Nothing Headphone (1) reviewed: clear challengers

The maker of see-through earbuds and see-through phones unsurprisingly has a pair of see-through headphones. And in the Nothing Headphones (1), the clear approach isn’t just an aesthetic gimmick.

“Those headphones look good on you,” said Ms 8 when I got home, glancing at the uniquely designed headphones on my head and shortly around my neck. “They make you look cool.”

Cool. My eight year old daughter just bestowed a word on me that I’m not sure she had ever used in relation to anything I had ever worn. And yet here they were: cool.

“They suit you,” she said.

Now I wasn’t so sure. If anything, it was more of a question of “who was this young lady, and what had she done with my daughter”. But she probably had a point.

With a design like no other, Nothing’s first-generation headphones aptly named the “Headphone (1)” stand out in a big way. They are like nothing else out there, no pun intended.

And the good news is that this beauty goes skin deep, as well.

Design and features

Nothing isn’t known for ordinary design, and in the few years it has been around, nothing it has made has confirmed to the very word of “ordinary” in design. Rather, the company looks for ways to stand out, and typically does so with both design and features.

In what is clearly the first iteration of Nothing’s headphones (given the number one), Nothing is doing what it did with its earbuds and earphones: making things clear.

Simply put, you can see through these unique headphones, with a softened square aluminium casing on each pad and a transparent plastic exterior that stylises the insides. Headphones don’t really look like this on the inside — not completely, anyway — but Nothing is giving the concept a bit of flair, and showing how it looks to anyone who wants to see. Nothing is hidden, so to speak.

The result is something both modern and retro, and almost looks like you’re wearing a set of tape decks on your head. It’s wholly unique, and will clearly divide people.

Inside, there are 40mm drivers with the tuning coming out of Nothing’s collaboration with English sound specialists KEF, with the headphones supporting wireless sound over Bluetooth, and wired sound over both a 3.5mm headset jack and USB-C audio. Plug ’em in and work they will.

Nothing also brings active noise cancellation to the table, using three microphones on either side for six in total, and supporting ANC through one of four modes: low, mid, high, and adaptive using an algorithmic approach.

Spatial audio is part of the package, and the Nothing Headphone (1) headphones are compatible with iOS and Android, as well as PC and Mac, though the app is only found on mobile devices.

There’s a hint of water resistance in the Nothing Headphones, with an IP52 rating, making it fine for light rain, though we wouldn’t actively go out into water with these headphones on. The rating is just too low for that.

The design is largely what will get your attention, though, because it’s just so different.

In-use

Going a different way for design has also led Nothing to take its controls in another direction, as well.

Headphone controls typically go one of two ways: buttons or touch. It might be buttons and touch, but it’s usually one or a combination.

Apple’s AirPods Max go a totally different direction by borrowing from the Apple Watch: there’s a button and a crown for you to dial in volume. That’s an approach Nothing has reinterpreted with the Headphone (1).

Forget the crown, because Nothing isn’t going to copy. Instead, you’ll find a sort of a trackball on one side, with that featuring a button behind it.

You can scroll the volume up and down by scrolling it left and right, and you can press the button to pause and play. It sits above a paddle you can flick either direction for music control, and there’s also an extra button on the outside of one of the headphones for voice assistant control, or whatever you want to map it to.

Customisation is a part of the Nothing Headphones package, and you can definitely do some tweaking. There’s also an app, and the headphones work across iOS and Android. Handy.

In the real world, the controls are definitely interesting, and very much like the design.

That design can split a room, and so too can the controls. You will either love them or hate them, but they are definitely different. The tactile nature of the volume means you’re afforded a lot more control for volume perfection, but placing the button underneath it means you might also accidentally pause without intending to.

Even the track changing paddle feels a little amiss sometimes. You might decide to change the volume and accidentally nudge the paddle, but too late, because you’ve changed tracks.

It’s an interesting control system, but we’re not sure if it’s entirely successful. If anything, it probably just needs a little more fine-tuning.

Performance

The performance is better though, and something we avidly tested using the Pickr Sound Test, which you can experience for yourself.

As usual, that starts with electronic, which provides clarity first and foremost. There’s a nice booming bass that delivers the drop in Tycho’s “Glide”, while Daft Punk’s “Contact” offers solid punch and excellent detail in the drums. The sound is mostly balanced with a touch more bass than expected.

The soundstage is definitely better than expected, with a great delivery for most tracks. A strong punch in Mark Ronson and Charlie Puth, while the balance in Carly Rae Jepsen’s “Cut To The Feeling” was more balanced than bassy.

If we thought the Headphone (1) headphones were outright warm, the rendition of this track threw that out immediately, much as they did with Marvin Gaye’s “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough”, which felt flat at times, the bass guitar losing its roundness.

Most tracks and genres fared well, however, particularly when the bass was engineered to be more pronounced. The guttural bass on FKA Twigs’ “Two Weeks” could also be felt, while Muse and Rage Against the Machine punched hard for the drums, delivering detail and balance across the track, and indeed across most of the rock we pushed through the cans. Jazz and classical was much the same, with a wide soundstage offering a lot of detail.

You even get audiophile-grade engineering to a point, thanks to KEF being included as part of the engineering process. It’s been a while since we saw KEF headphones, so this is a solid inclusion that only helps to bolster Nothing’s audio skills. Interestingly, you can even find the Nothing headphones on KEF’s own site, almost as if they were made by the audio specialists.

If all of this just sounds like a lot of notes about the headphones, know this: the Nothing Headphone (1) sounded better than this reviewer expected. They are spacious and detailed, and surprisingly capable for a first-gen product.

Noise cancellation

One of the big features of most pairs of wireless headphones is active noise cancellation, and the Headphone (1) come equipped.

You’ll find three fixed modes supported via the app — low, medium, and high — plus an adaptive that listens to the sounds around you and attempts to shift the cancellation so that you can hear what you need to, and little of what you don’t.

Four modes are handy, but if you’re looking for cancellation, you’ll likely leave the headphones in high, where they do a respectable and commendable job of cancelling out the world. Testing with repeatable sounds, little in the way of outside and environmental sound entered the headphones, hough they really need a proper seal.

Lacking a lovely head of hair, this reviewer needs to use head attire (like a beanie, but European) to cover his head in winter. Doing so loosened the seal slightly, and the cancellation technology on the Nothing Headphones didn’t do much to compensate.

In short, the cancellation is decent and will work well when pressed to your head, but lacks the extra optimisation companies like Bose and Sony are known for.

Spatial audio

You’ll also find support for Spatial Audio with head tracking in these cans, though of the emulated variety, not unlike what Bose is doing across its range of earbuds and headphones.

Simply put, they’ll track your head’s position as it moves left and right, moving you through the stereo sound, though not quite delivering the full Atmos spatial sound.

Testing the Nothing Headphones on iPhone, it was clear they weren’t getting the spatial recording from Apple Music — something that has been largely proven to only work on Apple and Beats audio gear — but it’s a similar experience on Android.

Even though some Bluetooth earphones support a proper spatial soundtrack, the Dolby Atmos on offer from Apple Music on Android certainly came to the phone as Atmos, but the delivery sounded like you were being passed between the stereo sound. In fact, the sound was practically identical between Apple Music and Spotify, the latter of which doesn’t support spatial audio.

That more or less confirms that Nothing is emulating the sound, which isn’t a bad thing, just rather a point. The spatial sound isn’t quite as polished as what Bose can achieve with its head-tracking tech, but the result is still more dynamic than simply stereo.

Stereo is great, too — each to their own — but you just get a little more, even if it’s not a real spatial delivery in Nothing’s first-gen headphones.

Battery

One area that really delivers is the battery, at least on paper, which if you turn the noise cancellation off can hit up to 80 hours. But since no one will do that, let’s talk about what it’s like if you leave ANC on.

Everyone will likely leave active noise cancellation switched on. What is the point of having a pair of noise cancelling headphones if you have to deal with noise?

With ANC on, the Nothing Headphone (1) delivers up to 35 hours of life, which in ours tests basically means a solid work week of use if you use them for 4 to 7 hours per day. That’s not bad, but also not amazing. It’s normal when compared with Bose and Sony, but lower than the 50 hours Sennheiser can achieve.

Value

But the price tag does make sense. In Australia. the Nothing Headphone (1) hit online for $549, a good $100 below the price of many of its obvious competitors.

Granted, headphones from Nothing are new, so this is more of a challenger play jumping into the category with something unique. And yet at the same time, the price. tag gets you something premium without costing the proverbial limb.

What needs work?

The noise cancellation could be slightly better for the price, but that’s not our biggest complaint with Nothing’s first pair of headphones. In fairness to the company, there’s a lot Nothing has done right.

So what has it managed to get wrong?

Portability and long-term durability are two things that come to mind.

We’ll start with the first, because portability is a key part of travelling with headphones. It’s why Sony has thrown a fold-up design back into the WH-1000XM range, missing on the XM5 and added back to the newly released WH-1000XM6.

The Nothing Headphone (1) headphones are not as portable as the XM6. The case is surprisingly large, comes in the same weird felt lining as the Sonos Ace, but yet manages to pick up on every bit of fur and hair in a way that our case looked a hideous after being in the same room as Daisy the Golden Retriever for minutes.

Granted, Daisy’s fur is an aggressive test for any felt case, but had the headphones folded up nicely, we wouldn’t need to reach for the case. They don’t, though. You need to either carry them in that seemingly unclean-able case, or keep them around your neck. It’s not just a thoroughly portable design.

The long term durability also raises questions, largely because we’re not sure the pads are easily replaced. In fairness to Nothing, this is true of several brands, but some do it well. Bose’s pads replacement is a pain but still works, while Apple’s is a treat by comparison, offering magnetic pads that replace in seconds on the AirPods Max.

Long term repairability is important for a pair of headphones designed to keep you going, and to keep you listening. But with the Nothing Headphone (1), it’s difficult to know where the cans even support replaceable pads. We’re not sure they do, making them feel like a pair of headphones that will only last a few years at most.

What we love

But those few years will be cool, because these headphones are also cool. Like really cool.

The style will clearly divide, and not everyone will appreciate the transparent approach to design Nothing champions. A little like a clear look at a modern tape deck, there really is nothing like a pair of Nothing headphones. And that’s fine: you don’t have to like the vibes Nothing is putting out here.

But this journalist does. This reviewer digs the style, as does his daughter, who at the top of this piece even noted that he looked cool wearing them. High praise for an eight year old who has literally never said that about her Dad.

Cool aesthetics count for something, too. You only need to look at what Beats accomplished in its early days to see that (these days, Beats gear sounds good, too).

The Nothing Headphones (1) stand out because they look different, but they also sound pretty great, too. It’s a decent package.

Nothing Headphones 1 vs the competition

However, it’s also a package that has equally solid competition.

Take the recently released WH-1000XM6, which priced between $615 and $699 (street pricing) are clear contenders provided you’re willing to up the spend a little. Even their predecessors are solid value, too, with the XM5 undercutting at around between the $415 and $500 mark, and the also-excellent WH-1000XM4 still available and priced a good $200 lower. At $349, the Sony WH-1000XM4 are a steal, and only challenged by Nothing on design.

It’s a similar predicament with the Nothing Headphones challenging Bose’s market dominance for a piece of the market.

By comparison, the $299 QuietComfort SC are basically a new version of the QC45, while the superior QuietComfort Ultra Headphones can be found for $530, under the price of Nothing’s gear and with superior sound and noise cancellation. They may even see a new release this year given the Bose Ultra Earbuds now have a second-gen model, a move that would drive down the cost of these headphones, too.

Nothing’s biggest problem is clearly competition: there’s so much of it out there, and it is exceptional.

About the only way the Nothing Headphones stand out is by design. For some, that could be enough. We’re not sure if it’s enough for everyone, though.

Final thoughts (TLDR)

I don’t know what I expected when I started reviewing the Nothing Headphone (1). I certainly didn’t expect my children to say I looked cool wearing them. That was a surprise.

But it’s nice to be surprised. It’s delightful, actually, and I’m surprised about the Headphone (1) headphones, as well.

The name is a little crazy, and truth be told, a pain for an editor to go through and deal with. But the headphones are a lot better than they should be, better than most first-gen products achieve.

They sound great, deliver decent noise cancellation, and stand out in a positive way. There are definite improvements Nothing could make, but for a gen-one product, the Nothing Headphone (1) stands out. Which given the design, is probably the point.

These are clear challengers for the bigger brands. Surprisingly recommended.