The Nothing Headphone (1) Pro Looks Great and Sounds Even Better
As I waited to board a flight in the Seattle airport, an accessibility assistant nudged me to ask about my headphones. “They’re stunning,” he said, wondering whether he should splurge and buy himself a pair. He’s right: The new Nothing Headphone (1) Pro has gorgeous transparent glass accents that flaunt the internals most headphones conceal. But I’d never recommend someone buy a $400 pair of headphones on style alone. When I told this worker they’re worth the splurge, I added that they sound just as good as they look.
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“With Headphone (1) Pro, we wanted to set a new benchmark for Nothing’s audio innovation and deliver a true flagship listening experience,” a representative from Nothing’s research and development team told me. “Rather than making incremental improvements, we challenged ourselves to rethink the acoustic architecture.” That meant adopting an unusual approach, at least in terms of headphone design. Most headphones use a single-driver setup — that’s one “speaker” — to create sound. Nothing’s first premium-level headphones, on the other hand, feature three drivers, arranged as they might be in a pair of stereo speakers: There’s one for bass, another for treble, and one Nothing calls the “precision driver” that handles the midrange (which includes vocals).
While multi-driver configurations are more common in high-end in-ear monitors, where it’s hard to get even frequency response across a wide spectrum out of such tiny drivers, they’re rare on full-size headphones where a well-tuned single driver can do the trick (as it does in our pick for the best noise-canceling headphones overall, Sony’s WH-1000XM6). In fact, there have been very few full-size multi-driver headphones produced over the years, because the more drivers you introduce into a small space, the more likely you are to encounter phasing issues, wherein multiple drivers playing overlapping frequencies can cancel or overemphasize one another, resulting in unnatural (and unpleasant) sound. To minimize interference and avoid any noticeable phase cancellation problems, Nothing went through “extensive iterations of the driver placement and internal structure, combined with acoustic tuning,” before coming up with a final design, a representative said.
To our ears, Nothing’s hard work paid off: The Headphone (1) Pro has vibrant sound and a pleasantly wide soundstage. When listening to Alice in Chains’s Unplugged album, I could sense every instrument’s “placement” in the room and enjoyed hearing the texture of every guitar strum alongside Layne Staley’s haunting vocals. Even the claps and woos of the audience added depth to the track. It sounded closer to an in-person performance than I’d expect of a headphone in this price range.
Out of the box, the Pros don’t have as much low-end oomph as the Sony or Bose headphones we recommend. But that’s easily adjustable using Nothing’s surprisingly robust app. You can choose from five custom equalizer profiles: Balanced, More Bass, More Treble, More Vocals, and More Detail. You can also create a custom profile in either “simple” or “advanced” mode. Under the former, you can adjust the levels of bass, mid, and treble in relation to one another, while “advanced” mode lets you fine-tune the relative levels of the two main drivers (bass and treble) and precision driver. For those who prefer a more neutral sound, there’s also a switch on the left ear cup that enables “flat” mode, in which all processing is disabled. It’s mostly intended for mixing or producing music — they are “pro” headphones, after all — but it’s a nice inclusion that can quickly show you how much you can change the sound of the Nothings.
But Nothing didn’t stop at just making these headphones sound great. Where the company’s other headphones are mostly made of plastic, the Pro is almost all metal. The cans are made of a sturdy aluminum, while the arms are composed of titanium. Despite their mostly metal composition, though, these headphones are quite lightweight and comfortable to wear, thanks in part to particularly soft and thick padding along the ear cups and headband. Atop the cans are glass ovals that serve as windows into the headphone’s acoustic chambers; it’s sort of like looking at bookshelf speakers without grills. Some may prefer a less opinionated design, but I’m happy to wear headphones that turn their mechanical parts into a fashion statement.
The Headphone (1) Pro isn’t the first pair of Nothing headphones to impress me. The Headphone (1) and Headphone (a) both have great sound quality for their respective price points, and all the company’s headphones feature similar two-tone designs that stand out among offerings from other manufacturers. But the Pros go beyond just sounding good for their price. They sound so good I don’t want to move on to testing other headphones, and I love the look so much I wish more headphones showed off their innards. Not bad for a company’s first pair of premium headphones.
Other headphones we like
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Best in Class sound and noise-cancellation.
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Unrivaled transparency mode.
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Impressive sound without breaking the bank.
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