Этот обзор на русском.

I’ve been looking for ‘big’ wireless headphones for a long time, but I never chose to buy any of them: they all just have a poor sound. Just a few days ago, I even tested and measured Focal Bathys. Damn it, I’m not ready to put up with this sound signature and channel discrepancy of 3 dB in the most important place for their price.

And then Nothing Headphone (1) happened: an unusual design in the best traditions of Nothing, decent battery life and, what counts most, an 8-point parametric equalizer! I immediately took the white model, and this is what we’re gonna talk about today.

Firmware version: 1.0.1.74 (updated on August 19, 2025).

What’s included

The headphones come in a large embossed cardboard box.

Here’s what’s inside:

• the headphones;
• a case;
• Type-C ↔ Type-C cable, about 115 cm long;
• Jack 3.5 ↔ Jack 3.5 cable, same length;
• some papers.

The case is made of a material that I tend to define as ‘condensed milled synthetic wool’. The case is very thin and closes with a hidden zipper. Inside the case, the headphones fit into a shaped niche and don’t popple at all when carried. It’s made cool, it’s nice to use, even though the zipper doesn’t zip very smoothly.

Here are white original cables. The Type-C cable has excessive rigidity (I’ll explain below what it’s compared to), but in general, these are just normal cables.

The headphones are made in the Nothing corporate design, the main features of which are minimalism, strict geometry with recurrent rhythmic bumps, as well as deliberate color accents.

In terms of design and functional aspects, the headphones are made kind of very… purposely:

1. The headband is plastic and quite flexible.

2. The earcups are attached to the headband by metal parts.

3. The earpads and the headband overlay are replaceable and can be bought separately here.

4. The pressure is sufficient so that the headphones don’t pinch, but also don’t fall off when walking actively.

5. The earpads are made of shape memory foam and wrapped in soft and pleasant-to-touch rubber-like material. The internal dimensions of the earcup are 65×44×28 mm. My ears fit in comfortably, with only my lobes pressed against my head with the earpads. But they are pressed gently.

6. The earcup enclosures are made of aluminum, and the outer overlays are presented in the form of transparent acrylic covers.

For my liking, the misses are as follows:

1. The case design implies the need to turn the earcups, and this leads to the fact that, when taking out and putting the headphones into the case, the earcups inevitably and loudly knock against each other with their corners. We’ll see how soon they will start getting scratches.

2. Their weight is 330 g. With the headband being so thin and so small in area, this is a bit too much.

Control system

Headphone (1) have what seems to be the clearest and most obvious control logic I’ve ever seen. There are no touch panels — only mechanical elements.

The sound volume is controlled by a roller on the right headphone. By default, this element is also responsible for playback/pause and for switching between noise reduction/transparency modes. Tracks are switched by a separate rocker on the right headphone; it also allows for ‘rewinding’ within a single track.

A separate ‘hidden’ button is assigned for pairing.

The function of another button is user-configurable, and you can assign it to switch standard equalizer presets and even mute the microphone. The headphones are switched on and off with a 2-position slider.

The controls are designed so naturally that you memorize and get used to them literally on the spot.

Let me note that, as all the physical controls are located either at the back or on the side of the earcup, when you take the headphones off your head and put them on the table, no buttons are pressed themselves – this was considered as well.

Software

The list of the headphones’ smart features is relatively short: it’s possible to connect to two sources simultaneously, auto-pause is implemented when removing headphones from the head, and there is a low latency mode and headphone search.

Basically, this is it.

There is no automatic activation of transparency during the start of a conversation, interactive sound setting, and transparency doesn’t even activate itself during a call. Head tracking and 3D sound are implemented, but I’m not ready to consider these as somehow valuable features.

The application is much more interesting because this is what allows for sound customization: simplified and parametric equalizers are implemented there. While the simplified equalizer is designed primitively, as it should be, the parametric equalizer is really interesting. There are 8 points available, for each of which you can adjust frequency, Q-factor (in the range [0.1, 10] in 0.1 increments) and gain (in the range [-6, +6] in 0.5 increments). When you raise the volume at any point, you lose the overall volume — this is done to avoid clipping and protect the amplifier from overload. There are frequency limits for each point:

1. 20-99 Hz;
2. 100-199 Hz;
3. 200-399 Hz;
4. 400-999 Hz;
5. 1,000-2,999 Hz;
6. 3,000-5,999 Hz;
7. 6,000-11,999 Hz;
8. 12,000-20,000 Hz.

That is, the parametric equalizer is present, but it is functionally limited. You won’t be able to take a Headphone (1) measurement, upload it to AutoEQ, and then simply enter the received equalizer settings in the application.

Nevertheless, even an equalizer of such kind is a radically more advanced solution, compared to the 3-5 bands offered in other models of wireless headphones. I’ll also note that the additional ‘Bass Enhancement’ setting also works when using the parametric equalizer. The cherry on the cake is an opportunity to exchange equalizer presets through generation and scanning of QR codes, and it’s just incredibly cool: you scan a code or import a picture with it through the Nothing app – and now you have a different sound.

Use cases

An obvious basic option is to use Headphone (1) as portable wireless headphones. SBC, AAC and LDAC codecs, Bluetooth 5.3 support, active noise reduction system, go for it. Due to support for connection to two devices at the same time, another scenario also works well when a user drives to work and listens to music from their phone, and at work the headphones are connected to the laptop in parallel and used for meetings. I’ll note that there is an unofficial web application at https://earweb.bttl.xyz /, which allows for control of the headphone settings via a web browser if the headphones are connected via Bluetooth.

The next option is to use Headphone (1) as a wired headset. Indeed, the headphones support connection to a PC with Windows and are defined as a stereo device for audio output (up to 24 bit/96 kHz), as well as a mono microphone (16 bit/48 Hz). At the same time, the roller on the right earcup begins to adjust the system volume level, the rocker switches tracks in any application, and the headphones are charged in parallel from the USB port. Holy moly! But there’s one hitch: the headphones don’t allow for a wireless connection when wired. When connected with a cable, the Bluetooth channel immediately shuts down, and access to the settings via the Android app is also lost.

The cable connection also works for smartphones (I tried it with Galaxy S25 Ultra). But it didn’t work with Shanling M0 Pro as the headphones didn’t ‘start up’ via the digital cable. Here you’ll have to use the analog version, as described below.

And this is the right time to complain about the original Type-C cable: it’s inconvenient for a situation where the headphones are on your head and the cable is used to transmit audio data because it’s too rigid and ‘microphones’ like hell. I’d prefer a softer option, for example, this.

And, finally, Headphone (1) can be connected with a 3.5 jack. This is a pretty wild way if you think about it: the signal enters an analog wire from a digital source, being converted by a DAC. Then it comes into the headphones, is digitized again, equalized, and again turns into an analog signal by the headphone DAC. And only then it enters your ears ‘chewed’ twice — Headphone (1) don’t have a fully analog or ‘passive’, if you will, mode of operation. In other words, you can use this way of connection, but perhaps only in the absence of any other options.

It turns out that the Headphone (1) can be considered as portable wireless headphones, as well as wired headphones for more or less stationary work, listening to music and playing games. Not bad!

User experience

The main message here will be simple: it’s convenient to use these headphones because the controls are well elaborated, the headphones are stably connected to sources; Headphone (1) have no obvious ergonomic errors, and the proprietary app (on my S25 Ultra, at least) works consistently. Yes, the ears sweat pretty quickly, but what else can you expect from a closed-back model?

I’d estimate the quality and strength of active noise reduction as good: it’s enough to significantly mute most of the sounds of a big city or an airplane. It’s more difficult with the subway, and this is an extreme option in terms of the volume of external noise: the headphones begin to lose the volume of music. It seems that, starting from a certain volume level of the external environment, the power of the built-in amplifier is spent on ensuring the operation of the active noise reduction system, but it’s beginning to be insufficient for playing musical content. Roughly speaking, with ANC turned on, H(1) sound very loud at 60% in the external silence, but in the subway, the volume has to be raised to almost 90%, and it’s not because you hear external sounds. It may be not a matter of power of the built-in amplifier, but of approaching the limit of the driver’s capabilities; I don’t know for sure.

ANC does a good job with harsh single sounds in the midrange, and a worse one if the sounds have a higher pitch. And the acoustic transparency mode is just excellent: you can easily buy coffee or pay at the cashdesk without taking your headphones off.

Other ends and outs:

1. Headphone (1) seem to not struggle with the wind noise at all, which is particularly disturbing if the wind is directed at the user’s face.
2. The weight of the earcups (on my bald head and with my gait) causes the headphones to wobble slightly on my head during intense walking if my head is somewhat bent. If I keep my head strictly vertical, then there’s no trace of this problem.
3. The earcups bump against each other every time you take out the headphones of and put them in the case. Personally, it annoys me.

And, well, it’d really be great if it was possible to change the settings of the headphones through the web app when they are connected via a Type-C cable, just like how it’s done with one well-known keyboard. But this is a request not to the manufacturer, but to the developers’ community.

As for the proprietary Android app, I didn’t have any obvious problems with it. Sometimes it finds a new equalizer preset in the headphones and suggests saving it, but that’s about it. Let me note that the firmware did not want to be updated at first, and the application complained about the lack of Internet connection. The problem was solved in a simple way, by downloading the current version of the app from the manufacturer’s website rather than from Google Play.

Sound

Basis:

• Does the reviewer hear well? See here.
• Does the reviewer understand how headphones are measured? See here.
• The description of the measuring rig is here.

Let’s start, as always, with measurements. This time, everything will be a little more complicated than usual.

Let’s look at the measurement of the right headphone:

There’s Bluetooth connection, ANC is active, but it doesn’t matter. Let me remind you that, when you see a frequency response measurement of headphones on the Internet, in 90% of cases it’s just one curve, which is an average of the left and right channels. But measurements of each of the channels should be made several times with a slight change in the position of the headphone on the rig (if you’re curious enough, click here). The graph above clearly shows a very large frequency response variability in the most important frequency range: from 1 to 8 kHz. I won’t engage in innuendos or try to guess the causes of this phenomenon (small diameter of the driver, rotation of the driver in relation to the plane of the earcup, etc.), but I’ll just emphasize the fact itself: the sound of Headphone (1) in the midrange is very dependent on the fit, on minimal turns and shifts.

The average frequency response of the right headphone in the complete absence of air gaps:

Here both channels are completely free of air gaps. A good match:

We can see Harman-like tuning with a muffled upper middle and a dip at about 4 kHz, which is typical of closed-back headphones with a significant distance between the ear and the driver.

A significant shift can change the sound picture completely radically (I failed to achieve a tight fit during the shift, so the ‘tail’ at 20 Hz went down, but I’m much more concerned about the situation at middle and upper frequencies):

That is, in the range from 1 to 8 kHz, with a significant shift (backward, in this case), the sound changes beyond recognition, as if it were different headphones.

Let’s look at group delay graphs with slightly different positions of the headphones on the rig:

The graph looks a little weird, but it’s the fault of the wireless channel. Just look at the floating resonance in the range of 3-5 kHz. It’s present on all measurements if the headphones are connected via Bluetooth.

And if you take a Type-C cable, it’s not there.

I don’t want to overload my review with pictures with measurements (if you need them, write in the comments, and I’ll post them), so we go point by point:

1. When connected via Bluetooth, the frequency response of Headphone (1) is practically unchanged. The difference is 2 dB on subbass, from 20 to 80 Hz. When ANC is on, there’s less subbass.
2. The frequency response of Headphone (1) doesn’t change when comparing wired and wireless connections.
3. Resonances and all other sound defects visible on the group delay graph are present with a wireless connection and absent with a wired one.

Therefore, this review is a rare example for my blog when a subjective verbal description of the sound will be more informative than graphs. On the other hand, with such a variable frequency response, it’s generally not very clear what the point of the description of H(1) sound is.

What I personally heard, if we talk about the standard H(1) sound (‘Balanced’ equalizer setting): I heard a so-so sound relying on subbass, a sonorous section around 6 kHz, as well as a clear accent around 1.1 kHz. The latter feature has a pronounced effect on the sound, and the ‘Presence’ and ‘Brilliance’ ranges are very uneven: there are a lot of peaks and dips there, for my hearing. It turns out that as soon as you come across a track that uses both low-frequency and mid-frequency ranges, you hear only the middle frequencies because the emphasis at 1.1 kHz masks the ‘bottom’. A vivid example is all hard rock, just like Aerosmith and others like them: I don’t know how to enjoy them with H(1). The rest sounds more or less OK, depending on the track – ‘expressive’, ‘detailed’ or just irritating.

As a matter of course, with a parametric equalizer, the default H(1) sound was of little interest to me: I immediately put the headphones on the rig and tried to do it better. I’ll note that the most problematic range has only two equalizer points (1000-2999 Hz, 3000-5999 Hz), so there’s no way to align the 3-8 kHz section. After a few hours of experimenting, it became obvious that I couldn’t do better than DMS. Here is his setup:

With this equalization, the intrusive middle goes by the wayside, the sound becomes more natural, gets saturated with bass, and generally begins to please the ear. So, with this setting, I’m ready to give the H(1) sound a conditional 4 out of 5 points.

What the equalizer cannot adjust fundamentally is synthetic high-frequency sounds, which are clearly present in the H(1) sound delivery at a higher-than-average volume when connected wirelessly even if an LDAC is active. Whether these are resonances or peaks in frequency response, I didn’t understand and couldn’t get over them with the equalizer. But the fact is that when connected wirelessly, they are always more or less there. Female voices in some tracks sound a little harsh and sibilant; not disgusting yet, but not quite natural anymore.

The good news, however, is that when connected via a Type-C cable, this effect virtually disappears.

Summary

These headphones turned out to be ambiguous, but far from bad.

As for their definite advantages, we can safely write down a close-to-ideal control logic (the best one on the market at the moment, I believe), a parametric equalizer and a stable application as a whole, as well as a perfectly implemented acoustic transparency mode. The ‘Not bad!’ category includes ergonomics, the opportunity for replacement of the earpads and the headpad, a decent active noise reduction system and sound after equalization, as well as microphones. The ‘Could have been better…’ one includes, again, the sound with its features, the limitations of the parametric equalizer, the weight of the headphones, and the lack of wind noise suppression.

And let’s not forget that the headphones can be connected to a PC with a digital cable and used as a headset for meetings and games, while the headphones will charge at the same time – not so many models can do this.

Let’s move to the price: as of August 19, 2025, it was at least $220 if we consider ‘less-than-legitimate’ providers. For the same money, you can buy:

1. Sony WH-1000xm5 with better noise reduction and better sound after equalization. However, mass reports of earcup fasteners getting broken make this purchase questionable.
2. Sony WH-1000xm4 with approximately the same noise reduction and same sound level after equalization. On the plus side, xm4 fold up and can work in a completely passive mode if you need it, but they can’t connect via a digital cable.
3. Sennheiser Momentum 4, which will be radically better in terms of sound, are comparable in ANC efficiency, but they won’t be able to boast of anything else.

It comes that Headphone (1) are positioned very sensibly. If your aesthetic sense responds to their design, and convenient controls and the ability to switch from a wired scenario to a wireless one are important to you, but the best of the best sound on the market is not very important – you can buy them.

If you, on the contrary, came for the sound, get Momentum 4. If you put a priority on uncompromising ANC, go for Sony.

That’s it!

P.S. I don’t want to buy WH-1000xm6, but I want to test them, try them on, and write a review. If you have these headphones and you are ready to send them to me for a week, please feel free to email me, I will be grateful.