GoKawiilBefore the product launched, Daisy CEO Jack Mulroe said the motivation for making Daisy was a lack of differentiation in headphones. He feels like the market has been stale since Beats by Dre blew up with their 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 blue ones 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 come 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 that you’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. 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 sense of tactility that other, more plasticky headphones do not. 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 has signed paperwork with Sony to release LDAC support, Sony’s high-res Bluetooth codec, via an over-the-air update later this year.