The UK’s Cambridge Audio has launched the next model in its excellent Melomania true wireless earphone range. As the name suggests, the Melomania Touch offer touch control as well as the promise of “stunning sound performance and world-class battery life.”
We got to try Cambridge Audio’s first entry into the now crowded true wireless earphone space last year, and despite a few early issues with fit, were impressed by the quality of the sound being pushed down our ears by the bullet-shaped buds.
The first thing you notice with the new earphones is the contoured shape that puts touch control on the outer housing. The company referenced more than 3,000 pairs of ears to try and come up with a pair of earphones that offer long-lasting comfort for the majority of listeners.
The Melomania Touch earphones are supplied with a numbers of silicone tips and also come with fins to help ensure a snug, stay-put fit. Each earpiece also weighs in at 5.9 g (0.2 oz), and is water- and sweat-resistant to IPX4 standards – so should be good for a sudden downpour or trips to the gym.
Cambridge Audio has cooked in a High Performance Audio Mode that’s reported to use the same amplification method that’s employed in the company’s CX range of hi-fi amplifiers for a wide soundstage, low noise and high dynamic range. The company also says that the 7-mm graphene-enhanced dynamic drivers will treat listeners to “deeper controlled bass, realistic voices and clearer highs.”
In High Performance Audio Mode, the battery in each earpiece will last up to seven hours per charge, with up to 33 more available from the supplied charging case. But switching your listening to Low Power Mode will result in up to nine hours for each earpiece, and a further 41 hours from the case.
Listeners wirelessly connect to a mobile music source over Bluetooth 5.0 with support for the latest AAC and aptX audio codecs, so you should get high quality streams and fewer dropouts than with previous BT flavors. And though there’s passive noise isolation only here, Qualcomm’s Clear Voice Capture technology is employed by the two MEMS microphones to focus on the user’s voice during voice calls or communication with digital voice assistants.
This second member of the Melomania family is joined by a brand new iOS/Android app, for custom EQ, the location of misplaced buds on a local map, the ability to check remaining battery life, and more. The Touch buds also come with a Transparency Mode that allows in ambient noise and is activated using the controls on the earphone housing, but the app can be used to set how much of the outside world is allowed through.
The Melomania Touch earphones go on sale from January 1, 2021, for US$149.95.
Cambridge Audio injects wireless earphones with hi-fi amplifier know-how [New Atlas]