Fixed It 😐 Nothing Headphone (1) Pro review
There are 3 special things about the Nothing Headphone (1) Pro, and no, I’m not talking about the aesthetics because whether it looks good or not is subjective to preference. And I’m not talking about the hard case, like, come on!
Yes, it’s decorative, and fantastic for being super protective of the earcups and unique, but it doesn’t protect the headband plus it adds too much weight and bulk, that I just can’t imagine putting this in my bag. Looks nice, but practical? Nope.
Now, as for the triple drivers? Man, that’s special, because not many headphones in this price category have it. Each ear cup has a 40mm dynamic driver for which handles the whole 20-20 spectrum, a precision driver for the upper mids to treble and an xMEMS driver for the very high treble.
Usually the main advantage of such a setup is better separation between bass, mids and highs but in this case, the precision driver’s spectrum overlaps the dynamic driver which should produce some interesting results.
The second thing that’s special is this toggle that switches it to Flat mode.
This switch basically turns off all backend processing and coloration so when I’m editing videos, I am getting that raw, unfiltered sound, and I’m not fighting against headphone coloration.
As you can see in these frequency sweeps, it’s definitely less sculpted than normal mode, so certain parts of the upper mids and bass are less emphasized, and there’s less diffusion in the soundstage. There’s also about 2-5dB more gain across all volume levels on flat mode.
And number 3, their sound quality is very customizable because they have a parametric EQ for both the main driver and the precision driver. 8 bands for main, 4 bands for precision, a total of 12 bands of gain plus Q-factor controls. They also have a simpler 3-band EQ with presets, and a way to create your personal sound profile.
Later on I’ll be sharing my own EQ settings for them. By the end of this review, you’ll know how it actually performs, and is there anything I don’t like about the Nothing Headphone (1) Pro? So buckle up!
Microphone Quality
Their microphone quality is pretty solid. Voice pickup is clear in quiet conditions, and in noisy, windy conditions, background noise was reduced to a whisper, and although voice filtering was a bit aggressive which made my voice sound a bit soft and muffled, it wasn’t so bad that what I’m saying can’t be understood.
👉🏻 Listen to the mic quality samples
Active Noise Cancelling
As for their active noise canceling, I would say it’s pretty effective because I did get a deep silence when using them on the train, and they’re also pretty effective against human chatter, similar to the non-Pro version.
That said, if you’re looking for super quiet noise canceling, these are not it, because as you can see, they’re not as quiet as either the Sony WH-1000XM6 and AirPods Max 2 which can produce deeper silence in even more extreme conditions, like taking a flight or against renovation noises.
👉🏻 Listen to the ANC quality samples
Transparency Mode
As for their transparency mode, they are quite good at it and it does feel pretty natural and clear, if not a little brilliant. Still, very little occlusion, and I can definitely use this for general awareness and face to face conversations without taking off the Headphone (1) Pro.
Sound Quality
Sound quality is where they really excel. Having triple drivers is one thing, but tuning them to take full advantage of that is another. Out of the box they already sound pretty high-res. Bass is visceral, textured and clean, vocal and instrumental separation sounds quite clean as well which makes them great for orchestral music and game soundtracks.
Percussions music sounds enjoyable, drums and cymbals sound very tactile, very crisp, and they reproduce that tail extension very well also. As for soundstaging, it’s more on the close and intimate side instead of wide and open.
So on their default settings, they do sound good, good enough that they’re almost one of the best sounding headphones. Well, almost, because after repeated A-B testing with the likes of the A1000, P100 SE and Px8 S2, I found two issues which, in my opinion, holds them back from audiophile greatness. First, they’re not that resolving in the upper mids to lower treble, so when listening to intensive music it can sound a bit messy, and there’s not much gradation to the soundstage.
👉🏻 Listen to the sound quality samples
I’m not sure why that is, but theory is that the precision driver overlap is messing things up in that area. Second, there isn’t much vibrance in the high frequencies which makes the soundstage appear a bit darker. But overall, I have to say, these triple-driver headphones do not disappoint, to the vast majority of listeners, they’re going to sound very good.
They also have Spatial Audio modes with head tracking, and the one that sounds the best to me is Studio B, which mimics the acoustics of the real Studio B at Metropolis studios. To me, this setting makes the discrete channels sound the most crisp and exciting, not too much reverb, but still conveying that spaciousness for music and videos. Being a creature of habit, that’s probably the only mode I’ll use if I ever need Spatial Audio.
EQ Settings
As for their EQ settings, I cannot recommend creating a Personal Sound Profile because I do not like the results. It wasn’t that accurate and ended up skewing the soundstage to one side. As always, I prefer to EQ manually and in the end, this is the setting I came up with. Basically I bumped up the lower treble in the precision driver, and cut that same frequency in the dynamic driver, aside from some other tweaks. This seems to somewhat fix the overlap issue, and now it sounds a bit cleaner and more vibrant in the upper mids. Feel free to copy it on my Instagram.
Comfort
As for comfort, these are pretty comfortable because Nothing did make the cushions softer than the non-pro versions, and the clamp is not too tight. The headband does extend pretty well also, which means it should fit larger head sizes.
What I don’t like about it is that it doesn’t have sidetone (voice passthrough), so during voice calls, talking feels unnatural because my own voice sounds occluded. The other thing is of course, the case. It looks nice, even has loops for a sling, but nah, it’s too heavy, too big, and too hard.
Nonetheless, these are one of only a few headphones that have triple drivers at this price category, and they can be tweaked to sound pretty great. You may check their latest price here:
Nothing Headphone (1) Pro
Black - https://amzn.to/4edAOly
White - https://amzn.to/4yP96DY
(Affiliate Links Disclosure)
When you make a purchase through the Affiliate Links on this site, the site earns a small commission at no cost to you. Thank you for your support!
