Nothing Headphones A review: Smart subtractions

Last year, Nothing transplanted its trendy and transparent take on tech from smartphones to headphones. Now, it’s making the latter a little cheaper in the form of a new budget-friendly set of noise cancelling headphones branded as the Nothing Headphones A.

The price is most of the story here, and the conclusion most will reach isn’t that complicated. The built quality isn’t as slick and the sound quality isn’t as sharp, but if you want the look of the Headphones 1 with less of a hit to your wallet then the Headphones A are going to be an easy sell.

In Australia, the Headphones A are available at a recommended retail price of $329. That puts them right between the CMF Headphones Pro and Headphones 1 in terms of price. You might even be able to save a few bucks if you shop around as well. Check out the table below for a round-up of the best deals for the Nothing Headphones A in Australia.

Announced and arriving alongside the new Nothing Phone 4a, the Headphones A combine the cheap price of the CMF Headphones Pro with the luxury-grade looks of the Headphones 1. As with the former, there’s a range of colourful variants on offer. Then, like the latter, there’s a throwback transparent design and a set of robust physical keys that are used to control playback.

This time around, you can even use one of the buttons to remotely control the camera shutter on your smartphone.  

For as much as the Headphones A take after their premium-grade counterparts, the build quality is not as nice. The headband is a close match, but the earcups are made of much cheaper – or at least cheaper-feeling – materials. The Headphones A are decently durable though, with an IP52 rating for water and dust damage and relatively lightweight at just 310g.

Nothing's new nifty noise-cancelling cans will play nice with all the usual fast pairing standards across both Android and Windows, so setting them up is as friction-free as these things get. 

As with the rest of Nothing’s audio accessories, the Headphones A can be used straight out of the box but integrate with the Nothing X app. This can be used to tinker with the sound profile and equaliser settings, toggle things like noise-cancelling and tweak the control scheme.  

When it comes to codecs, the Headphones A support both LDAC, Hi-Res and Spatial Audio. It’s nice to see those here, though more ambitious audiophiles seem more likely to settle on the flagship Headphones 1 than what’s on offer here.

The noise-cancelling, though not terrible, is merely okay. Most of what you're getting here is the passive benefits of an over-ear design. If you're listening to music at a decent volume, you'll probably feel pretty isolated while wearing the Headphones A. However, if you're looking to rely on them for a long-haul flight, you're probably going to find them a little lacking. 

Courtesy of the 40mm drivers inside them, the Headphones A mostly manage to sound as good as they look. What’s more, that listening experience comes with more longevity than most. 

Fully-charged, the Headphones A offer around 75 hours of playback with ANC enabled (or 135 hours with ANC disabled) on a single charge. In practice, those lofty figures mostly translate into reality. I was able to go weeks without having to charge back up. 

Subject to our usual testing playlist, the Nothing Headphones A performed surprisingly well. As you might expect, their results put them roughly between the Headphones 1 and the CMF Headphones Pro. They nailed the layered soundscapes in Radiohead’s “The National Anthem” and Opeth’s “The Funeral Portrait” but were a little less exceptional when it came to broader soundscapes like Pink Floyd’s “Comfortably Numb”.

The microphone setup on the Nothing Headphones A is more noteworthy. Listening back to the samples, I was surprised by just how close it sounds to the Headphones 1. If call quality is a priority, I don’t think the Headphones A are gonna replace your Jabra’s anytime soon, but they’ll get the job done in a pinch. It definitely sounds better than what you can get out of the microphone on the CMF Headphones Pro.