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Tom's Guide
6 days ago
- Tom's Guide
I came so close to loving the Nothing Headphone (1), but the sound held them back — here's what I'd recommend instead
When I pulled the Nothing Headphone (1) from their box, I immediately noticed just how well-built and designed the headphones are. The quality metal earcups and intuitive physical controls could have made them a shoe-in for my favorite pair of headphones of 2025, and pose a threat to the best headphones you can buy. But sadly they fell down at what is, ultimately, the most important hurdle of all — sound quality. I'd hoped they were going to sound good thanks to Nothing's partnership with KEF, but there were significant sonic issues that I noted in my Headphone (1) review. Any pair of headphones that effectively requires the use of an EQ isn't a good pair of headphones in my mind, given that general audiences don't understand their 100Hz from their 14KHz. Thankfully, there's a pair of headphones in the $200-$299 price range that you should buy instead that outperforms the Nothing Headphone (1) in most metrics — the Cambridge Audio melomania P100. Here's why you should buy them instead. The Melomania P100 are an excellent pair of headphones featuring a whole range of features to make them a great alternative to the more well-known competition. They're also a better buy than the Headphone (1), with more battery life, much better sound, and a simpler look for those who don't want Nothing's more out there design. The Nothing Headphone (1) bring a fancy design to the table and great build quality, but they let the side down when it comes to sound; arguably the most important bit. You do get solid battery life though, and a very good and compact hard case. The physical controls are amongst the best around as well. There's no denying that the Nothing Headphone (1) have a unique look. They're smothered in metal and transparent plastic, with their cassette motif shining through to get glances from everyone that's walking past. If you're looking for a pair of headphones that shouts "look at me!" then the Headphone (1) are the headphones you're looking for. If you're not looking to make as much of a statement and want something that looks solid without being louder than a piledriver on a building site, then the Melomania P100 might be more up your street. They've got a clean, sleek look, but I really like their subtle design touches. The Cambridge Audio circle on the outside of the cans is a nice feature, and the shape of the earcups is good. Build is similar to the Nothing Headphone (1) too. There's metal in these earcups, and they feel like they'd survive a brush with a Sherman tank. They're more comfortable in some ways as well especially if you've got ear piercings. They don't press on your lobes like the Headphone (1). I like the look of both headphones, but while I'm happy that Nothing is shaking things up with the Headphone (1), I'd still go for the more understated style of the Cambridge Audio cans. The Nothing Headphone (1), on paper, have more features than the Cambridge Audio Melomania P100. There's spatial audio and adaptive ANC, amongst others. In actuality, however, they're much closer than they seem on first inspection. The spatial audio, as with many implementations, is worth leaving off. It thins out the sound of your music, and makes it sound like it's being played down a metal pipe. Worth avoiding. Adaptive ANC sounds good, but I didn't find any battery gains on paper, and it actually made some things worse when it misread the environment. I just left it on max level whenever I needed ANC as a result — the same level available with the Melomania P100. After that, the feature sets remain similar. There are strong EQ adjusters on both, and low-latency modes for gamers. USB-C audio can play Hi-res tracks with great bandwidth, although, as we'll find out later, you'll only want to use it with one pair of headphones. The Cambridge Audio cans last 100 hours with the ANC off, and then 60 hours with the ANC on. The Nothing Headphone (1) have good battery life. They'll last you for 35 hours with ANC on after a full charge, which rises to 80 hours when you turn the ANC off. That's more than the Sony WH-1000XM5 and the Bose QuietComfort Ultra Headphones — but much less than the Melomania P100. The Cambridge Audio cans last 100 hours with the ANC off, and then 60 hours with the ANC on. That's a lot of battery, and I can attest to their battery life personally. I took them on a three-day camping trip, and didn't need to charge them once, despite using them to help me climb mountains and circumnavigate lakes. And then they got me home for the 6-hour drive. Quick charge is similar on both models as well — a 5-minute quick charge gets you 4 hours with Cambridge Audio, while the Nothing cans manage 5 hours. If that's what $70 gets you, I'm not sure I'd bother with the more expensive option. There's no avoiding it. Despite working with renowned audio brand KEF, the Nothing Headphone (1) just don't sound all that good out of the box. They're far too dark, and need significant work in the EQ to make them sound decent. I certainly wasn't a fan of the way they sounded, and it lost them a whole star and a half in their review. The Melomania P100 are one of the best-sounding pairs of headphones around — you'll have to spend hundreds more dollars to find something that sounds better. Harsh? Perhaps, but when you consider how the cheaper competition sound, you'll understand why. The Melomania P100 are one of the best-sounding pairs of headphones around — you'll have to spend hundreds more dollars to find something that sounds better. They are supremely well detailed, and the soundstage is extremely wide and involving. It places instruments very well, and makes for one of the best listening experiences you'll have this side of $450. At the end of the day, headphones are all about how they sound. ANC is important, and both are good at it, but it's really all about the sound. And the Cambridge Audio Melomania P100 just sound better. At the end of the day, it all comes down to what you value in a pair of headphones. But as far as I can tell, the Cambridge Audio smash the Nothing Headphone (1) in most metrics. Battery life, sound quality, price — Nothing leaves bloodied and bruised while Cambridge Audio shrugs off a volley of style points. For my money I'd save $60 and buy the Melomania P100. They're just a better pair of headphones. Follow Tom's Guide on Google News to get our up-to-date news, how-tos, and reviews in your feeds. Make sure to click the Follow button.
Stuff.tv
26-06-2025
- Stuff.tv
I tested the Cambridge Audio Melomania A100 noise-cancelling earbuds and while excellent they make this one key compromise
Stuff Verdict Excellent value for money, the A100 are an engaging listen with very good options and controls. The downside is that you can get better just a little further up the ladder. Pros Engaging sound Decent noise cancelling Competitively priced Very compact Cons Not great with wind No wireless charging Battery life has been reduced 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. How we test headphones Every pair of earphones and headphones reviewed on Stuff is used for a minimum of a week's worth of daily listening. We use a playlist of test tracks made up of multiple genres to assess sound, and use our years of experience to compare to other models. Manufacturers have no visibility on reviews before they appear online, and we never accept payment to feature products. Find out more about how we test and rate products. 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's no wireless charging) 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. Stuff Says… Score: 4/5 Excellent value for money, the A100 are an engaging listen with very good options and controls. The downside is that you can get better just a little further up the ladder. Pros Engaging sound Decent noise cancelling Competitively priced Very compact Cons Not great with wind No wireless charging Battery life has been reduced Cambridge Audio Melomania A100 technical specifications Drivers 2x 10mm Neodymium drivers ANC Yes Bluetooth version Bluetooth 5.4 Codecs supported LDAC, aptX Lossless, aptX Adaptive, AAC and SBC Durability IPX5 Battery life 6.5 hours ANC on (buds), 39 hours (with case) Dimensions 152x76x23mm, 72g (case) 9.4g/ 0.33oz (buds, each)
