Cambridge Audio Melomania 1

For insight and an emotional, musical delivery, the Melomania 1s are excellent – just make sure they fit your ears

There’s no doubt Cambridge Audio is passionate about music – the company’s website even urges you not to accept the ‘crime’ of ‘bad sound experiences’. So it’s no surprise that its inaugural wireless in-ear monitors are named Melomania

– it means crazy about music.

Cambridge Audio’s focus has long been on sonic delivery over appearance; while the black version of these buds is fairly standard, the Melomania 1s also come in a ‘stone’ grey hue, the look and feel of which is somewhat medical. The little units snap into their charging nest with the aid of magnets, while another magnet keeps the case shut.

The case features a horizontal set of five lights to indicate the battery charge level. With nine hours’ battery life from the buds, plus four additional charges from the case, that’s an impressive 45 hours of continuous use from this set-up.

Standing out

The Melomania 1s’ earbuds are longer than most in-ears, so if you want something streamlined that doesn’t protrude too much from your ear, these don’t really tick that particular box.

Inside each unit, there’s a 5.8mm graphene driver, a triple-core processor (including a Qualcomm subsystem to support both AAC and aptx audio codecs) a mic featuring cvc noise cancellation for clear calls or Siri or Google Assistant support, plus Bluetooth 5.0. An IPX5 rating means they’re water and sweat-resistant too.

The Melomania 1 IEMS are truly wireless, apart from the supplied micro USB cable to connect the charging case to a power source – which you won’t often need. There’s one button on each unit which skips tracks, increases the volume and summons your voice assistant. Because that button occupies the entire top surface of each unit, it’s easy to press it by mistake when trying to push the buds into your ear, but the worst that will happen is accidentally pausing a track or altering the volume.

Remarkable sounds

We stream Lewis Capaldi’s Grace at CD quality on Qobuz, and our head is immediately filled with a remarkable breadth of sound for a wireless set of buds. Capaldi’s vocal is detailed, but there’s a playful ease to the dynamics here. We hear his intake of breath and the impending break in his voice as he belts out the chorus, without ever losing the spaces between the chords on the piano, the strum of the guitar or the crash of drums in the mix.

Everything has space to work harmoniously, and plenty of room to offer its sonic service to the whole. Similarly, when the music stops, it stops resolutely and with little of the lack of precision of many a pair of truly wireless Bluetooth in-ears. We stream Rod Stewart’s This from his 1995 album, A Spanner In The Works, and the subtle backing vocals come through – voices which are imperceptible through many other wireless in-ears at this price. The Melomania 1s offer insight to the point that slight deviances in pitch, where Stewart strains his voice to reach high notes, are also there. The Melomania 1s are so honest they can’t lie.

These aren’t noise cancellers, so they cannot compete with the isolation offered by Sony’s WF-1000XS, for example. There’s also no dedicated app for the Melomania 1s and while this makes everything refreshingly simple when pairing, there is no scope for altering the EQ settings.

If an unadulterated sound is your main concern, these buds are hard to beat in their price category, despite some issues with fit and comfort. These minor qualms may be down to the length of the unit itself, but more likely they could be resolved by offering more buds in a greater range of sizes.

With the Melomania 1s, Cambridge Audio has made good on its promise to save us from bad sound experiences. These budget-conscious IEMS offer a cohesive, expansive and rhythmically driven sound, but also an intuitive, playful soundstage that few wireless buds can achieve at the price.