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We're big fans of Cambridge Audio's earbuds: I've owned and loved a few models, and my colleague Becky Scarrott reckons her Melomania M100 'buds are her favorite pair of noise cancelling earbuds (and they're currently on sale).
Cambridge Audio's recent success in the earbuds sector is partly because its products sound great, partly because they're not ridiculously expensive and partly because they have What We Do In The Shadows' Matt Berry providing spoken feedback for English language users.
So we're delighted to discover that the firm's first ever over-ear wireless headphones appear to have stuck to the same winning formula – Matt Berry included.
The new Cambridge Audio P100 promise high quality audio and deliver very impressive battery life. With ANC on you can expect a whopping 60 hours of play time; turn the ANC off and that figure rises to an exceptional 100 hours. That's long enough to fly around the world twice, or to get out of the parking lot after a Taylor Swift concert.
Cambridge Audio P100 headphones: key specifications and price
There are two color options here, white or black, and both models have ear pads made from memory foam and covered in faux leather. Cambridge says that "enormous amounts of time and testing have been put into selecting the ideal clamping force to suit the largest variety of head sizes," and Becky heard them recently – she agrees that they felt very good during that initial listen.
The P100 are built around custom 40mm, three-layer Mylar drivers and powered by Class A/B amplification from the same family as Cambridge Audio's acclaimed CX Series amplifiers. There's aptX Lossless for better-quality streaming from supported devices at up to CD quality and there's customizable EQ as well as presets for different musical genres.
In addition to aptX Lossless there's also support for SBC, AAC and aptX Adaptive at up to 24-bit/96kHz. You can also use the P100s as wired headphones; a USB-C to 3.5mm and a USB-C to USB-C cable are both supplied, which opens the door to truly hi-res audio.
There are three ANC modes here including a transparency mode, and the headphones also have a low latency mode for gaming that promises "near-perfect" screen/sound sync and which can correct sync issues with some kinds of video content too. Cambridge Audio says that the latency in this mode has been reduced to just 80ms.
What it doesn't say in the press release (but that my colleague Becky was told, upon listening to them for the first time) is that the P100's battery is modular and user replaceable, ie. you'll be able to buy a new power pack once it expires. And that is huge news for headphones; huge news for the environment. We'll wait to see it for ourselves, but it's ground-breaking and something very (very) few of the best wireless headphones currently offer.
The new Melomania P100 headphones will be available from 15 July and have a recommended price of $299 / £229 / €299 (which is around AU$449). Watch this space for a full TechRadar review soon…
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