Review: Daisy One

I wish the Daisy One headphones sounded as nice as they look.

The Daisy One is the first pair of headphones from Daisy, a California company that employs engineers formerly from the Samsung-owned audio company Harman Professional Solutions. Together with a sound system developed by Utah-based ((nxc)) systems, the Daisy One is attempting to burst its way into a very saturated premium audio market Kool-Aid-Man style, with a focus on design and tactical buttons.

You’ve probably seen the ads for these headphones on Instagram. They seemed pervasive on social media, at least for a little while, vying for eyeballs as they enter an industry dominated by massive companies like Sony, Apple, and Bose. By focusing on design, Daisy wants to go head-to-head with premium headphone manufacturers that make the best headphones. The Daisies are gorgeous, comfy, and at $349, definitely cheaper than many other options. But if you’re an audiophile or stickler for sound quality, you’re probably better off saving your money for something else.

Photograph: Boone Ashworth

Before the product launched, Daisy CEO Jack Mulroe said the motivation for making Daisy was a lack of differentiation in headphones. He believes the market has been stale since Beats by Dre blew up with its very colorful (now Apple-owned) headsets. That said, the first wave of Daisy headphones comes in just three colors: Silver, Pacific (blue), and Kelp (greenish brown). I’ve been demoing a pair of the Pacific blues and genuinely like wearing them. The build quality is great. An array of aluminum and TR90 polymers makes these feel top shelf.

The Daisy One comes in a very nice box that Mulroe says is meant to feel like a book you’d place on a library shelf. It is nice, but I’m going to gently accuse the company of preying on the millennial need to hoard empty boxes, certain they’ll need them later. The included carrying case is a smooth, equally elegant lump that snaps closed with a magnetic latch.

The headphones are slightly heavier than some of the other primo cans on the market, but the earpads’ soft cushions work really well to squish around glasses. I can keep them on for hours at a time and not feel the need to pull them off. But they’re not so lightweight that I tend to forget I’m wearing them, unlike my pair of Sony WH-1000XM4s. The earcups magnetically attach, so they pop off easily if you need to replace them.

Photograph: Boone Ashworth

The Daisies do have a bit of heft, but that also translates into a tactility that other, more plasticky headphones don’t convey. They also last a long time, rated at 45 hours of battery life. I never had a problem with having to recharge them. The headphones have a 3.5-mm aux port and a USB-C audio connection that supports 24-bit digital audio at 44.1 kHz or 48 kHz. After the product launched, Daisy said it signed paperwork with Sony to release LDAC support, Sony’s high-res Bluetooth codec, via an over-the-air update later this year.

The volume dial is easily the best part of the Daisy headphones. Maybe one of the best dials on any headphones, especially in this price range. It’s a scored metal knob that rolls very smoothly. Press the side to pause or play the music with a very satisfying click. Double-click to skip a song, triple-tap to go one track back. It’s very straightforward.

Long-press the active noise cancellation button behind the dial to activate Still Mode, where a series of Daisy’s on-device relaxing soundscapes take over. You can switch between soft, ambient water-based sounds that Daisy says are recorded across California, such as rainfall, a forest stream, a waterfall, and ocean waves. There is also a five-minute breathwork session that sounds much less wet. It's all very zen, and a nice feature to be able to quickly swap to when you need to chill out.

Photograph: Boone Ashworth

The headphones do not incorporate any touch controls, which is a godsend. There is no accidentally pausing or triggering an AI assistant when you’re just trying to change the volume. You can switch between noise canceling and transparency modes with the press of a button.

The problem? The noise canceling and transparency modes are not very good. Walking out when it’s windy or sitting on a loud subway train going underground is almost worse with noise canceling on, as it distorts the sound into sharp, loud blasts. Transparency mode just doesn’t let much sound in from the outside and distorts the audio quality. These features aren’t great, though Daisy says it’s aware of the issue and is aiming to fix it with software updates over time. But you should never buy a product based on the promises of future software updates.

The companion app is simple to use, which is nice, but the sound choices are underwhelming. It comes default on a mode called Daisy EQ, with a dynamic bass feature turned on. That works well enough for bass-heavy EDM, though it does sound noticeably muddier than my Sony WH-1000XM4. Switching the EQ to a flat sound profile reveals the real weakness of these headphones. The sound quality just feels more hollow than it should, with highs sounding tinny and the lows coming across as very unenthusiastic without the dynamic bass setting on. (Call quality is fine, and nobody on the other end of a call said I came through weird.)

Photograph: Boone Ashworth

That’s probably the sacrifice you have to make when trying to save a couple of hundred bucks over top-tier headphones. But the Daisies are also cheaper than they could have been. When the company announced the product, it listed the price at $399. Now, it has dropped to $349.

I do want to point out that you can find top-end headphones, like Sony’s latest WH-1000XM6 or Bose’s QuietComfort Ultra 2, for close to the price of the Daisy One headphones during sale events (the XM6’s have dropped as low as $378 last month, and the Bose are $370 right now as of publication).

The hardware feels great, which has me intrigued about what the company will do next. Sadly, the One just ain’t quite it yet.