// THE VERGE — MODA & SOCIETÀ
The Nothing Ear 3A look great… and sound good enough
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At $99, Nothing can get away with some minor flaws, especially when the earbuds look this good.
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Nothing has had a strong visual identity since the Ear 1 were released in 2021 for $99 and challenged the notion that a highly featured headset requires a high price. The Ear 3A have the same transparent look as Nothing’s previous earbuds, with a clear case and stem design accented by a solid-colored body — this time adding a striking pink alongside yellow, black, and white options. And Nothing continues to improve both ANC and audio performance. But the Ear 3A also share the buggy performance that has plagued Nothing earbuds. While $99 is an attractive price for them, be ready to deal with some minor adaptive ANC and call quality issues.
The Ear 3A have 12mm dynamic drivers and support the high-res LDAC codec, along with SBC and AAC. Their default sound is very heavy on the bass, and while it gives bass lines extra punch, the midrange — which includes vocals and guitars — gets covered by the excessive low end. Bassheads might enjoy it, but it’s far too much for my taste, and I expect that will be the same for most people. Where I might ding some points for this on other earbuds, the Nothing 3A save themselves from that because of the robust EQ in the app. There’s a simple interface with four presets and a custom 3-band EQ, a nice 8-band parametric EQ that gives you more advanced adjustments, and some additional EQ profiles from users curated by Nothing.