Cambridge Audio Melomania P100 SE

British Audio Heritage Meets Modern Headphone Technical Abilities

As a pragmatic audiophile, I’ve always respected what Cambridge Audio brings to the table - that quintessential British approach to audio engineering that prioritizes musicality alongside technical competence.

Cambridge Audio have recently very successfully branched out into new audio product categories while maintaining their reputation for delivering great-sounding audio products at reasonable prices. So does this special edition update to the original Melomania P100 continue this trend?

The P100 Special Edition certainly has a lot to like, showcasing some excellent ANC performance and thoughtful features that demonstrate Cambridge’s understanding of what modern audiophile listeners expect.

However, I also have some quibbles with some of aspects of the P100 SE that I feel slightly take away from the overall appeal to what could have been a very straightforward recommendation.

But before I get into the details, let’s have a look at the unboxing:

Unboxing and First Impressions

The Cambridge Audio Melomania P100 SE comes in some nice packaging:

The back of the box with some subtle text at the bottom:

The “Made by Music” tagline on the packaging reflects Cambridge Audio’s 50+ year heritage in audio:

And being an engineer myself, I appreciate the “Designed by Hifi Engineers” tagline:

Additional product information is provided on the side panel:

Opening the outer packaging reveals the protective box:

The internal box features an embossed Cambridge Audio logo that adds to the premium feel:

The first thing you encounter is an impressively constructed hard carrying case:

Opening the hard case reveals the P100 SE headphones in all their glory:

The headphones are securely positioned within the case alongside comprehensive documentation:

Now we finally get to the P100 SE:

The case includes a convenient magnetic compartment for storing cables:

The cables are very decent quality:

The complete package includes:

• Cambridge Audio Melomania P100 SE headphones
• Premium hard carrying case with magnetic cable compartment
• USB-C to USB-A charging cable
• USB-C to 3.5mm wired connection cable
• Comprehensive documentation and quick start guide

Design and Build Quality

The Melomania P100 SE showcases thoughtful design decisions throughout, with particular attention paid to comfort and durability. The headband features very decent padding for extended wearing comfort:

The extension mechanism provides ample adjustment range to accommodate different head sizes:

Earcup Design and Comfort

The earcups are designed with comfort as a primary consideration, featuring well-padded surfaces and thoughtful ergonomics:

The internal dimensions are generous, providing mostly ample space for most ear sizes, though I would always like larger earcups, I have found there is a trade-off between Seal and ANC quality and the internal volume of an earcup :

Multiple microphones are strategically positioned for optimal ANC performance:

The USB-C charging port is conveniently located and easily accessible:

Physical Controls: A Refreshing Choice

One of the most appreciated aspects of the P100 SE is Cambridge Audio’s decision to use physical buttons rather than touch controls.

This choice eliminates the frustration of accidental touches and provides reliable, tactile feedback - a decision that becomes more appreciated the longer you use these headphones.

Exceptional Comfort Experience

I believe the Cambridge Audio P100 SE is a big upgrade in the comfort department compared to the previous model, delivering an experience that surpasses many competitors in this category. Despite not appearing significantly larger than competing models like the Nothing Ear (1), the P100 SE feels substantially more comfortable during extended listening sessions.

The comfort advantage comes from several thoughtful design decisions: the updated headband design distributes weight more evenly across the head, while the earpad depth and contouring create a more natural seal without excessive clamping force.

While the comfort doesn’t quite reach the heights of dedicated audiophile open-back headphones like the Meze 105 Silva, it’s genuinely impressive for a consumer ANC headphone:

The Melomania App: The Essentials Covered

The Cambridge Audio Melomania app is not just a nice-to-have accessory, it’s essential for getting the best performance from the P100 SE. Fortunately, it’s one of the better headphone companion apps available:

The home screen provides clear access to all essential functions including battery status, firmware updates, and ANC controls. The app also offers additional features through the “More” menu:

Getting Started and Setup

The initial setup process is straightforward and well-guided:

The app provides helpful explanations of key features, including the importance of proper fit for optimal ANC performance:

Firmware Updates

Cambridge Audio has been proactive with firmware updates, and the app makes this process seamless:

This is the typical firmware upgrade process:

Essential EQ Controls

While the app’s equalizer functionality is very welcome with 7-band EQ. Though

I do wish that Cambridge can add PEQ support for the P100 SE as we are starting to see that capability now in other audiophile ANC headphones like the recently released Sennheiser HDB 630 and even the Nothing Headphone (1).

But as you will see in the measurements later in the review, both the “Blues” and “Voice” profiles are particularly good as a starting point for more neutral sound. The custom equalizer provides some level of control for those who want to dial in their preferred signature:

Though a little but more control over targetting specific frequencies would have made this feature much better.

Complex Sound Impressions: Good, but Complicated

The Cambridge Audio P100 SE delivers generally very good sound quality (especially in my opinion, from the Blues profile), but Cambridge has made it somewhat complicated through their tuning and feature choices. Understanding these complexities is key to getting the best performance from these headphones.

The “Commercial ANC Bass” Dilemma

Out of the box, the P100 SE exhibits what I call “commercial ANC headphone bass”, the type of enhanced low-end response designed to attract attention in noisy retail environments like airport electronics stores. This approach makes sense from a marketing perspective, as the boosted bass helps headphones stand out when compared side-by-side in loud environments.

However, once you bring these headphones home to a quieter listening environment, this bass boost can become overwhelming. Fortunately, you can easily switch to other profiles through their app’s EQ presets, with the “Blues” and “Voice” profiles especially offering a much more balanced, neutral presentation that I particularly enjoyed.

But one other annoying feature of the default sound, is you get a different bass response when you switch off ANC. With the ANC off the bass is actually further boosted, this caused me ultimately to make 2 EQ profiles, one when I wanted to listen without ANC (in a quieter environment) and one when I was listening to music with ANC on, when on Airplanes or other noisy environments.

The ANC Conundrum: Excellent Performance with Caveats

The ANC performance on the P100 SE is also a little frustrating as it is genuinely excellent in extra bassy environments like airplanes or trains. But I believe the current implementation has some problems in less noisy environments.

ANC typically works by playing the inverse of the recorded background noise, but I think the microphone, at least on my model, is boostng slightly this background “recording” and then playing back this extra boosted sound that causes a hiss that you hear with ANC in quiet rooms.

Note: This boosting actually works well is a super bassy / noisy environment like an Airplane cabin where I felt the P100 SE had exceptionally, good background noise cancellation, but in quieter environments (like out for a walk) you hear more of the background (as background noise) than you do on the flagship ANC headphones like the Sony WH-1000XM6 or the Apple Airpods Max.

I decided to measure the difference, so when I switch off ANC and I measure what my measurement ear “hears” in real-time I get this:

But then, when I enable ANC, you get a much more boosted noise floor:

So, ultimately my 2 quibbles with the sound of the P100 SE are:

Quiet Environment Hiss: In very quiet environments, the ANC system introduces a subtle background hiss. While this is common among ANC headphones, it’s noticeable enough that you’ll want to disable ANC when listening in silent rooms. Unfortunately, the adaptive ANC mode doesn’t eliminate this issue, though I hope Cambridge can address this through future firmware updates.

ANC-Off Bass Boost: When you disable ANC to eliminate the quiet-environment hiss, the headphones apply an even larger bass boost. It’s unclear whether this is intentional design or a bug, but it means you’ll need different EQ settings depending on whether ANC is enabled or disabled.

The Dynamic EQ Challenge

The P100 SE includes dynamic EQ functionality that follows the Fletcher-Munson curve principles, automatically adjusting bass and treble response based on listening volume. This is genuinely innovative for consumer headphones and represents excellent engineering, the kind of sophistication typically found only in high-end AV receivers.

However, (and this is only a ‘reviewers complaint’) this feature creates challenges for making EQ recommendations or even writing subjective opinions as everyone listens at different levels, and the bass and treble recommendations will be different. For example, one reviewer, listening at 70 dBSPL might near a boosted bass while another who typically listens at 85 dbSPL might near a more ’neutral’ bass.

While this is a noble technical achievement that benefits most users, it adds another layer of complexity to an already complicated sound signature.

Practical Solutions

Despite these complexities, I found practical solutions by creating two distinct EQ profiles in the app:

1. ANC On Profile: Based largely on the “Blues” preset with minor adjustments
2. ANC Off Profile: With additional bass reduction to compensate for the increased low-end boost

While it is slightly annoying to have to go back into the app’s to switch profiles, I mainly listen to the ANC on Profile and rarely used ANC off in quieter environnments as I generally prefer open back headphones in those environments.

Specification and Measurements

Specification	Details
High-performance audio mode	Yes
Amplification	Class A/B amplification
Driver	40mm three-layer composite diaphragm
Battery play time	up to 100 hrs
Battery play time (ANC on)	up to 60 hrs
Charging time	<160 minutes
Fast charge	5 minutes gives 4 hours playback (ANC Off)
Power supply	USB-C
Noise isolation	Hybrid ANC
Transparency mode	Yes
Microphones	6
Voice processing	2-Mic Qualcomm® cVc™
Triple-core processor architecture	Qualcomm QCC3084 configurable Qualcomm® 32‑bit Kalimba DSP.
Low latency	80 ms — Gaming Mode accessible via Melomania Connect
Supported codecs	aptX™ Lossless, aptX™ Adaptive, AAC, SBC
Supported profiles	A2DP, AVRCP, HSP, HFP
Bluetooth version	5.3
Wired mode	USB-C or 3.5mm Jack
Adjustable EQ	Yes — 7‑band adjustable EQ via Melomania Connect
Dimensions (headphone)	250 × 204 × 59 mm
Weight (headphone)	330 g

Note: The following measurements were taken with my KB501X soft ear Pinna and a 711 clone coupler and are available on my measurement database here

Frequency Response

Let’s start with comparing ‘flat’ with the blues EQ profile. This is the one I subjectively liked the best:

Blues profile frequency response was one of the most neutral:

Note: I am showing these relative to harman but also with a ‘preference range’ around this Harman target so show where most people will have a preference for the sound.

I highlighted 3 areas where the Blues profile is different from the ‘flat’ profile:

1. Blues profile has good solid ‘harman’ bass with a bit of a sub-bass boost. The ‘flat’ profile strangely has much more bass
2. ANC mode seems to cause this region to be boosted as all ANC measurements show this little bump in the upper midrange. It is a pity the EQ cannot be fine-tuned (like PEQ) to knock this region down.
3. Blues has slightly more upper treble which I subjectively felt matched the bass sound that even the blue profile has.

The Voice profile is also good, with slightly less treble:

Most of the other EQ profiles have way too much bass and are the typical sound you get from most ANC ‘consumer’ headphones:

Next, a comparison of ANC on vs. off comparison showing tonal shifts with cancellation enabled:

Again, I have highlighted 3 changes that ANC on / off causes the FR:

1. A big bass boost when ANC is turned off! Why ??
2. ANC off does not have that bump in the upper midrange
3. The treble is a bit more relaxed with ANC off.

Some of the EQ ranges compared Bass and treble range extremes to illustrate adjustment limits:

Here is a raw Measurement of the difference in subbass between highest and lowest EQ options:

The differences between ANC, USB and bluetooth:

Dynamic EQ behavior at lower volumes showing louder bass compensation.

Note: This is normalised so the ‘yellow’ boost bass measurement actually had the quietest midrange.

Frequency Response comparisons:

You can use my measurement database to compare the P100 SE with any of the other headphones I have measured on my setup.

But here are 2 comparisons I thought would be interesting.

First compared to the AirPods Max and the Sonos ACE I think the Blues (or the Voice) Profile are far better and neither the AirPods Max or the Sonas Ace have the level of EQ provided by Cambridge Audio:

Compare to the Nothing Headphone and the Nothing CMF Pro (review coming soon) you can see again that other than that unfortunate upper midrange boost (1), the P100 SE is an excellent sound ANC headphone:

Distortion Measurements

Overall distortion looks excellent:

Percentage-based distortion view again is excellent considering this measurement was at over 100 dbSPL:

Real-world ANC comparison on an Airplane

On a recent flight I brought the P100 SE along with two other popular ANC options (Sony WH‑1000XM5 and Nothing Headphone (1)) and compared these headphones while also asking a couple of friends their opinions.

The general summary was as follows:

• ANC effectiveness: The Sony XM5 edged out the others for pure noise cancellation. The P100 SE was close behind and very respectable.
  One friend who wears thick glasses actually preferred the Nothing (1) for ANC, likely because its higher clamp force maintained a better seal around the glasses. The rest of us found the Nothing (1) clamp slightly uncomfortable over time. As a result, I’d suggest that glasses wearers with thicker frames may experience slightly reduced ANC with the P100 SE depending on seal.
• Comfort: The P100 SE was generally the most comfortable of the group thanks to its lighter clamp and well‑distributed pressure. The Nothing (1) traded comfort for clamp/seal; the Sony sat in the middle.
• Audio quality in cabin noise: In the airplane environment, the group felt the Sony XM5’s tuning was a bit less natural compared to the other two. The P100 SE (using the “Blues” profile) and the Nothing (1) (Balanced profile) were preferred for overall clarity and balance.

Bottom line: If you need the absolute strongest ANC, the Sony XM5 still leads (at least in this comparison). If you value comfort and sound quality while still getting very good ANC, the P100 SE did very well in this real‑world test and at its price point is an excellent option.

Rating

The Melomania P100 SE earns a solid 4-star pragmatic rating as a very good ANC headphone that showcases Cambridge Audio’s engineering capabilities while revealing some areas for refinement.

Strengths:

• Exceptional ANC performance at this price point
• Superior comfort compared to many competitors
• Physical buttons instead of unreliable touch controls
• Decent companion app with comprehensive features
• Quality build and premium presentation
• Cambridge Audio’s audio heritage evident in final sound quality

My minor quibbles:

• Dynamic sound signature that requires app-based tuning
• ANC hiss in quiet environments
• Different bass response with ANC on vs. off
• Dynamic EQ, while very interesting, makes universal recommendations challenging

The 4-star rating reflects a product that does many things very well but requires some user engagement and customization to reach its full potential. For users willing to spend time with the app and create appropriate EQ profiles, the P100 SE delivers excellent performance. However, those seeking a neutral sound signature and have plug-and-play simplicity may find the complexity frustrating.

Conclusion

The Cambridge Audio Melomania P100 SE represents both the strengths and challenges of modern wireless audio products. On one hand, it showcases typically impressive British Audio Engineering with exceptional ANC performance, superior comfort, and a comprehensive feature set that demonstrates Cambridge’s decades of audio expertise.

The build quality, premium presentation, and thoughtful details like physical buttons show a company that understands what discerning listeners want.

However, for those willing to invest time in setup and customization, the P100 SE rewards that effort with genuinely excellent performance. The companion app is well-designed and makes the customization process as painless as possible. Once properly configured with appropriate EQ profiles for different listening scenarios, these headphones deliver the kind of musical, engaging sound that Cambridge Audio is known for.