Good Housekeeping’s October 5 headphones list split the over-ear crown. Best overall: Nothing Headphone (1) at $189 on Amazon, down from $299, with Walmart at $199. Best noise-cancelling: Bose QuietComfort Ultra Headphones (2nd Gen) at $449 on Amazon, $369 at Walmart, $449 at Macy’s. WIRED on October 6 called that $189 the lowest price they had seen for the (1), $110 off, and their best over-ear deal of the event.
That is the comparison. A sale Nothing that GH will wear as the overall pick, against a Bose that still wins the ANC column and costs roughly double even on Walmart’s $369. We already ran Nothing’s Pro against the XM6 and XM6 against Bose Ultra 2. This week is the non-Pro (1), GH’s split verdict, and a street price you should not confuse with Headphone (a).
The prices this week
GH’s Amazon card on the (1): $189, 37 percent off $299. Walmart $199. WIRED’s Prime Day note matches $189 and $110 off, and says it is the lowest they have seen. Prime Big Deal Days, per Mashable, ran through October 7. If you are reading this after the event, $189 may have bounced. Check the list, not this paragraph.
Bose Ultra 2 on the same GH page: $449 Amazon, $369 Walmart, $449 Macy’s. Walmart is the discount that matters. $369 is still about twice the Nothing street price. If your budget is “flagship ANC,” Bose is in the usual neighborhood. If your budget is “the pair GH just called best overall,” you are shopping a different aisle.
Mashable’s over-ear stack the same week had Sony WH-1000XM6 at $378 (was $459.99) and AirPods Max 2 at $429 (was $549). That is useful only as a map. XM6 at $378 sits next to Bose at $369–$449 and still above Nothing at $189. We already compared XM6 and Bose. Do not drag Sony into this page as a third winner. Use it as the reason $189 looks cheap.
Mashable also listed Nothing Headphone (a) at $129 (was $199). That is a different product. Transparent plastic does not make them the same headphones. If a listing says (a), it is not GH’s best overall. If a listing says (1) Pro, that is last week’s comparison against Sony, not this one.
CMF Headphone Pro, GH’s best value over-ear, is $84 on Amazon. CMF started as Nothing’s budget sub-brand and, GH says, now operates as its own company. Oversized replaceable pads, sound that surprised their labs under $100, ANC “slightly disappointing.” If $189 is still too much, that is the third door. It is not Bose. It is not the (1).
What GH actually rewarded
Nothing Headphone (1) took best overall. The knock, in GH’s own words, is ANC. It sits below other top contenders. The compliment is the price-to-performance line: they had not tried a pair that did this well in their evaluations for the money. That is a lab ranking, not a plane ranking. If your commute is a subway and a podcast, GH is talking to you. If your commute is a 737, they already handed the ANC award to Bose, and that award is the one that should decide the cart even if the overall badge is louder on the homepage.
Bose Ultra 2 took best noise-cancelling. Pros on that card: fantastic audio, top-of-the-line cancellation, comfortable in extended wear. Cons: only a 3-band EQ, no IP rating. What kept it from overall #1, GH says, was the lack of app customization plus no ingress protection. Three EQ bands are a volume knob for bass, mids, and treble. Nothing’s camp, in the WIRED description of the (1), is a pair you can actually grab: volume wheel, on-off switch, media paddle. Bose is still the quieter cabin. Nothing is the pair with more to twist.
No IP rating on the Bose is a real con if you sweat on them or get caught in rain. It is not a reason to take them in the shower. It is a reason not to pretend they are workout gear. GH did not give the (1) an IP callout in the extract we have. Do not invent one.
Comfort is Bose’s second argument after ANC. Extended wear is the phrase. Nothing’s argument, from WIRED, is design you can feel without looking: a wheel, a switch, a paddle, the transparent shell. If you hate capacitive ear cups, that paragraph is the (1). If you hate any plastic that looks like a concept sketch, Bose is the boring adult.
Battery is the Nothing spec
WIRED: up to 35 hours with noise-cancelling on, 80 with it off. Those are claimed figures on a deal writeup, not a lab drain-down we ran. They are still the number GH’s overall pick is wearing this week. 35 hours ANC-on is how you skip a charger on a work trip. 80 hours ANC-off is how a spec sheet looks like a power bank. If you live in ANC, 35 is the number. If you live in a quiet room, 80 is marketing you will not use.
GH’s Bose card in the extract we have does not print a battery hour count. Do not fake one from an older review. The Bose job this week is cancellation and comfort at $369–$449. If battery-per-dollar is your column, the (1) at 35 hours and $189 is the sheet that has a number.
Charge habits matter more than the 80. A pair you forget to dock still dies. The WIRED (1) has a physical on-off switch. That is the boring feature that keeps 35 hours from becoming 12 because the headphones stayed awake in a bag. Bose users already know the case ritual. The switch is the (1)’s version.
If you share a pair between a work laptop and a phone, the switch also saves you from the Bluetooth tug-of-war that drains ANC headphones while they sit on a hook. I would still rather have a case that charges. Nothing did not put a battery number on a charging case in the WIRED deal blurb, because these are over-ears you hang up. Budget a cable, not a puck.
ANC is still Bose
GH would not have created a separate “best noise-cancelling” slot if the overall winner had won it. They did not. Bose Ultra 2 is the ANC pick. Top-of-the-line is their phrase. The (1)’s ANC is the tradeoff that comes with $189.
If you buy Nothing because a roundup said best overall, then complain on a flight, you bought the wrong column. Best overall in a GH lab is a blend of sound, comfort, features, and price. Best ANC is one column. Planes care about one column.
We already said Bose Ultra 2 beats XM6 on some ANC comparisons in the XM6 vs Ultra 2 piece. This page is not a rematch with Sony. It is GH putting Nothing above Bose for everything except the job Bose still owns.
Transparency and wind are the other ANC footnotes neither GH card spelled out in the extract. If you cycle, open-ear is a different GH/WIRED conversation (Bose Ultra Open Earbuds were WIRED’s open-ear deal at $199). Over-ears with weak ANC still seal. Over-ears with strong ANC still get weird in a convertible. Shop the use, not the award name.
Controls, EQ, and the app gap
Bose: 3-band EQ. GH called out the missing customization as a reason it lost overall. If you live in a ten-band parametric, Bose will feel like a rental car radio. If you never open an EQ, three bands are enough to knock the bass down.
Nothing (1), per WIRED: volume wheel, on-off switch, media paddle. Tactile. You can run them without looking at a phone. That is the opposite of Bose’s app complaint. It is also why people who tried the (1) keep talking about the chassis instead of a codec list.
Do not mix in the CMF Headphone Pro’s Nothing-app story as if it were the (1). CMF is $84 and a different company now. GH liked the pads and the sound and not the ANC. If a YouTube thumbnail shows a Nothing-shaped budget cup, check whether the title says CMF.
Codecs, weight, and folding hinges did not show up as numbers in this week’s GH/WIRED cards. I am not going to paste last year’s spec sheet and date it October 9. If hinge durability is your fear, read a long-term (1) review, not a Prime Day blog.
Who should buy which
Buy the Nothing Headphone (1) if $189 is still on the tag, you want GH’s overall pick, you want 35 hours on the card, and you can live with ANC that GH already said is not class-leading. Buy it in the color you will actually wear. The transparent shell is a design argument. It is not a reason to skip Bose if you fly weekly.
Buy Bose QuietComfort Ultra (2nd Gen) if the job is cancellation, you liked their comfort in a store, and $369 Walmart (or $449 Amazon) is acceptable. Accept three EQ bands and no IP rating. Do not buy them because a Prime Day roundup put Sony at $378 and you panicked. Sony is a third product. We already wrote that page.
Skip both and look at CMF Headphone Pro at $84 if GH’s “best value” line is the whole budget and you can tolerate weaker ANC. Skip Headphone (a) at $129 unless you meant to buy the cheaper Nothing, not GH’s overall pick.
The winner on this page is Nothing Headphone (1), because GH’s overall award plus WIRED’s $189 is the incremental news this week. Bose still wins the plane. If your week is a plane, ignore the winner line and take the ANC award.
One more SKU warning, because the Nothing catalog is a trap. Headphone (1) is the over-ear GH tested. Headphone (1) Pro is the later flagship we already put against XM6. Headphone (a) is the cheaper Mashable deal. CMF Headphone Pro is the $84 cousin that is no longer a Nothing sub-brand in GH’s telling. If the Amazon title is a pile of those words, stop and match the parentheses. The $189 number only means something on the (1).