreader event in a US hospital as the fan spread around everybody near it the wearer's unknown illness. This a snot cannon and really REALLY dumb (and studpidly expensive to boot).
Depending on your source, Dyson (that being the same Dyson that rolled out a fleet of Hoovers with a design fault in the On/Off switch) have about 1500 engineers* in the UK.
1500.
One thousand, five hundred.
* With nary a grey hair amongst them, I'll wager...
... have about 1500 engineers* in the UK.
Which have to make a living while (unfortunately) working on stupid ideas/designs.
It is not really their fault, although the lack of grey hair is probably an impediment.
The real issue at Dyson is that there are a group of people, most probably of the marketing species that thought this up.
Once those abortions of nature pitched the idea, a few higher ups with an absolute lack of common sense thought this thing was actually a good idea and then some CXX that actually gave the go ahead because they are certified idiots, just like the destinataries of the new Dyson product.
Actually, I think thatthe engineers had no choice but to go along.
I have seen that sort of thing happen far too many times.
O.
I once attended a convention where a dyson saleswoman tried to sell me on a vacuum with a digital motor. When I asked why it was any better than a normal motor, she proudly told me it was "zero carbon".
Me being the pedantic fart that I am, with knowledge of how both types of motors worked, said saleswoman then got a full lecture on how that wasn't what "zero carbon" meant, as it referred to carbon emissions, not the use of carbon in the bloody motor brushes, and that how any extra precision of movement that a digital motor might grant probably wouldn't add anything to the movement of extremely malleable, compressable air.
I'm not sure if I feel proud or ashamed of that, to be honest. It does get my goat when marketing drones just spout off words and ideas without the faintest idea of what they're talking about.
I think I nearly made a tele-salesperson cry once by pointing out that the 'government backed' subsidised green energy product they were trying to sell was actually being paid for by other customers of the energy company, probably those who could least afford it, not the government.
They said that they were going to check this out with their supervisor before hanging up. I felt really guilty, but I can't stand when sales people try to sell stuff that they don't really understand.
I also upset a person canvassing for opposition to Hinkley C, who claimed that onshore windmills could do the same job, by pointing out just how many would be needed to generate the same amount of power, and how much of the Somerset coastline would be occupied by said windmills. They just hadn't thought it through.
Dyson had a very good idea years ago. Since then he doesn't seem to have had another, so he employs people to have good ideas on his behalf. They don't seem to have had any good ideas recently either.
The trouble is that if you set yourself up as a company that sells revolutionary products then you have to keep coming up with revolutionary products in order to keep the brand in the public eye. I can imagine brainstorming meetings where people run ideas up the flagpole (and all that shite) where people throw out increasingly desperate ideas for new products. It makes me wonder what utter tripe got rejected if this was the one that made it through to production.
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Don't be mean, he invented a wheelbarrow with a ball for a wheel, which was a brilliant idea, and caught on everywhere! Just tell me the last time you saw a wheelbarrow with a normal wheel on it?
Other brilliant ideas he has also had include supporting brexit, and moving all his manufacturing to the far east to take advantage of the much lower wages he can get away with paying. Who needs ethics when you can employ marketeers to come up with slick ad campaigns?
> moving all his manufacturing to the far east
Not just that, but *after* publicly supporting Brexit, he relocated his company's headquarters to Singapore in 2019.
Nice show of support, given all the platitudes about British industry you and your Brexiteering chums had been spouting three years ealier.
That sums up Brexit and the right-wingers who pushed for it all over. Spouting ra-ra-ra Union-Jack-slathered platitudes when it suited them in their plan to turn the UK into a low-regulation, low-tax, low-rights, run-for-the-super-rich (and super-corrupt) race-to-the-bottom, then ditching the UK and fucking off elsewhere once the plebs had given them what they wanted.
Isn't surprising that his business is gimmicky, plasticky, overpriced, overhyped style-over-substance tat.
Downvoted, for not knowing the difference between Singapore, where he has moved his offices, for tax purposes, and Malaysia, where he has moved his manufacturing for slavery-level wage purposes.
Neither is exactly "red-white-and-blue brexit proud British company" is it?
Who looks like the idiot now? The person who checked their facts, or the one who stuck his hand straight into the ad-hom bin and pulled out an armful?
"Don't be mean, he invented a wheelbarrow with a ball for a wheel, which was a brilliant idea, and caught on everywhere! Just tell me the last time you saw a wheelbarrow with a normal wheel on it?"
Like many Dyson products (those invented by him and those invented by others under his brand) it wasn't really an invention as such.
It was still a wheel, just a ball shaped wheel. It IIRC it was hard plastic which definitely had disadvantages when compared with a pneumatic tyre on rough surfaces.
But that's how Dyson works isn't it? It's about selling stuff that looks radical rather than actually being radical.
I also had one of his vacuum cleaners, drawn in by the claim it was good at removing pet hair from carpets, curtains, etc. Horrible thing that was soon broken when I accidentally hoovered up a paper clip. That caused catastrophic damage to the brittle innards which couldn't be repaired since much of the device was glued or plastic welded together, so back it went for a refund.
Since then I've owned a cheaper (although not super cheap) shop vacuum - the kind sold for use in workshops and the like. Mostly metal rather than plastic, generic bags are available online for pennies, and it sucks harder than a fatty drinking a McDonald's milkshake.
We have a Dyson hoover, which is utterly crap. The tubes leak and can't be repaired, so it sucks up nothing.
We also have a Henry, which is quiet, efficient, and effective. Also much cheaper and you can always get spares for it.
Choose something that works instead of a device clearly designed by 12-year-olds on a sugar rush in their playpen.
Ditto, my wife and bought into the sales pitch and thought we'd give one of his cordless uprights a go, complete bag-o-shite. Can just about run for 20mins before running out of charge and has no where near the amount of power as the cordless Shark that we repalced it with, which is way better value for money and works really well.
IMO, Dyson jumped the shark years ago.. I've had three Dyson cleaners.. The first was brilliant, and lasted for 10 years of fairly heavy use. The second lasted a couple of years, then failed. Because the first one had been so good, we assumed the fault was a one off and got a Dyson engineer in to fix it. He said it wasn't viable to repair it, and suggested we buy a new one. Stupidly, we did. That lasted a couple of years, then started blocking on every use. I've stripped it down as far as I can, cleaning out everything I could, but it still blocks every time.
As a result, I bought a Shark with a couple of batteries. That's a brilliant little hoover and picks up most of the rubbish, and we still have the Dyson for the heavier stuff, just need to make sure it's unblocked first..
Since the barrow rotates about the axle of the ball when you tilt it, instead of the point of contact of the wheel with the ground, the barrow does not have a tendency to fall over when it is not held dead level. You can also make small course corrections by gently tilting it, instead of stepping round at the back.
Certainly, the disinclination to fall over makes it easier to operate.
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They blow the water off your hands and that clearly has to go somewhere. The air blades we have, you put your hands into them from above, and it blows the water mostly over the device itself. The rest ends up as a fine mist that can be inhaled by your fellow bathroom users.
Yeah, I fucking hate those things. When they did a "refurb" of the communal areas of our office building (back when we had to actually be there), they replaced the working had-dryers with those awful Dyson things (the ones that just blow a column of air, and not the "blade" ones). About a month later, they stuck large panels of acrylic to the walls behind them to deal with the damp and peeling paint. Half the time, they don't detect your hands under them, or stop after about five seconds.
When I've had to use the "blade" ones that you put your hands under (rather than in), you end up having to do a Tommy Cooper impression just to keep the thing blowing air at your hands.
All blower hand driers are efficient spreaders of all sorts of contamination, as the late, great, Jack Cohen[1] demonstrated years before Dyson's version appeared.
Extra points for all the automated "air fresheners" that squirt lemon-scented[2] sprays into the air above the hot drier and its very worn and sparking electric motor, causing a buildup of strange brown stains on the wall (and you eyes, lungs and everywhere that the blower can send it). Limonene is ok, limonene and ozone is bad news.
[1] you may know him from Science of Discworld, from his work with various authors designing viable alien biosystems (e.g. Niven/Pournelle/Barnes samlon) or from his contributions to understanding issues surrounding human reproductive biology.
[2] lemon-scented moist towelettes are fine, but you may experience a short delay until they are in stock.
Our DC05 is still working, and must be getting on for 18 or so years old, (it's a cylinder vaccum rather than an upright, and therefore has not a lot to go wrong with it) but I won't be buying another Dyson, or any other brand that won't sell me a basic cylinder model with a power cord rather than a rechargeable battery.
Incidentally, he did a vacuum cleaner with a ball instead of wheels. My in-laws had one, but like their previous upright dyson cleaner, it died not long after the warranty ran out.
When I took on my allotment, the previous tenant had left a rusty old wheelbarrow at the end of the plot with a perished and flat tyre. A replacement wheel (with a solid tyre) and axle cost about a tenner, and I have a fully functional wheelbarrow, thank you very much. I dread to think how much a replacement "ball" costs, but I'm willing to bet you can buy an entire "conventional" wheelbarrow for a comparable amount. And those balls are plastic, so they are going to perish and crack if left outside, because UV light in sunlight "cures" plastics, and temperature cycling of rigid plastics eventually causes cracking from thermal expansion.
We have a DC41, which always leaves the carpet cleaner than any other vacuum. It will fill its bin from a carpet that's just been cleaned with another machine. The DC40 and earlier were better, as they were allowed to have full-fat motors (thanks EU!).
We also have a V7 portable. We chose an earlier model as they are lighter. The 20-minute run-time is quite adequate for a semi - you tend to use it little and often as it is light and easy to get out and use.
Having said that, both are only working as I am a bit handy at fixing.
Oh how I would have loved to have been in the meeting when someone brought this in.
"Genius! You'll be the coolest guy on the tube wearing this gear! And if it floods, instant lifesaving scuba diving system!".
I'll bite: is it that the biz run by this fine British enterpreneur who was once a mouthpiece for brexit and upon brexit success (brexess?) moved his business to the cradle of democracy called Sing-a-pore, on completely unrelated grounds? If so, I'm absolutely positive there'll be huge market for this fine piece of sculptured design-cum-engineering-cum-muzzle-bring-your-own-batteries-breakthrough-contraption. I mean, look, who WOULDN'T want to walk with this thing on your face literally anywhere on this planet? Alien, aka face-hugger slithers away in shame.
For at least 2 reasons
1. there's always enough fools and in that group, a smaller, but large enough sub-group, fools with money.
2. some will buy this speculatively, hoping that in 25 years time, they'll be able to cash in by peddling this thingy on some online (what else) 2050 equivalent of ebay.
...
possibly a museum or two, that falls into one of the above categories.
And Musk.
And his clowns.
See? Brilliant idea, though they should have priced it at USD 1999, more hate thus more hype.
hmm... perhaps I might interest you in an alternative project, at only 1.2 kg considered 'featherweight' in its class? Also, goes over your head and does other, potentially useful stuff, like keeping your ears warm. Also, 'unrivalled efficienty', and potentially a price tag to match the taste of our discerning clientele. Would sir be interested? .... if I can take head measurements, yes, we certainly take all credit cards!
www.armyrecognition.com/defense_news_december_2022_global_security_army_industry/discover_unrivaled_efficiency_of_ulbrichts_optio_and_zenturio_protective_ballistic_helmets.html
So on one hand, James Dyson blasts the UK government plans to extends the right to work from home, then the next announces the "perfect" device for that city commute for those with more money than sense
I wonder if they work as well as the respirators they were going to provide for the UK during lockdown...
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6 Hz is well below the normal range of human hearing. I wonder if that's just the limit of the noise-cancelling in order to minimise the rumble from the fan motors below your ears.
I write software for a living. If something I produced had an expensive and complicated work-around for a side-effect of another "feature", we'd call that "code smell," and go back and work out what had been done wrong. In this case, "what has been done wrong" is clearly the amount of coke the marketing department are hoovering dysoning up their noses.
> In this case, "what has been done wrong" is clearly the amount of coke the marketing department are hoovering dysoning up their noses.
In case you've not seen the rival vacuum cleaners' habit...
"Their actual range is 6Hz to 21kHz"
There's a parameter missing so this is meaningless. What's the variation in relative amplitude over that frequency range? That is (bluntly), how lumpy is the frequency response? Many of these high price gizmophones have appalling ones.
What the hell has happened in the world where any sane person can think that £750 is an appropriate amount for headphones?! Don't even give me that rubbish about audiophiles and the need to pay £2k for gold plated cable connectors to give a 0.05% boost to certain frequencies, you're full of crap! You simply spent that to show off and now you need to justify to yourself and your bank manager why you're such a gulliable prat.
Lister said best on Red Dwarf, "Back before you ruined your tastebuds with spicey curries and overly enthusiatic oral sex!". Same with hearing, unless you're a professional audio engineer or under the age of 15, you're hearing is more or less shot to pieces just like the rest of us. Traffic, screaming kids and sirens have seen to that.
As my old man always said, "Hey, it's your money son!". ( He did that to stop me turning into a prat who'd waste £750 on a pair of overpriced earmuffs! )
Indeed, my (still rather expensive) Corsair headset cost a tenth of that, and it's not made out of fucking plastic (well, bits of the casing are, but the bits that count are powder coated steel). That has a frequency range of 20Hz-30KHz, so better drivers too.
FWIW, anything below 20HZ is considered infrasound, and is likely to not be heard but instead sensed as an uncomfortable vibration on the side of your head.
There are headphones in that price range that are worth their money because they do sound better (although one owner that I knew who loved classical music complained that they were useless for half of his CDs because you could hear the slightest bit of noise from the audience).
I paid £100 for some good headphones, but I wouldn’t blame someone spending a lot more. And you can do that without being stupid.
Dyson AirBlade: introduced in 2006
Mitsubishi Jet Towel: introduced in 1993
As soon as I saw the first AirBlade I recognised it. If the deafening over-priced recycling-centre-infesting vacuum cleaners hadn't already convinced me to swerve this shyster's products, the AirBlade finished him. Oh, and remember the contra-rotating drum washing machine?
Here's a thought. Build something simple and effective at a sensible price, and they will come.
Skimming through that information page, what it reminded me of was of products which are pitched in "infomercials".
https://www.dyson.com/newsroom/news/product/dyson-zone-audio
And I was very disappointed not to see a mention of the use of oxygen-free copper
Air quality regulations in EU and globally are behind the science. Metal and metal-oxide nanoparticles arise from exhaust, tire dust, and steel industry as well as from natural dusts in dry conditions. They are flat-out terrible for long-term health, to an extent underestimated in the last big wave of standards-setting in the seventies due to slowness of cumulative damage and lack of decent science to show etiologies at that time.
Electrostatic filters are standard technology to control this type of dust, already applied (half-assedly) at many factory and foundry stacks. The mask still looks stupid though, I want one that looks *more* like Bane.
Integration with cycle and mb helmets would seem like a good idea.
Something that doesn't cover your nose and mouth, and which doesn't have some serious micro-particulate filters in it, is going to be as effective at filtering out such things as the square root of fuck all.
This thing will probably just blow ozone up your nose from the electric motors, which isn't good for you...
Metal and metal-oxide nanoparticles arise from exhaust, tire dust, and steel industry as well as from natural dusts in dry conditions. They are flat-out terrible for long-term health,
Exhaust & tire dust is indeed terrible for people. The obvious thing to do is ban private cars and ICE vehicles from urban areas and convert the rammed roads into cycle paths with planting. This solves the majority of both noise-pollution and air-pollution, as well as improving safety and reducing the number of RTAs and struck-pedestrian incidents.
Of course you still need a bit of space for delivery vehicles and some bus/tramways, but it means that we don't need to each spend £3-5k to protect our families.
Right you are, I'll cycle with my wife to visit her family on the other side of the country at Christmas then.
What's that? Use public transport? Sure thing, I'll use the fairy-bus to get to the middle of rural Norfolk.
Whilst I agree that we should be avoiding unnecessary car journeys, and walking or cycling instead, or using public transport, where we can, those who seem to think that cycling is the answer to everyone's transport needs obviously live in places where it is practical, and are young and fit and healthy enough to use it.
Some of us don't live in places where it is possible (such as very hilly areas or miles from anywhere) or are otherwise unable to cycle (got any disabled friends?).
We need a change to infrastructure (and ways of working / living) to reduce our need for cars, but don't blame the people in cars for having to have a car, and don't get all "high and mighty" because your own circumstances mean you can cycle to wherever it is you are trying to go.
"The Dyson Zone headphones come with a removable "visor" that uses a pair of compressors and electrostatic filters to "project purified air at the wearer's nose and mouth.""
A visor, by definition, goes in front of your eyes. The similarity to the word "vision" is not coincidental. On the other hand, using this thing as a visor would probably look just as sensible and provide precisely the same level of protection.
What's sad here is that the comments have immediately gone to "sound quality will be terrible" and "it looks ridiculous", and nobody seems to be saying "if pollution is an issue, how about we reduce it?".
Technical solutions to social problems never end well.
If an urban area has unacceptable air pollution then you need to pedestrianise key foot-traffic areas, run a bus or tram in, provide some secure bike storage and ban private cars. Simples.
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