I thought I’d miss the premium feel, but Nothing Headphone (a) won me over

When I opened the swish black Nothing Headphone (a) box set and tried these headphones, I did what everyone will probably do: I treated it like a sequel to Headphone (1), the brand’s KEF-made premium overhead headphones. That’s the wrong way to look at it.

Headphone (a) isn’t trying to outdo its predecessor. In many ways, this is Nothing repositioning, moving away from the moulded metal finish of Headphone 1 and reworking the design for a new, younger user, the old refinement pushed aside for energy, a mix of louder colour, longer battery life, and more everyday wearability. It's not a coincidence that Headphone (a) have released alongside the new mid-range Nothing Phone 4(a), and shares a similar design approach.

Just look at the design: the transparent shells are replaced with Pink and Yellow, joining the usual Black and White. There is a taste of Nothing’s now-familiar transparent design on the main headphone speaker covers; the industrial bones remain, but they’re wedded to a block of colour. (Read our budget audiophile headphones for more stylish 'cans'.)

Nothing design gets lighter

Interestingly, there’s a hangover from what made Headphone 1 so special, married to a new, lighter, and younger design. Headphone (a) softens the harder retro-industrial stance of Headphone (1) – you get the glimpse of structures beneath, but the ceramic-plastic colour blocking gives it a lighter mood.

These are quite light – 310g – but feel solid. The sliding arms, for example, are reinforced with glass-fibre-filled nylon, the hinges use metal injection moulding, and the earcups are made of spongy memory foam. The headband padding is generous enough for long sessions, which, as I soon discover, will happen often with Headphone (a)’s wild battery life.

Best of all, Headphone (a) picks up the innovative Roller, Paddle, and Button configuration from Headphone 1, that are stubbornly analog in a touch-swipe world – you roll for volume, the Paddle skips and scrubs tracks. But there’s also a new button, the Channel Hop toggle for swapping between media for text-to-speech, voice notes, and more.

Headphone (a) sound good

All the good design moments could mask an audio dud, but then I press play and discover a solid experience. I’m an 80s/90s guitar person – Smashing Pumpkins and Weezer joined by new soundalikes Concrete Blonde and Been Stellar. The slightly messy production, vocals that need room to breathe, music that’s dense, layered, and modern, and I half-expected the usual mid-range squeeze you sometimes get at this price. But Headphone (a) performed incredibly well with punchy, energetic bass and surprisingly clear delivery.

The 40mm RF driver with a titanium-coated PEN+PU diaphragm delivers full sound without feeling bloated. The listed 20Hz to 40,000Hz frequency range sounds like marketing copy, until I use them and notice how much air sits up top and how controlled the low end stays. There’s real weight down there, but it doesn’t smear across everything else.

Another press release buzz: the AI-powered Dynamic Bass Enhancement sounds like a gimmick on paper, but in practice, it’s subtle. It nudges and makes each track feel rounded without swamping the audio. At up to 110 dB output, these headphones can get loud, but more importantly, they stay composed when they do. I would say I noticed ‘sound leak’ that wasn’t there on Headphone 1, so your commuter friends may hear the tinny fizz of whatever you’re listening to.

Impressive specs

What is clear, even for a mid-range headphone, is that the spec sheet is stacked: LDAC with 24-bit/96 kHz support, Hi-Res Audio certification, and a redesigned magnet and voice coil system. In reality? It just sounds confident and punchy.

Where things really get interesting and where Nothing clearly aims to find its space, outside of the unique design, is in the Headphone (a) battery life, which is, honestly, bordering on absurd. The 1060 mAh battery means up to 135 hours with ANC off, and a massive 75 hours with Adaptive ANC on (AAC). I’ve been using them on and off for a week, and the Headphone (a) are still running; in fact, I actually stopped checking the battery life after day three. If you need a pair of affordable noise-cancelling headphones for a long journey, these are the ones (I’m literally packing them for travel as I write this).

There are lots of stats and specs to dig into, including Adaptive ANC that reaches up to 40dB and works up to 2000Hz, with three adjustable levels and dual feedforward/feedback mics. Calls use a four-microphone system with Environmental Noise Cancellation and AI-trained Clear Voice Technology built on 28 million real-world scenarios. It’s comprehensive, it’s also overwhelming if you’re not truly into tech, but what it all means in use is that the Headphone (a) intelligently blocks background noise and keeps my voice clear during calls in noisy environments.

Lacking emotional weight

And yet, for all the polish and punch, I still feel there’s a certain emotional weight missing from Headphone (a) that I loved about Headphone 1, which felt like it was making a statement, had a heft to it, and broke new ground in design and audio feel. Headphone (a) are absolutely more extroverted, more immediate, and these new headphones are a pair you’ll certainly use every day.

It could feel like a downgrade, and to an extent Headphone (a) is – no KEF-tuning, the build is more everyday-plastic – but it’s a shift that has intent behind it. These are cheaper, brighter, more knock-about but with the vein of Nothing’s aesthetic running through them, from the bold design to the tactile controls and audio quality that punches above its price-point. That’s before you even take into account the ridiculous, sector-leading battery life.

With Headphone (a), Nothing has managed to balance the best design elements of Headphone 1 with a new, more affordable build. If the price of Headphone 1 was off-putting but you loved the idea, and let’s be honest, audio is all about ideas and taste and feeling, then these new headphones are a great pick that won’t disappoint in how they look or sound.