Nothing in the ear (open) test: open and modern headphones that lack space.

True wireless In the over-the-ear format, the Nothing Ear (Open) adopt, as their name suggests, a non-intrusive format without a tip, always according to the manufacturer’s specific design. Despite a very similar approach to Xiaomi OpenWear Stereo or Shokz OpenFit Air, these headphones are distinguished by a slightly unclassified sound architecture, as they are halfway between button earphones (Apple AirPods 4 style) and conduction earphones. are, particularly inclined to it. second type.

Nothing forced, multi-point with shape and a specific technical offering made by a Bluetooth chip compatible with Google FastPair, as well as several small points of differentiation: physical controls, with 8-band equalization. Modern app, etc.

Price and availability.

From September 2024 the Nothing Year (Open) is available at a price of €149. Currently there is only one version: white and transparent.

Test conditions

We tested the headphones under firmware version 1.0.0.19 with the NothingX app in version 3.0.4.

By opting for a format closer to the button earphones than what we find on normal air conduction devices, nothing manages to maintain an elegant format. The ear (open) shows a balanced arrangement of the different parts, the acoustic chamber does not swallow whole. As such, the headphones are more stylish than average, taking full advantage of the transparency of their body parts. The recipe, although already seen, is probably the most successful in the brand’s catalog.

Acceptable volume also translates into a weight that doesn’t exceed 8.1g per earphone. If we add to this the very soft material of the earhook (silicone), the ear (open) provides a certain comfort and does not create a feeling of intrusion or pressure on the upper part of the ear. In addition, they enjoy great stability (no swaying against the ear), making them perfect for sports use.

On the construction side, things are pretty serious, without being stark in the eyes. The assembly is excellent and the combination of different materials shows a lack of taste. If we classify the ear (open) in the sports category, only IP54 certification is very common.

Housing

We shouldn’t be surprised given the air-hook format, but the Nothing Air (Open) case is clearly not friendly to small pockets. Although surprisingly flat, it is handicapped by its 125.9mm length.

If we forget its size, the charging box is also particularly well designed, as it combines an expert design from start to finish. Besides giving pride of place to transparency, it offers exemplary manufacturing quality. Hinge, to refer to this important factor, induction charging is nothing to ignore.

Orders

Unlike many of its competitors, the Nothing Air (Open) does not rely on tactile controls, which are not suited to certain conditions (gloved hands, sweat, rain impact), but on a pinch system that is lightweight. By playing, the feedback mimics the haptic. Sound The controls, close to what we find on the AirPods Pro 2 and Nothing Ear, are efficient and complete.

Nothing allows four actions per earbud: pinch, double pinch, triple pinch and long pinch. It easily covers all the functions offered by in-ear (open) headphones, and they do it very intuitively. The only oversight here is the lack of port detection.

Application

Offering pleasant and extremely useful settings, the Nothing X app is an ideal complement to the (open) ear, if not really going too far. In addition to its ease of use, it’s more advanced than the average 8-band equalizer, slightly improving the user experience thanks to minor customization of controls or enabling/disabling low-latency mode.

Connectivity

If nothing air (open) codecs (SBC/AAC) are bad enough, they make up for it with fairly advanced connectivity. Their Bluetooth 5.3 chip actually benefits from Google FastPair and Microsoft SwiftPair pairing, as well as multipoint compatibility. The icing on the cake is the presence of low latency mode.

In practice, the connection proves to be quite stable and of ideal range. Latency, however, is fairly average, as measured at 260 ms in Classic mode. This is barely reduced by enabling low latency mode (225 ms).

Risking the difficult practice of fully open headphones, nothing is integrated into its ear (open) An imposing dynamic transducer of 14.2 mm diameter, consisting of a PET membrane covered with titanium, A combination that improves response in the lower end of the spectrum. In fact, no miracle: if the (open) ears for air conduction headphones are really great, they don’t exceed the limits of such an architecture.

So let’s start with the main damage, bass response. Fairly honest at moderate volumes, as it can reproduce 80 Hz without too much difficulty, or even lower, this response is noticeably reduced when pushing the headphones to their limits, here Unless that means actually stopping when we get close to our normal usage volume. For measurements (94 dBSPL measured at 1 kHz), the sound volume barely reached through the headphones.

This very early threshold of sound, which creates such a dramatic difference between sound quality at moderate volumes and outside, inevitably involves pushing the decibels. Simply put, the sense of roundness, reflected by the very present, fairly marked bumps, is only true at low volumes. Absence of bass is evident when the volume is above 75/80%, a situation we often encounter. Most air conduction headphones suffer from this trend, but there are certainly none that best exemplify it.

Easy to reproduce, the mids are surprising, as they are perfectly balanced and beautifully rich. Ears (open) manage to produce an ideal reproduction at this level, thus they shine in a variety of sounds.

This good arrangement continues mostly into the treble which manages to offer a fairly good balance, without being technically impressive. Listening in this way is neither soft nor veiled.

Balanced enough? Not really. Without counting limitations in bass, (open) ears operate through small gaps in high frequencies. Apart from a fairly random extension beyond 10 kHz, as it depends on the position of the headphones, Nothing is triggered by a fairly pronounced accent around 5 kHz-8 kHz, a tone that starts a little earlier. is Without being caricatured, it brings out a charming side to listeners. Of course, these notes are amplified at high volume, with the loss of extension from the low mids making it impossible to give enough depth to voices (especially male).

Quite honestly, the soundstage has a certain width and good depth. Detail levels, slightly above average for such a format, go hand in hand with acceptable instrument separation. It goes without saying, we’re light years away from the best closed headphones on key points like dynamics, here’s the compact.

Let’s finish with a quick word on equality. If this is generally ineffective in correcting behavior at low frequencies, which drop off at high volumes regardless of setting, it makes it possible to reduce scintillation by a factor of three without correcting it completely.

Rather surprisingly, the Nothing Air (open) hands-free kit shows a clear improvement over the ear and ear (a). The headphones primarily focus on sound isolation through AI Clear Voice technology, which is trained to nothing through 28 million (noise) scenarios.

In quiet environments, the capture is not perfect, but natural. The sound is quite clear, only hisses are marked with some artifacts. The noise reduction does an excellent job while maintaining sound intelligibility when driving through busy places. The latter drops in quality, but almost never to the point of distortion. Whether thanks to AI Clear Voice or the headphone design, the call quality is the best offered by the manufacturer. The only problem with the whole thing is that its sensitivity to wind is quite high.