Daisy Sound’s First Headphones Are Premium, High-Quality—and Just a Little Bit Cheaper
Daisy Sound’s First Headphones Are Premium, High-Quality—and Just a Little Bit Cheaper
Daisy Sound 首款耳机：主打高端品质，价格略显亲民
Jack Mulroe thinks the premium headphone market is boring. Too focused on black, samey-looking devices; too caught up in the “spec wars” to figure out what the very best headset is. He just wants his California-inspired headphones to help people chill.
Jack Mulroe 认为高端耳机市场已经变得索然无味。厂商们过于关注千篇一律的黑色外观，沉迷于“参数竞赛”，却忽略了什么才是真正顶级的耳机。他只想通过自己这款充满加州风情的耳机，帮助人们放松身心。
“I just saw a pattern of there being kind of a dead space, honestly, in the headphone market, where the most recent culturally relevant brand was Beats,” Mulroe says. “It just felt kind of stale.”
“说实话，我发现耳机市场存在一个真空地带，上一个在文化层面具有影响力的品牌还是 Beats，”Mulroe 说道，“整个市场感觉有点陈旧了。”
Mulroe is the CEO and founder of a new audio brand called Daisy Sound, headquartered in California. It bills itself as “a team of industrial designers from outside the audio industry” aiming to shake up the already saturated headphone scene. The Daisy One headphones, revealed on Tuesday, are the company’s first product.
Mulroe 是一家总部位于加州的新兴音频品牌 Daisy Sound 的首席执行官兼创始人。该品牌自称是“一支来自音频行业之外的工业设计团队”，旨在撼动已经饱和的耳机市场。周二发布的 Daisy One 耳机是该公司的首款产品。
These retro-styled headphones are meant to go head-to-head with the big premium noise-canceling cans like Apple’s AirPods Max and Sony’s WH-1000XM6. Those are headphones that usually retail for $450 to $550. The Daisy One undercuts them slightly at $399. The goal is to sell sleek noise-canceling headphones for slightly less than the big dogs.
这款复古风格的耳机旨在与苹果 AirPods Max 和索尼 WH-1000XM6 等高端降噪耳机正面竞争。这些竞品的零售价通常在 450 到 550 美元之间，而 Daisy One 的定价为 399 美元，略低于它们。其目标是以比大牌更实惠的价格提供时尚的降噪耳机。
“I knew we’d be competing against the bigs: Sony, Bose, Beats, Apple,” Mulroe says. “I didn’t really mind that competition. It’s going to be all good.” But competition is fierce in this space across the price spectrum, like from London-based Nothing and its flashy over-ear headphones and Anker’s Soundcore budget options (one of which won WIRED’s blind test) to premium cans from Bowers & Wilkins or Grado.
“我知道我们将与索尼、Bose、Beats 和苹果这些巨头竞争，”Mulroe 说，“我并不介意这种竞争，这会是件好事。”但在各个价位段，该领域的竞争都异常激烈，从伦敦 Nothing 公司炫酷的头戴式耳机、安克（Anker）的 Soundcore 经济型产品（其中一款曾赢得《连线》杂志的盲测），到 Bowers & Wilkins 或 Grado 的高端耳机，竞争对手比比皆是。
The Daisy One indeed look nice. They’re meant to be durable and long-lasting, made of aluminum with composite TR90 head straps, a material widely used by headphone manufacturers. (“You can just yeet it,” Mulroe says, stretching out the headband.) They are a little heavier than their competitors at 318 grams, or nearly three-quarters of a pound. The ear pads snap on and off via magnetic connection. They work with Bluetooth but also support USB-C and 3.5-mm auxiliary wired connections. The headphones come in three color options—silver, a blue shade called Pacific, and a greenish-brown called Kelp.
Daisy One 的外观确实不错。它们旨在实现耐用与长效，采用铝材和复合 TR90 头带制成，这是一种耳机制造商广泛使用的材料。（“你可以随便扔它，”Mulroe 说着，用力拉伸头带。）它们的重量为 318 克（约 0.7 磅），比竞争对手稍重。耳罩通过磁吸方式拆卸。它们支持蓝牙连接，同时也支持 USB-C 和 3.5 毫米辅助有线连接。耳机有三种颜色可选：银色、名为“太平洋”的蓝色，以及名为“海带”的绿褐色。
The design is meant to evoke some California chic, as most of the designers are based in the state. Some of the Daisy crew are former engineers with Harman Professional Solutions, an audio company owned by Samsung. The actual sound system inside is developed by Utah-based company ((nxc)) systems, which Daisy contracts with. Stored on the device itself are ambient soundscapes recorded in California, like ocean waves or the forest ambiance in Big Sur. There is also a guided breath-work exercise to help people chill out in stressful places like airports.
由于大多数设计师都居住在加州，该设计旨在唤起一种加州时尚感。Daisy 的部分团队成员是三星旗下音频公司 Harman Professional Solutions 的前工程师。其内部的音响系统由 Daisy 签约的犹他州公司 ((nxc)) systems 开发。设备内置了在加州录制的环境音景，如海浪声或大苏尔（Big Sur）的森林氛围音。此外，它还提供引导式呼吸练习，帮助人们在机场等压力环境下放松心情。
The Daisy One headphones get around 35 hours of battery life with noise canceling on and 45 hours with it off. Despite the marketing that these are reliable headphones designed 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 gotten mixed reviews, with some early testers on TikTok criticizing the transparency mode on the headphones—which lets sound in so you can hear your surroundings—saying they leave a lot to be desired. Mulroe is familiar with that complaint and says it can be upgraded later via a software patch.
Daisy One 耳机在开启降噪功能时续航约为 35 小时，关闭时为 45 小时。尽管营销宣传称这是一款耐用的可靠耳机，但电池无法更换。Mulroe 表示，公司正在为未来的型号解决这个问题。这款耳机也收到了褒贬不一的评价，一些 TikTok 上的早期测试者批评其通透模式（允许外界声音进入以便感知周围环境）表现不佳，称其还有很大提升空间。Mulroe 对此抱怨很了解，并表示可以通过后续的软件补丁进行升级。
“Transparency, it’s tough because we are up against Apple and Sony, who have great [intellectual property], great designers, great engineers, so they did it,” Mulroe says. “I tweaked out on transparency for months, like every single element of this product. It’s as good as I could make it in the time we had.”
“通透模式很难做，因为我们的对手是苹果和索尼，他们拥有强大的知识产权、优秀的设计师和工程师，所以他们做到了，”Mulroe 说，“我为了通透模式调试了几个月，就像对待这款产品的每一个元素一样。在有限的时间内，我已经尽我所能做到了最好。”
These headphones are also launching at a very weird time for the electronics industry in general. Memory shortages are driving up costs for nearly everything, and asking customers to take a chance on an unproven, admittedly industry-outsider company is a risk. But Mulroe isn’t worried about that. Like the headphones themselves, he’s eager to project a very relaxed California chill.
这款耳机的发布正值电子行业的一个微妙时期。内存短缺推高了几乎所有产品的成本，要求消费者去尝试一家未经市场验证、且承认是行业门外汉的公司，这本身就是一种冒险。但 Mulroe 并不担心。就像这款耳机本身一样，他渴望展现出一种非常放松的加州式从容。
“Pick ours up next to Sony and Bose and tell me who you like more, because I’m that confident in build quality,” Mulroe says. “I think we’re here to stay, honestly.”
“把我们的耳机和索尼、Bose 的放在一起对比，告诉我你更喜欢哪一个，因为我对我们的制造质量就是这么自信，”Mulroe 说，“说实话，我认为我们已经站稳了脚跟。”