CMF Headphone Pro review: Winning it. In style.

Nothing launched its first pair of headphones—the Headphone (1)—back in July last year. At USD 299, that thing had “flagship” written all over it, so it was just a matter of time before we got a more affordable pair of ear cans under their “CMF” banner. 

And ta-da—a couple of months later, we got this thing: the CMF Headphone Pro. 

Now I already know what you’re thinking:

“Why does it look nothing like the Headphone (1)?” (sorry for the gazillionth Nothing pun), and “how come the cheaper one has “Pro” in its name instead of the flagship model?” 

Well, I can’t really help you with either of those questions. But I can tell you how the CMF Headphone Pro sounds, how well it cancels out the ambient noise, how impressive its battery life is, and everything else you need to know, so let’s get started with this review.

CMF Headphone Pro review: Specifications

• Design: Over-ear fit, removable ear pads
• Dimensions and weight: 168.5 x 188.5 x 95.7 mm, 283 grams
• Water resistance: IPX2 splash resistance
• Connectivity: Bluetooth 5.4 (multi-point support)
• Sound driver: 40 mm dynamic drivers
• Audio codecs: AAC, SBC, LDAC
• Noise cancellation: Yes (hybrid ANC up to 40 dB)
• Battery: 720 mAh (up to 50/100 hours of music playback with ANC on/off)
• Control: Physical buttons ("Energy Slider", roller, buttons for playback, volume and other controls)
• Companion app: Nothing X (Android | iOS)
• Price in Nepal: NPR 13,999

CMF Headphone Pro review: 

Design and fit

• Over-ear fit
• 283 grams, IPX2 splash resistant
• Customizable ear pads

And of course, the very first thing I wanna touch on is its design itself.

‘Cause while I wasn’t expecting the Headphone Pro to feature a similar see-through look as the Headphone (1), I for sure wasn’t expecting it to be so… round and plush either. So, in case you haven’t noticed, that transparent design language has been Nothing’s signature so far. Compared to how CMF-branded products focus more on a “modular + experimental” design instead. Wait, is “modumental” a word? 

If it wasn’t, well, it is now. All words are made up, people!

• Anyway, we saw this modumental approach on their phones (the CMF Phone 1 had all sorts of accessories you could attach)
• their smartwatch (the CMF Watch Pro 2 had interchangeable bezels),
• and now their headphones. 

That’s because Nothing has made it so, so easy to remove the ear pads on the Headphone Pro and personalize how I want it to look. It’s not like Nothing invented the concept of removable ear cushions (I don’t even think you can buy its replacement in Nepal yet), but this is so. freakin’. cool. I simply twist it counter-clockwise to take it out and twist it the other way to put it back in.

And I gotta say, the ear pads themselves feel incredibly soft and easy on my ears as well. It’s just the clamping force I’m not that fond of on the Headphone Pro. I naturally tried loosening the headband at first—hoping that would do the trick—although I still feel the pressure build up after putting these on for a couple of hours or so. 

I also wish I could fold it in half for easier carry. The ear cups can rotate 90° to sit flat on my chest when I don’t have them on my ears, but that’s all the adjustment Nothing has thrown my way with these headphones.

"Give me buttons. Button me. Button now. Me a button needing a lot now."

You know what, though?

I absolutely love how the Headphone Pro is slathered with physical buttons!

It’s not just the mere presence of buttons I’m thrilled about either—but also the type of buttons you get here. Some click, some roll, some slide… it’s so much fun! I’ll go through them all in more detail in the audio portion of this review in just a minute, but yeah, the CMF Headphone Pro is definitely gonna turn some heads with its design.

Sound

• 40 mm dynamic drivers, Tuning by Nothing
• AAC, SBC, LDAC codecs
• Personal Sound Profile, Spatial audio support

With that out of the way, let me tell you about its sound quality. 

The Headphone Pro has familiar 40 mm drivers like Nothing’s more expensive Headphone (1), only without the fancy KEF tuning. And from what I’d seen online, the Headphone (1) itself had a pretty dark tuning right out of the box. Meaning it had a big emphasis on the low frequencies—aka bass—which naturally resulted in weaker mids and treble response. 

I’ve seen (or rather listened to) a similar tuning in literally every single Nothing/CMF wireless earbuds I’ve tested so far, and yes, the Headphone Pro wasn’t brave enough to break the trend. This one, too, is quite bassy by default for my taste. 

That’s never been my cup of tea, so I immediately got to customizing its audio. And oh my god, the customization options for this thing are wild!

There’s the usual selection of some pre-made equalizers, the option to make one by myself (even though a more granular parametric equalizer, aka PEQ, remains exclusive to Nothing-branded hearables), a “personal sound profile” thing that tunes these headphones based on my exact hearing ability, and a couple of spatial audio effects. 

Spatial audio is nothing special.

That last one’s never been my cup of tea either, since I’ve always disliked the sound of the artificially, uncharacteristically added perception of space and direction on plain ol’ stereo tracks. 

It’s like… trying to make a four-wheeler sedan run smoother just by adding more wheels in the middle. Sorry I couldn’t think of a better analogy—but the point is—you don’t want your stereo-mixed songs with only the left and right channels to suddenly sound like the vocals, the instruments, and everything else are coming from multiple other spaces.

Instead, that “personalized sound” thing really worked its magic for me. By reviving a ton of details in the mids and treble region. 

And remember what I said about the Headphone Pro having a bunch of buttons? 

One of them’s a slider to tweak the amount of bass or treble in real-time! That’s so cool! I set mine to adjust the high frequencies—aka trebles—and setting it at roughly 50 – 60% margin seemed to solve that “bassy” complaint I had before. 

So listening to something like “Dancing Queen” by ABBA was a lot more fun ‘cause the Headphone Pro sounded a lot more open. Managing to preserve the natural timbre of the vocals and the subtle notes from the percussive instruments in the background, instead of hiding them behind a cloud of bass. Whereas it also supports the LDAC codec to stream hi-res audio if you’re into that. At least when you’ve paired it with an Android phone. Any Android phone. 

All that said, I still have two major complaints with the way these headphones sound.

• First, its soundstage is quite narrow. 

So listening to pretty much any rock song wasn’t that fun since everything in the mix would sound like they’re playing close together… very close to my ears. The sad part is that no amount of equalizing can magically make a headphone’s soundstage wider. 

• Secondly, the CMF Headphone Pro doesn’t even get that loud!

I guess it sounds loud enough when I’m indoors, but outdoors? I was constantly reaching for its “roller” button to pump up the loudness… only to be left disappointed. So the bottom line is that while this guy sounds great for a pair of budget headphones, it has its fair share of compromises, too.

Noise cancellation and call quality

• Up to 40 dB hybrid ANC
• 5 microphones in total (with 3 mic ENC)

As for noise cancellation, I honestly don’t have much to complain about. 

Nothing claims it’s using 5 microphones in total to cancel out up to 40 dB of ambient noise, and you know those consistent low-frequency noises? Like the ones coming out of your room’s refrigerator or AC unit, the urban traffic, and more? Those are practically non-existent once I put these on with noise cancellation set to “High”. 

Part of the reason why the Headphone Pro’s ANC is so good has to do with its awesome passive isolation itself. Which is just a fancy way of saying that these headphones block the outside noise so well… purely based on how they seal my ears.

I’d even go as far as to say that in indoor situations, how effectively it sweeps away low-frequency noises is comparable to some of the best noise-cancelling headphones out there. It’s only when there’s a lot of higher frequency noises around me, like someone typing on a mechanical keyboard, my colleagues loudly arguing, or a car honking outside, that I’m reminded that this is a budget-ish headphone and I should probably keep my expectations in check.

And when I want to actively listen to what’s going on around me instead of shutting everything out, I’m glad to tell you that transparency mode on the Headphone Pro is just as impressive. It mostly sounds natural, and human voices, in particular, don’t come off digitized here. Which is something I’ve seen most other budget headphones struggle with.

Whereas I’ve been more than happy with what Nothing has done in terms of call quality as well. The receivers on the other end rarely complained about the clarity of my voice, unless I was deliberately pushing it to its limit by speaking directly in front of a table fan to simulate windy conditions. 

Battery life

• 720 mAh battery
• Up to 100 hours of playback (without ANC)
• 5 minutes of charge = 8 hours of playback

That brings me to battery life—and this is yet another aspect about the CMF Headphone Pro that I absolutely love. 

‘Cause I’ve been swinging back and forth with ANC and transparency mode, I’ve enabled the high-res LDAC codec, and I usually kept the volume between 70 – 80%. Even then, I got nearly 40 hours of playtime here, which is actually two hours more than Nothing’s official claim itself! The crazy thing is that it supposedly lasts a full 100 hours if you don’t bother with noise cancellation or LDAC!

CMF Headphone Pro review: Conclusion

So there you have it. That is all for my full review of the CMF Headphone Pro. 

A bit of style and a bit of substance has been CMF’s tried-and-tested formula so far, and I’m glad to see how that has evolved to “a lot of style and a lot of substance” lately. Not only does this thing stand out with its distinctive look and the abundant physical buttons, but I also love that Nothing has properly backed it up with everything else you could think of.

It sounds reasonably great; its battery life is simply the best in the business, and everything else from noise cancellation to call quality are fantastic too. Especially for something that costs less than NPR 15,000—making it one of the easiest headphone recommendations I’ve ever made.

• Our video review of the CMF Headphone Pro is coming soon

CMF Headphone Pro review: Pros and cons