When you buy a new pair of headphones, you naturally want them to sound good, but how often do you actually think about how they look?
As someone who lives and breathes headphones, I think I have enough experience to say that most pairs look the same. A simple, minimalist set of cans, usually available in black or white, and perhaps with some chrome or colored accents.
Pretty boring, right?
That’s certainly not the case with the Nothing Headphone (a), which, along with the flagship Nothing Headphone (1), completely reinvents earphone design for the better – and the former has now seen a whopping 36% off at Amazon in the run-up to Prime Day 2026 in Australia.
This is Nothing’s second attempt at an over-ear headphone, and they earned a glowing 4.5-star rating in our Nothing Headphone(a) review. We claimed it was “Dream Tech version 2.0” over the flagship headset (1), thanks to improved, more spacious sound, while retaining the same fantastic set of controls for adjusting playback.
And then there’s what they look like. The headset (a) is definitely a Nothing product, but the design has been toned down a bit compared to the flagship pair. The cassette look has been replaced by a solid color, available in white, pink or yellow. The pink colorway received the biggest discount of 36%.
The headset (1) remains a fantastic pair of headphones in its own right. They also claim to have been tuned by the famous hi-fi brand KEF. As we said in our Nothing Headphone review (1), the sound is “reasonably refined, well-balanced and overall pleasant.”
The slight downside is that the sound from the headphones (1) is a bit compressed – I have used these headphones and can vouch for this comment. Personally, I don’t think this is a major problem, and the level of customization offered through the companion app more than makes up for it. Plus, as our tester noted, “if they get a price drop, these could be great headphones,” and here it is.
With both pairs now costing the same, your purchasing decision may well come down to aesthetics. Either way, you’ll attract attention wherever you go.
