I tested the Cambridge Audio Melomania A100 noise-cancelling earbuds and while excellent they make this one key compromise

Introduction

Cambridge Audio’s Melomania series has been a refreshing alternative to the mainsteam true wireless earphone illuminati. The company may still be known for its hi-fi separates but last year’s Melomania P100 over-ears were an absolute triumph, which I still turn to at home.

The design might not have been to everyone’s tastes but the audio quality was great and you can’t argue with 60 hours of battery life with the noise-cancelling turned on. You can now pick them up for less than $200/£200 and that is an absolute steal.

However, things have been a bit patchier for Cambridge’s forays into true wireless buds. These new A100s build on last year’s M100s with a more compact design and footprint. But can they also further banish Cambridge’s mistakes of the past? Some early Melomania buds such as the 1+ had software flaws and were difficult to use consistently.

The move to the A100s from the M100s is an interesting one. Cambridge has told me that “A100 will replace M100 as stocks run down” but these are quite different buds from the M100s. Notably they are more compact as I said, but the big compromise is that they have shorter battery life as a result. That’s made palatable by the price point, which clocks in at $150/£119//€139.

Things are pretty competitive around this price point – the AirPods 4 are only a little more expensive. Sony’s LinkBuds S are similarly priced, while the original Bose QuietComfort Earbuds cost aroud $20 more. All are serious competitors.

Design: plasticky but not cheap

The buds are made from smooth plastic but they don’t feel cheap and sit in the ear nicely. Indeed, they’re instantly comfortable – I found there was no jostling to ensure comfort and I really enjoyed wearing them, which I can’t say for a lot of earbuds.

The case, too, has a quality to it. It certainly doesn’t have the lid flexing you find on so many true wireless bud boxes. There are indicator lights on the front to show battery life (and for pairing), a USB-C port at the rear (there is also wireless charging present) and a pairing button on the base.

The A100s anre available in both black and white. They come with medium ear tips pre-fitted, but there are two other options in the box for small or large ear canals.

Specs: plenty on offer, but battery life worse than before

Hardware-wise there’s a huge amount on offer from the A100s, which support a wider range of codecs than many rivals – LDAC, aptX Lossless, aptX Adaptive, AAC and SBC. Thanks to Bluetooth 5.4 there’s also multipoint support for connecting to more than one device.

These aren’t rugged earbuds of course, but there is IPX5 water resistance so you’ll have no problem in even serious rain showers.

The reduced battery life from the M100s is an interesting facet of these headphones. The M100 offered 52 hours battery life in total with the case and up to 16 hours in the buds with ANC off. Despite the reduction, the A100 still offer quite hefty playback times – a total of 39 hours, 11 hours for the buds with ANC off and 6.5 hours with ANC on.

The ANC seems a little more power hungry than rivals, then, but it’s not absolutely crazy. We bet you wouldn’t notice the compromise in overall battery life of the case and buds, especially if you’re coming from a pair that only offers three or four hours.

There is a fast charging feature that will gives you up to three hours of playback from a 10-minute charge.

Perhaps my favorite feature of the A100s is transported over from previous Cambridge buds. And it’s that the default controls are excellent and clear to use. Single taps on a bud will cycle between noise cancellation, transparency and ANC off. And there’s a clear voice indication to tell you so – no mystic beeps that you’re supposed to be able to interpret. A double tap gets you to your voice assistant.

Sound quality: impressively good

The quality of these buds is excellent when listening to either music or podcasts and they genuinely do sound more expensive than they actually are.

Noise cancelling is fine for the price – certainly we couldn’t hear details of conversations happening quite close to us even when the music wasn’t at a particularly high volume. However, I felt wind resistance was poor when out and about and I certainly can’t recommend them on this regard. This also causes problems for voice calls when you’re on the move, which is a shame. However, general voice quality is good and that’s something that has obviously been worked on with a six microphone array present.

The transparency mode is OK, but I found I preferred to turn the noise cancellation off if I needed to be aware of anything else. It will be useful for city walks and other situations where you need to stay aware of your surroundings though.

Cambridge’s own DynamEQ tech is designed to keep music balanced even at low volumes and I found it does a pretty good job of it – as you can see below you’re able to enable or disable this within the app. There’s also a 7 band equalizer in the app to fine-tune the EQ to your own preferences should you desire.

App and settings: much improved

Cambridge Audio has significantly improved its Melomania app this time around and for the A100s there are a huge amount of options you can choose as well as doing the basics (such as changing the level of noise cancellation) and checking in on battery life.

There’s an equalizer as we mentioned above, while you can also enable or disable wear detect (so they pause when you remove then) as well as enable modes for different times – sleep or gaming. You can also choose when they power off. Indeed the only time I felt disappointed by the app experience was during the pairing process as it took a while to recognise the earbuds once they were paired with my phone. But in general use, it’s an excellent companion even though I was using a pre-release version to test the A100s.

Cambridge Audio Melomania A100 verdict

Obviously there are better noise cancelling buds out there – but they tend to be more expensive than the A100s. And so for an everyday pair of buds that don’t cost a small fortune they’re undoubtedly worth the outlay. At this price point there’s a serious list of challengers though.

The noise cancellation is fine for general noise, but can’t cope with wind gusts at which point it’s hard to hear your music. However, in a standard environment they’re an engaging listen and can boast of quality that is beyond their size and cost. There are compromises – hence my four star rating – but they also earn our Recommended badge as I have enjoyed listening to them a great deal, and so will you.

Cambridge Audio Melomania A100 technical specifications