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Nothing Teases New Over-Ear Headphones That Are 'Better Than AirPods Max' but Cost Much Less

Nothing has long been rumored to be making over-ear headphones. In a YouTube video, it says they're being released this summer.

Headshot of David Carnoy
Headshot of David Carnoy
David Carnoy Executive Editor / Reviews
Executive Editor David Carnoy has been a leading member of CNET's Reviews team since 2000. He covers the gamut of gadgets and is a notable reviewer of mobile accessories and portable audio products, including headphones and speakers. He's also an e-reader and e-publishing expert as well as the author of the novels Knife Music, The Big Exit and Lucidity. All the titles are available as Kindle, iBooks, Kobo e-books and audiobooks.
Expertise Headphones, Bluetooth speakers, mobile accessories, Apple, Sony, Bose, e-readers, Amazon, glasses, ski gear, iPhone cases, gaming accessories, sports tech, portable audio, interviews, audiophile gear, PC speakers Credentials
  • Maggie Award for Best Regularly Featured Web Column/Consumer
David Carnoy
2 min read
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This AI-generated concept image of Nothing over-ear headphones was posted in the Nothing Community message boards. The real product won't look like this but the new headphones should have some translucent design elements like Nothing's earbuds. 

Screenshot by David Carnoy/CNET

Every since Yanko Design created some concept photos of Nothing over-ear headphones in 2022, Nothing fans have been hoping they would become a real product, especially after Nothing founder Carl Pei called the designs "crazy cool" in a social media post. Well, now Nothing has posted a video of its product design team discussing over-ear headphones titled "We're making over-ear headphones." They'll be released this summer, according to the video, and rival the AirPods Max in terms of sound quality but cost a lot less.

Read more: Best noise-canceling headphones of 2025

To a certain degree, the designers spend much of the video trashing premium over-ear cans and come across as super arrogant. "We don't really like a single over-ear headphone that's on the market," one designer says. And at the start of the video we hear them mocking the name of the new $450 Sony WH-1000XM6 and commenting about the headband being a little "fatter."

Although Yanko Design's post from 2022 refers to the headphones as the Nothing Head (1), which would be a pretty logical name for the headphones (or simply Nothing Head), the video doesn't mention what the name for the new Nothing over-ear headphones will be or how much they'll cost. Presumably the headphones will have some of the same translucent elements that help distinguish the company's earbuds from other noise-canceling buds on the market. Its $150 Nothing Ear buds are on CNET's list of best wireless earbuds and best noise-canceling earbuds and its $130 Nothing Ear (Open) buds are on our list of best open earbuds.

Nothing recently announced a partnership with UK audio company KEF. According to a Nothing spokesperson, the partnership "will support Nothing's expansion into new audio categories -- with several acoustically co-developed products already in the works and launching later this year." This over-ear model is likely the first audio product to come out of that partnership. 

I look forward to testing the new Nothing over-ear headphones when they're released this summer. Hopefully, they live up to the hype and are as good a value as the designers say they will be.