Till not long ago, your only real choices of a balanced headphone for a monetary outlay less than ₹10,000 would have been the Sennheiser HD 450BT (that’s around ₹6,990) or Audio-Technica’s very impressive ATH-M30x (these would cost around ₹6,999). Choices otherwise aplenty mind you, if you prefer bass heavy and often unbalanced sound, including many from Sony. With their first headphone as part of the CMF product portfolio, Nothing is targeting its share in this price bracket the CMF Headphone Pro demands you part with ₹6,990 and to be fair, gives an aura of something a lot more expensive. It wouldn’t have been easy to get here with product development and how it’s finally turned out in the perspective of the price tag, but good they did.
There is substance beyond the price tag, spanning performance, design, little details that matter as well as a modularity based customisation bit that’s often ignored by headphone makers. The CMF Headphone Pro for instance, allows users to swap the ear cushions (prices for these are yet to be confirmed) in different colour options — you can get some nice contrasts going with the Dark Grey, Light Grey and Light Green headphone colours as the baseline. I quite liked the orange contrasting with the green, though everyone would have their own preferences. Even before getting to the audio hardware and what the capabilities look like, the customisation aspect should help Nothing get more potential buyers to sit up and take notice of these headphones. That is, before you realise this also supports the Hi-Res LDAC codec and does fairly well with Spatial Audio too.
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The rather attractive price tag doesn’t come in the way of Nothing giving the CMF Headphone Pro a rather capable audio hardware stack, which is why I talked about it in the same breath as Sennheiser and Audio-Technica, at the very outset. There are 40mm audio drivers with what Nothing confirms as nickel-played diaphragms for reducing distortion, a 16.5mm copper voice coil as well as a bass duct. The listening experience, with its out of the box audio tuning impressively neutral, feels decidedly more premium than most headphones in this price range. That said, the soundstage does feel a bit hemmed in with certain tracks that could do well with a bit more expanse to get the layers out.
Apart from that observation with more dynamic tracks, the CMF Headphone Pro does extremely well to reproduce finer elements in music which often either get hidden by unbalanced predefined equaliser settings, or are lost completely. There is a very neat physical control called the ‘Energy Slider’ on the right ear cup, which is excellent in controlling the depth of lower frequencies — if you want more or reduced bass with music, this is a rather convenient way of getting it done, instead of having to unlock the phone and open the Nothing X app every time to alter the EQ settings. Nothing clearly believes physical controls are more convenient than some of their competitors, and that certainly works in the CMF Headphone Pro’s favour. There is a multifunction roller control as well that can be used to manage the volume, track playback and noise control, as well as an action button which is customisable for the likes of Spatial Audio control or accessing the AI assistant.
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At this point, I must wonder how well (or otherwise) the roller and slider implementations will hold up over time, to rough usage and dust. If dust ingress becomes a problem in due course, they may stop working as effectively. At least for storage, Nothing has bundled a nice fabric case with these headphones, which should help keep the CMF Headphone Pro away from dust when stored in a backpack or the workstation storage.
The decidedly neutral sound signature of the CMF Headphone Pro has to be appreciated. Two reasons why this is a good foundation to build with — first, not everyone likes bass heavy tuning and secondly, the flexibility of the Energy Slider still gives you that option. Some Alan Walker and Hayit Murat tracks may deserve dialling this slider up a bit, and there must be music in your library that’d demand the opposite for the best detailing. You’ve the flexibility of both. Another neat element you must experiment with in the Nothing X app is the Personal Sound tuning, which basically means you proceed through a test that lasts a couple of minutes, and gives the sound processing algorithms a better idea of how your ear understands and hears certain frequencies. That further tunes the headphones’ equaliser and sound processing, to focus on what you hear best.
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Nothing claims the CMF Headphone Pro lasts 100 hours on a single charge. Average that to 5 hours of listening a day (that’d perhaps be a stretch too, unless this becomes a fixture for your virtual calls too), and you’re still looking at almost 20 days of usage before this needs to be charged again. In my tests thus far, which hasn’t been long enough to breach the 20 day mark yet, this is what I’ve noticed — at 30% volume for music playback, the CMF Headphone Pro is using about 3% charge for every 5 hours of music playback with noise cancellation set to off, and 5% charge is used if the noise cancellation is on.
Speaking of which, and I say this as someone with sensitive ears, noise cancellation the way it is tuned, does generate perceptible pressure on the middle ear. It is immediately noticeable, and if this is also uncomfortable for you, chances are long hours of listening with ANC on may not really be an option. I do believe a firmware update can alter this characteristic. Another complaint I have with the Nothing X app is that choosing any of the custom EQ options, and no matter what tuning you select, doesn’t give the sound that width which the default, preset EQ has.
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The CMF Headphone Pro is quite simply one of the more impressive propositions at ₹6,990, and Nothing deserves credit for not taking short-cuts with elements that matter most. The neutral sound signature, unique physical controls that actually make sense, a modular design and that impressive battery life come together rather well. I would remain concerned about the long-term durability of the roller and slider mechanisms until it passes the test of time, and the ANC may not suit everyone till a firmware update tweaks its behaviour, but these are expected rough edges in an overall compelling affordable headphone proposition.
If you’re in the market for headphones that don’t sound muddy or overly bass heavy, the CMF Headphone Pro makes a strong case for itself. It is one of the few options that don’t go ‘bass heavy’. Nothing’s clearly done its homework, rather well.