When audio gear makers work with audio gear specialists, you expect a degree of magic. That’s what appears to be on the cards for Nothing from this year.
It’s been an interesting year for relative newcomer to the Australian market “Nothing”. After releasing its transparent phones locally last year and upgrading them recently in the mid-range 3a Pro, Nothing also brought its less expensive sub-brand CMF to our neck of the woods, providing a little more for buyers to pick from. That assortment of gear covered a single phone and a trio of inexpensive noise cancelling earphones.
Interestingly, Nothing isn’t done with announcements, and has a big one if you know your audio gear companies: loudspeaker and HiFi gear specialist KEF is collaborating with Nothing on new products this year.
A specialist sound gadget maker, KEF’s expertise often extends to desktop speakers and loudspeakers, but you can find some pretty excellent headphones from the English audio specialists, as well.
And now it appears that Nothing’s assortment of phones and earphones could be on the cards next for KEF to expand into.
For Nothing, it’s not the first time the company has worked with an audio specialist for its gear. The first generation of the Ear (1) earbuds were worked on with Teenage Engineering, another audio specialist, but was later removed when the earphone audio design became in-house at Nothing.
Bringing KEF into the fold is a curious endeavour, because it suggests better audio support is on the way, potentially with new earphone approaches, and maybe even a speaker or two, something that KEF is known for.
It’s not the first time a mobile company has collaborated with an audio specialist, either. LG used to work with Bang & Olufsen for its phones, and has also worked with fellow English audio specialists at Meridian Audio. Meanwhile, Samsung outright bought Harman, incorporating speaker technology from AKG into its phones, headphones, and speaker products.
Representatives for Nothing wouldn’t say what the KEF collaboration was about just yet, beyond that noting that “several acoustically co-developed products already in the works and launching later this year”, and that the company would update Pickr as soon as it could.
