Cambridge Audio Melomania Touch
Has Cambridge Audio knocked it out of the park again, or is the Melomania Touch destined to become a sensitive subject?
Cambridge Audio’s inaugural pair of headphones, the Melomania 1s, weren’t just the British audio outfit’s first truly wireless earbuds, they were its first earphones of any description. Those talented headphones had a detailed, expansive sound that belied their bashful aesthetic and price-point and scooped up What Hi-fi? Awards two years on the bounce.
Given the considerable success of its debut headphone proposition, it is surprising that Cambridge has chosen to go back to the drawing board for its second stab at the true wireless market. The next-generation in-ears are recognisable in name only, in that the Melomania prefix has been retained.
While there’s a new transparency mode that feeds ambient noise in when you want it, it’s surprising that noisecancelling doesn’t feature. The company has instead concentrated on applying its own hi-fi grade amplification to the headphones in what it is billing a “unique High Performance Audio Mode”.
Having launched the Melomania Touch at just £10 more expensive than the older iteration launch price, has Cambridge Audio knocked it out of the park again, or are we about to cast them on the disappointing sequel pile like a Blu-ray disc in the January sales?
Leading lights
A single line of five LED lights on the case to denote the remaining battery life might be the only visual similarity we can draw between the original Melomania 1 and the new Melomania Touch headphones. The case itself is now pill-shaped, opens like a suitcase (rather than a box of dental floss) and is clad in microfibre leather. ‘Cambridge Audio’ is now inscribed on the buds and the case too, alongside the spherical branding, and the buds themselves are teardrop-shaped – the result of crafting using the datapoints from more than 3000 pairs of ears, apparently.
The six sets of silicone eartips provided span three sizes – two sets each of small, medium and large – but there’s no longer a memory foam option. You also get three sets of separate fins in total, which are fussy to fit but aid security and sound quality.
Unlike the bullet-shaped Melomania buds, Cambridge Audio’s new driverhousing is a shape with a proven track record – not dissimilar to the Sennheiser Momentum True Wireless 2 – and it’s a solid step in the right direction. The buds feel comfortable, secure and relatively light in our ears. The drivers here are bigger than those in the original Melomania 1 by 1.2mm, and bigger than those in the Award-winning Sony WF-1000XM3 by 1mm. Inside each unit, there’s a 7mm dynamic driver with Graphene-enhanced diaphragm, rather than the 5.8mm driver in the originals.
It is disappointing to see that while the Melomania 1 carried an IPX5 rating (meaning both case and buds can resist water spray), the Touch carries only a splash-resistant IPX4 rating. It might be nice to know that a sweaty spin class or a spell in a storm won’t hurt them.
The teardrop shape without a ‘toothbrush stem’ design means fitting them is a case of sliding them in, then twisting to lock the earfins in and get a decent seal. The problem is that this involves touching the buds, and because the entire top surface of the unit is touch-sensitive, we find ourselves inadvertently stopping and resuming playback when fitting them. When trying to lock in the fit, we also accidentally up the volume, often to uncomfortable levels, when touching the right earpiece.
The touch controls can be customised or turned off entirely in the app, but that seems a shame. It’s far preferable to have on-device controls, but here they’re really quite awkward. It’s not that they’re unresponsive – far from it. Even when trying our best to handle just the outer edges of the earpieces during testing, we find ourselves pausing playback in error. Fiddly on-device controls are hardly an issue unique to the Melomania Touch, but nevertheless it’s disappointing.
Pairing is not the hassle-free experience we’d hoped for, either. Despite making sure both earphones are flashing blue/white and are thus ready to pair, we select ‘Melomania Touch L’ (where ‘Melomania Touch R’ is also an option) in our phone’s Bluetooth list, and are assured both buds will pair, once we have accepted the right bud’s request to do so. Only, this doesn’t happen. We get sound only from the left earphone, and the app registers the presence and battery life only of the left earpiece.
After a few tries we remember that Cambridge Audio has supplied a bright yellow card underneath the case in the box, explaining how to reset its product. This seems a disappointing stumbling block in 2020 – especially when Award-winners such as the considerably cheaper Earfun Air handle pairing (and re-pairing) after charging with ease.
Battery-saving mode
The Melomania Touch’s battery life looks outstanding on paper. 50 hours is the claim (nine hours from the buds plus more than four full charges from the case), thus upping the 45-hour total playtime of the inaugural model. But there’s a catch – those figures are for Low Power Mode listening.
Cambridge Audio claims its new default High Performance Audio Mode
uses the same method of amplification found in the company’s Award-winning CX range of hi-fi amplifiers. The promise is of lower noise levels and a higher dynamic range – again, it sounds impressive, but to get it you take a hit in terms of stamina. In High Performance Audio Mode, the claim is seven hours of battery life from the earbuds, plus up to a further 33 hours via the charging case. While still competitive, this is five hours less than the Melomania 1.
We decide to switch between High Performance Audio to Low Power mode, but can’t help thinking that anyone purchasing a set of Cambridge Audio headphones will do so based on the promise of superior sound quality. As such, a proposition that downgrades this in return for ten hours of lower-quality playback feels counter-intuitive.
Avoidable crashes
Making the change to Low Power Mode crashes the app twice, but once we manage to switch, we hear a modicum of noise in the background compared with High Performance Audio Mode. It’s barely audible, and while the sound is still otherwise musical and passable, we are left unsure whether such a feature is advisable – other than to win battery bragging rights over the predecessor, when it works.
The new Melomania app looks slick and is easy to use. On the app’s hub page, you can see battery life in each individual bud, activate Transparency Mode (which has a percentage slider from 0 to 100 from little ambient noise to maximum external noise pickup) or select ‘Find My Earphones’ if you’ve misplaced them.
There are six distinctive EQ presets, or you can create your own custom five-band EQ setting and save up to three of them. There’s a lot of enjoyment to be found toying with them, and the Transparency Mode in particular is useful if you’re waiting on a train platform listening for announcements.
Otherwise, the spec sheet reads well, albeit devoid of aptx HD support, with the same cvc noise-cancelling mic as the Melomania 1 in each bud plus Bluetooth 5.0 with aptx, AAC and SBC codecs – although you can actually switch off any codecs you never want to hear again in the Melomania app, if you’d like. During phone calls, we find the mic pick-up clear and the call quality is good.
Once the earphones are paired, situated in our ears, and with most controls toggled off, fans of the original Melomania 1 will find much to enjoy sonically in the updated model. Expect similar levels of attack and agility – the Melomania Touch earbuds dutifully celebrate the electric guitar solo at the outset of Livin’ On A Prayer, but it’s never at the expense of the twinkling chimes at the start of the track.
Here We Are Juggernaut by Coheed and Cambria allows the Melomania Touch to display their talents further in a cohesive, detailed mix, and while there’s a slightly more bass-heavy presentation to be gleaned from the Sony WF1000XM3 (our reference set of classleading headphones, albeit one level up), you’ll actually get a bit more bite and dynamic build from the Melomania Touch proposition. It’s a case of marginally less refinement but more zeal – the kind that makes our music exciting.
We play Kings of Leon’s Use Somebody and, compared with the Sonys, there is a slight step up in terms of timing. The new Melomanias are faithfully nippy and agile, especially when it comes to the lower registers, where they offer a more accurate representation than the Sony Award-winner. When it comes to sonics at this level, we find ourselves scratching our heads to find an issue.
“Sonically, the Cambridge Audio Melomania Touch true wireless earbuds offer a potentially class-leading proposition at this level – which is why our persistent issues with the software and pairing are a real shame”
Potentially class-leading
Sonically, Cambridge Audio’s Melomania Touch true wireless earbuds offer a potentially class-leading proposition at this level, which is why our persistent issues with the software and pairing are a real shame. The design is comfortable, the app integration offers plenty of customisable tweaks, and the sound is everything we remember from the Award-winning Melomania 1.
But the fact that we have to perform several resets and relaunch the app more than once to complete the promised audio functions means we’re unable to recommend them confidently as things currently stand. We hope these issues can be fixed soon because, true to form, Cambridge Audio has given us much to celebrate in the sound department.