Cambridge Audio Melomania P100 review: smarts and sounds at a great price

Finding a unique selling point in a pair of headphones at the moment is like searching for a needle in a very big haystack made out of audio gear. What are you looking for? Good sound? Comfort? Noise-canceling? A good price? There are differences between everything out there, but by and large, they are much of a muchness. So how do you make your headphones stand out?

Well, if you’re Cambridge Audio, then you mix your HiFi equipment expertise with some epic hardware, and add in a dash of the most recognizable over-the-top British accent around for a package that stands out — and then you undercut the competition with a very slick price point that makes them the best deals in audio right now. These are the Cambridge Audio Melomania P100, and if you’re looking at some new overhead headphones for the bus, the commute, when you’re out for a walk, or for just chilling on the couch and watching Apple TV Plus, then you might have just found something that ticks all the boxes.

Price and availability

In a market that sees top-of-the-range noise-canceling headphones priced at over $300, the Cambridge Audio Melomania P100 buck the trend. They’ll cost you $279 at full price, and you’ll occasionally see that price drop to $229 on sale. When the likes of the Sony WH-1000XM5 cost you $399 and the Sennheiser Momentum 4 cost $299, that makes the very shiny and very new P100 a very tempting proposition.

As for where you can get hold of one, you’ll likely be looking at Amazon to grab yourself a pair.

Build and fit

Cambridge Audio is well known for making home HiFi equipment that is built to last — and it's got years and years of experience and catalogs of equipment that shows just how good it is at it. Its headphones have never been an exception to the rule, and despite a lack of metal of any kind in their construction, the Melomania P100 are no different. The headband, while slightly lacking in padding, is solid-feeling, and the earcups themselves are wrapped in some premium plastic. Color options are fine: There’s a black option or a gray option, and I can already see the light gray color that we’ve got here attracting all the grime from the surrounding area with the clinical precision of a well-trained robot butler.

The case is excellent as well. It’s stiff, very solid, and has a space sized perfectly for the cables inside, nestled between the headphone slots. The color matches the headphones, and just like the cans themselves, while I’m confident that they’re protected when I stick them in a rucksack, I’m not so confident that the case will stay nice and gray. I can foresee a mucky future for the case, one that’s managed to accumulate all the bits and bobs from the bottom of your backpack.

Fit-wise, you’re looking at a pair of extremely comfy headphones. The padding all around is soft and accommodating, although it's a bit thin on the headband. If you can situate them on top of your head properly it never becomes an issue, but it is something that’s worth bearing in mind. They aren’t fatiguing when you wear them for long periods of time, and I had no problems wearing them throughout the day while listening to my tunes while working.

Features

For a pair of headphones that in their native UK only cost £229, they are packed to the brim with some top-tier features that easily put them either on par or above against the more expensive competition. The title feature is one that only the audio nerds amongst us are going to care about, and that’s the amplification hardware that’s been packed inside each earcup. They use the same AB classification amplification that you’ll find in Cambridge Audio’s dedicated HiFi amplifiers, lending them some serious audiophile credibility. As with all Bluetooth headphones, you won’t get the full effect of a lossless audio track, but Hi-Res is going to sound fab. 

The battery life is also well worth highlighting, with the number on the box promising 100 hours. I’ve been testing them for the last week, using them through a work day, and I’m yet to need to charge them (I’m still, in fact, on around 20% or so), so the battery life claim seems to match up with the actual life you’ll get on a charge. Manage to use up that titanic battery life and need to juice up quick? Stick them on charge for just five minutes and you get a full four hours of use — very nice. The battery life will change depending on how you use them, of course, so max volume, every single ounce of noise canceling people are going to end up with batteries as dead as their ears (seriously, stop using your headphones at max volume if you want to hear past the age of 50).

There’s the aforementioned noise canceling as well, and its pretty good. It’s not quite as impressive as the noise canceling on the likes of the Sony WH-1000XM5 or the AirPods Max, but it does a decent enough job of making sure that the noise outside the headphones won’t bother you while you listen to your music. Offices silenced, bus journeys more comfortable, and, if you’re a terrible parent, cries of small children quietened. There’s, as usual, a focus on the bottom-end sounds, so higher-pitched noises can make their way through. What’s nice is the three different noise-canceling modes — on, off, and transparency. Off is just like wearing any normal pair of wireless headphones, allowing some of the noise in, while transparency mode feeds the noises from the outside into your earholes so that you can have a chat with the person at the Costco counter. Or the bus driver.

It’s the environmental features that I really appreciate, however. I have loads of headphones from a couple of years ago that now have dead batteries, that no longer hold a charge. They are, ostensibly, completely dead, with non-user-replaceable batteries. There are headphones I don’t want to use because the earpads are toast, leaving horrible bits of faux leather coating all over the place. The P100, on the other hand, have both user-replaceable earpads and batteries, so in theory, they could last for an extremely long time, particularly thanks to the replaceable batteries. I say in theory because that relies on the batteries continuing to be available, and that 3rd party companies make replacement earpads beyond Cambridge Audio. I do really like the feature however, and I hope that more companies embrace the idea of user-replaceable batteries.

Finally, there’s the Melomania connect app, which lets you activate gaming mode and choose a vocal assistant who talks you through your experience with the headphones. There’s the standard voice, or the voice which you should use — the ‘Southwark’ option. That uses the actual recorded voice of actor Matt Berry, himself from London, Southwark, just like Cambridge Audio itself. You may have heard of him from the likes of Toast of London, The IT Crowd, or, more recently, TV’s What We Do in the Shadows. It’s loads of fun to hear his over-the-top lilt shout ‘noise canceling’ or ‘gaming mode’, and adds some more personality to a headset that’s already set well apart from its contemporaries. The app lets you activate gaming mode, which reduces lag on the Bluetooth so that you can hear all the sounds you need closer to when you need them in game.

Sound Quality

Ok, so Cambridge Audio has brought every ounce of its significant HiFi chops to bear on the Melomania P100. There’s the aforementioned class AB amplifier at play in addition to aptX and other assorted Bluetooth goodies to make sure that they sound as good as possible. Has it worked? In a word — yes.

In a few more words, the Melomania P100s are a well-judged and excellently well-balanced pair of headphones, with a decent amount of beef to keep things from feeling too analytical. There’s plenty of detail up high, and then some stellar low-end grunt that goes all the way down. The soundstage is top-notch, wider than you might expect from some closed-back headphones, and stereo imaging is pretty good as well. For the price, there’s not much that can take the fight to the Melomania P100, and you’d find it tricky to find much better that are $100-$200 more expensive.

The chunky distorted bass of Psycroptic’s Rend Asunder lays the foundation for a crisp interpretation of tech death, equally detailed and weighty in all the right places. The hi-hats are piercing and bright, while layered guitar parts weave their syncopated rhythm. Instrument separation is uncommonly good for a death metal performance, each part of the ensemble separable from the rest. The vocals are clear and thick, although there are some occasional hiccups when the rest of the ensemble gets busier.

Michael Giachinno’s Kronos Unveiled from The Incredibles soundtrack shows some impressive dynamic range. When the music is supposed to be quiet and subtle, it is, not boosted by the headphones. It builds and it builds to the mighty crescendo, which is punchy, powerful, and revealing. The orchestra is wide, and surrounding, making for an involving, engaging listen.

Finally, the pulsating synth and slick retro style of Carpenter Brut’s Day Stalker brings a threatening undertone thanks to the driving sub-bass line that the Melomania are more than happy to provide. It’s not a complicated track, but the headphones do a quality job of building throughout with the addition of each new additional instrument line.

Competition

There is loads of competition out there for the Melomania, but all the stuff that offers the same features, sound quality, and carrying case will cost you a whole bunch more money than you’d spend on Cambridge Audio’s offering. There are the aging Sony WH-1000XM5, and while their noise canceling might be better, you’ll get better sound quality at a much lower price from the Melomania. They might not be as well made as the AirPods Max, but they rival the Apple option in sound and cost less than half as much. When you look at the competition in the same price bracket you’ll soon find that battery life won’t be as good, they’ll lack noise canceling… The Melomania are an excellent option, and outweigh the competition in a whole range of ways.

That and no other pair of headphones has a Matt Berry voice option.

Should you buy them?

You should buy them if…

• You want a unique pair of headphones in a world of cut-and-paste options
• You want spectacular sound quality
• You’re after something comfortable

You shouldn’t buy them if…

• You don’t have much space for the large carrying case
• You hate Matt Berry (you weirdo. And you can turn him off. Weirdo.)

Verdict

The package that the Melomania present is more than you could imagine possible for the otherwise fairly low price. If nothing else, they’ll make Sony and other manufacturers look up from their desks and realize that they need to step the game up — turns out you can make premium, fully-featured headphones for less than $300. If you now want to cost more than the Melomania you’re going to have to really put in a whole lot of work to make sure that buyers get their money's worth.

As for the headphones themselves, they’re a real treat. They sound excellent, fit comfortably, and while they take a little more space in your bag, they’re a great example of some great-sounding headphones. If you don’t mind not having a Sony or Apple logo on your head, the Cambridge Audio Melomania P100 should be at the top of your list.