Nothing Ear (a) review

Note: perhaps showing Nothing thinking, not much of paper instructions, you need to use the app.

Overall good quality. Eartips are matt silicone, oval and fit is a modern shallow depth. Easy to change tips. The housing is a short bar design, so unobtrusive. Lightweight, so I expect they’ll hold. Red dot for right ear, white dot for left, but there’s only one way to put them in. The housings are all plastic, which feels good quality. As for robustness, they’ll be as strong as the plastic so not invincible or rebuildable but should stand the crush in a bag. They are as comfortable as you would hope, and one of the easier in‐ears to fit. Sorry, but I think transparency is silly, and I’m not against yellow, but think this yellow is lurid…. the shape is unobtrusive… I only make them passable for looks (other reviewers strongly disagree).

The charge case is small but has a big lip to open, best I have used to date. Charging, plug the case into a USB 3 socket. Pairing is by an invisible button mounted in the case—immediate connection to phones, noting relevant email addresses(?), but caused problems on computers, and ongoing problems with phones (they need case replacement). Connection distance seems good—through a wall. Surprising, often disturbed by contention. Switches by pinching the bar on a low‐profile switch, positive action and throw. Pinch,

Once

play/pause

Twice

skip

Thrice

skip back

Pinch and hold

noise cancelling

Noise cancelling is effective—Active Noise Cancelling takes a second or two to work a strategy, but is good for in‐ear style. But overall only reasonable—could suppress office burble, but no match for a city. Battery life will last a day’s work, and the case can recharge. The app is easy to install and use, offers several good functions like ‘find my earphones’, control of LDAC (higher quality wireless) and ‘low latency’ modes, an interesting ‘ear fit test’ (dunno how well it works, but it does) and the full instruction booklet. Sadly, because this is the cheaper model, EQ is limited to three different ramps of low notes.

Volume reasonable. range passable. Timing is good, but lazy in the envelope. Compression and smear on swells. The low bump in frequencies stands out in an otherwise balanced frequency handling. Some noise here, not clean sounding, though I suspect driver noise as it never becomes papery or frequency‐targeted. Little detail, but consistent. Not much color, as I’d expect, but again consistent. Scale is reasonable, positions fairly stable. The onboard settings will remove some of the low bump. External EQ to reverse the overall ‘dark’ profile was radical and made a big difference, though driver distinctiveness, coherent but splashy, remains. LDAC made, to my surprise, an improvement.

Reasonable voice replay, though the low boost distorts male voice. The low boost is irritating on orchestral music. Rock has pace, though gets messy. Not so bad for pop music. As I’d expect, plays minimal sources as a complete performance, though much is missing. Default setup sure can thump out a soundtrack.