Cambridge Audio's Melomania A100 Wireless Earbuds With Hi-Fi Sound Quality

Forbes

3 days ago

The new Cambridge Audio Melomania A100 wireless earbuds are available now.
One of the most popular British audio brands, Cambridge Audio, has been making waves on the British hi-fi scene for more than half a century. Today, the London-based brand celebrates its next 50 years with the launch of a new pair of true wireless earbuds: the all-new Melomania A100.
These new wireless earbuds have been designed to deliver Cambridge Audio's award-winning signature sound in a compact and comfortable form factor. The A100 have been tuned and acoustically optimized by the brand's London-based engineers and they use the same Class AB amplification found in Cambridge Audio's award-winning CX and EX Series of amplifiers.
The Melomania A100 uses 10mm diameter, precision-tuned, dynamic Neodymium drivers. Cambridge Audio says these latest drivers have been tuned to produce a deeper bass with richer mids and clear highs that meld together to deliver a high-fidelity listening experience.
The Melomania A100 support the hi-res LDAC and aptX Lossless audio codecs over Bluetooth. They are also are the first to use Cambridge Audio's proprietary DynamEQ technology which ensures details remain intact and balanced even when the user is listening to music at low volume levels.
The new A100 wireless earbuds from Cambridge Audio feature Class AB amplification and custom tuned ... More Neodymium drivers.
A full charge of the A100 earbuds provides up to 11 hours of continuous listening time. The designers say that comfort is at the center of the physical design of the earbuds and the company claims it's made a lot of effort to ensure the shape of the earbuds makes them comfortable to wear, even after a lengthy listening session.
Thanks to the use of lightweight and premium materials as well as a wide choice of silicone tip sizes, these earbuds are designed for long-lasting wearability and an ergonomic fit.
The Melomania A100 stow away in their charging case when not in use and it holds extra power for topping up the earbud batteries. The case sports three white LEDs on its front panel giving instant feedback of battery level.
To squeeze the Cambridge Audio signature soundscape into such as small pair of wireless earbuds, the company's engineers used hi-fi grade Class AB amplification to power the 10mm Neodymium drivers. The result is increased warmth and more musicality than would be available from off-the-shelf drivers using regular Class D amplification.
To provide high-quality processing of the digital signals, Cambridge Audio chose Qualcomm's dual-core 240MHz Kalimba digital signal processor. This offers more refined sound processing and lower distortion levels as well as more clarity than most chipsets. There is support for LDAC, aptX Lossless and aptX Adaptive Bluetooth audio codecs, as well as the more usual AAC and SBC.
The Cambridge Audio A100 are available in white or black and come with a range of high-quality ear ... More tips for maximum acoustic isolation.
The A100 are the fourth pair of Melomania earbuds from Cambridge Audio. The Melomania range is something of a personal quest adn challenge for the company's chairman, James Johnson Flint, who has been pursuing the Holy Grail of a perfect-sounding pair earbuds for half a decade now.
The development of the A100 is the culmination of Johnson-Flint's efforts and the use DynamEQ technology to keep the music perfectly balanced, even at lower volume levels, is something he is particularly pleased with. By subtly adjusting bass and treble through the volume curve, the A100 ensure that every track can sound its best with a full and natural tone, no matter what the listening level.
Like any good pair of wireless earbuds, the Melomania A100 have Active Noise Cancellation which uses a hybrid combination of Feed-Back and Feed-Forward ANC. There are external microphones for monitoring outside ambient sounds, plus interior microphones monitoring the ear canal to sweep up any noise making it through the acoustic seal of the ear tips. The result is more unwanted sound blocked out.
Out of the box, the A100 earbuds are tuned to provide the classic Cambridge Audio sound signature. The A100's transparent and natural presentation is how Cambridge Audio believes music should be heard. However, people have personal preferences and hear music in different ways. For this reason, the A100 earbuds also offer a range of options for customizing the sound.
A full charge of the A100's storage case and earbuds can provide up to 40 hours of continuous ... More playtime.
Users can shape the sound signature of the A100 to suit their preferences using the new Melomania Connect smartphone app. It's possible to fine-tune the tone using a 7-band adjustable EQ.
There are also six EQ presets tailored for different genres of music. Users can create their own EQ profiles and then save them for total control over the listening experience. To customize the A100 further, the Melomania Connect app includes a feature that can remap the touch controls on each earpiece to suit the user.
When wireless earbuds first launched more than 10 years ago, they would often play for between and hour or two before they needed to be recharged. Today we expect much better and a full charge of the A100 provides up to 11 hours of continuous playback with the ANC turned off.
That figure drops to 6.5 hours with ANC turned on, which is still long enough for a flight from London to New York. It's also sufficient juice for a 9-to-5 work shift and something spare for the commute home. The ultra-compact charging case can hold enough power for up to 28 hours of listening time.
Incidentally, a fast-charging function means a quick 10-minute charge of the A100 can provide another three hours of playback time. This is a handy feature if you've not used the earbuds for a while and are just about to go out for a run.
The new A100 earbuds are one of the first products to bear the new Cambridge Audio branding.
The Melomania A100 are built around Bluetooth Version 5.4 and support Multipoint Connectivity so two devices can connect at the same time. Why would you want to do that? Well, you could be listening to music or watching a movie on your personal smartphone but need to take a phone call on your business phone. With Multipoint Connectivity you can instantly switch between devices without any interruption.
For phone calls or video meetings, the A100 uses no fewer than six microphones for picking up the user's voice loud and clear. Advanced cVc noise isolation technology filters out unwanted and noisy background sounds to boost call clarity.
The Melomania A100 earbuds mark a new era for Cambridge Audio because they bear the company's new branding and work with the redesigned Melomania Connect app. The A100 are also launching alongside the Cambridge Audio's new Evo 150 SE streamer amp which is also controlled by the refreshed StreamMagic app.
Cambridge Audio's Melomania A100 earbuds are available from cambridgeaudio.com and Amazon across Europe and Asia. The price is $149.99 / £119 / €139 but the A100 won't be available in the U.S. until later in the year.