Cambridge Audio Melomania 1 vs Apple Airpods Pro: Which One is Better for the Price?

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This is the review of the comparison between the Cambridge Audio Melomania and the Apple Airpods Pro. There is not only a huge difference in their price range but also in their quality of performance. To know which one is better than the other for its price, go to the detailed review.

9.1 Cambridge Audio Melomania 1 19.3 Apple Airpods Pro 1
Cambridge Audio Melomania 1Apple Airpods Pro
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PROSPROS
Excellent battery life.
Audio quality is among the best among wireless earbuds.
Excellent build quality.
Reasonably priced.
Flawless wireless performance.
Great audio quality.
Long battery life.
Modern design.
Comes with a portable charging case.
Have an excellent noise cancellation technology.
CONSCONS
Bullet-shape doesn’t fit that well in my ear.
Supplied ear tips don’t seal enough to get decent bass.
Not great phone call quality.
Micro USB charging.
Quite costly.
Lack of companion app.

SPECIFICATIONS:

MODELCAMBRIDGE AUDIO MELOMANIA 1APPLE AIRPODS PRO
BrandCambridge AudioApple
HEADPHONESCAMBRIDGE AUDIO MELOMANIA 1APPLE AIRPODS PRO
Headphones Form FactorIn-EarIn-Ear
Headphone TechnologyWirelessWireless
Sound Output Modestereo
CONNECTIONSCAMBRIDGE AUDIO MELOMANIA 1APPLE AIRPODS PRO
TypeBluetooth 5.0Bluetooth
REMOTE CONTROLCAMBRIDGE AUDIO MELOMANIA 1APPLE AIRPODS PRO
Audio ControlsControl Volume, Track Skip, Play/Pause, Voice Control & Callsanswer/end, audio transparency, next/previous track, play/pause
ControlsAnswer/end, play/pause, next/previous track, audio transparency, ANC on/off
DIMENSIONS & WEIGHTCAMBRIDGE AUDIO MELOMANIA 1APPLE AIRPODS PRO
Width2.3 in0.9 in
Depth2.0 in0.9 in
Height0.9 in1.2 in
Weight0.16 oz0.19 oz
POWERCAMBRIDGE AUDIO MELOMANIA 1APPLE AIRPODS PRO
Battery Life 9 hour(s)4.5 hour(s)
FEATURESCAMBRIDGE AUDIO MELOMANIA 1APPLE AIRPODS PRO
FeaturesUP TO 45 HOURS PLAYTIME – Up to 9 hours playback without recharging these Melomania ear buds. Case battery can fully recharge the earbuds 4 more times. 30 minutes to charge earbuds; 2 hours to charge the case via micro-USB (cable included)

ADVANCED CONNECTIVITY – Melomania 1 connects with Bluetooth 5.0 technology. This true wireless headset has a superior connection with no drops in signal and a long reach with your device up to 90 feet. Supports A2DP, AVRCP, HSP, HFP

WIRELESS EARBUDS FOR IPHONE, IPAD AND ANDROID – Easily pair with smartphones, tablets, or PCs. Voice Assistant Compatible with Siri (iOS) and Google Assistant (Android)

WIRELESS EARBUDS FOR IPHONE, IPAD AND ANDROID – Easily pair with smartphones, tablets, or PCs. Voice Assistant Compatible with Siri (iOS) and Google Assistant (Android).

POWERFUL PERFORMANCE IN A COMPACT PACKAGE – Each ear bud weighs just 4.6g. Carrying charging case weighs 37g. Case dimensions (closed) 2.3-inches x 2.0-inches x 0.9-inches.
Audio Technology: Active Noise Cancellation.
Transparency mode.
Adaptive EQ.
Vent system for pressure equalization. Custom high-excursion Apple driver.
Custom high dynamic range amplifier.

Sensors:
Dual beamforming microphones. Inward-facing microphone.
Dual optical sensors.
Motion-detecting accelerometer. Speech-detecting accelerometer. Force sensor.

Chip:
H1-based System in Package Sweat and water resistant (IPX4).

Detail Review:

INTRODUCTION:

Cambridge Audio Melomania

The Cambridge Audio Melomania is currently retailing for around a hundred dollars. These are one of the under-budgeted earbuds available in the market. These earbuds come in a solid case, which has a premium feel to it at a lower price range.

Apple Airpods Pro

The Airpods Pro is a fully wireless earbud with noise cancellation and has a very small and pocketable form factor case. The Airpods Pro is retailing for a hundred and fifty dollars.

9.3 Cambridge Audio Melomania 1 2

DESIGN:

Cambridge Audio Melomania

These earbuds come in a nice case. It is a decent charging case and is all well made too. You just pop the headphones in the case and they sit in the case very easily. As there is a magnet, it pulls them in and then they’ll charge. The case is so nice that they fit in your pocket easily. There is a micro USB port on the case for charging. There is also a LED bar that lets you know about the battery life of the case. The earbuds feel very well made and they are quite premium too. There is a touch panel on the side of the earbuds. There is also a changeable silicone ear tip on these earbuds.

Apple Airpods Pro

The Airpods Pro’s charging case may get slight micro-scratches on the surface as they are polished well. I’ve never had a single issue with using them in the rain or snow because the Airpods Pros do have an IPX4 water-resistant rating. If you don’t know what the IP code means, IP stands for ingress protection code. It classifies and rates the degree of protection from intrusions like dirt, dust, and water. The X means that there is no data available to specify a protection rating with regards to dust and solids protection, and the 4 means the splashing of water from any direction is fine. But also keep in mind that the Airpods Pro’s charging case themselves does not have a water-resistant rating.

I also really like how apple included a mesh that goes in between the silicon ear tips and the speaker mesh themselves. This is so nice to have because none of your actual gunk from your ears will actually go on the speaker mesh themselves, which means they are so much easier to clean. Furthermore, Apple shortened the stem that sticks down from your ears which a lot of people complained about. Instead of having a tapping gesture to control play-pause, skip, and previous track, which could be kind of uncomfortable because you’re kind of like tapping your ears, the Airpods Pros has a pressure sensor on the stem.

COMFORT:

Cambridge Audio Melomania

These earbuds have a small profile with the changeable silicone ear tips. For me, it was not giving the perfect seal. There comes a few pairs of additional ear tips, which we can use to get the perfect seal. But I couldn’t get a perfect seal out of any of them. The size of the ears differs from person to person, so you just need to find the one which fits you. Other than the seal, there was not any problem for me with these comfort-wise.

Apple Airpods Pro

With the new AirPods Pro, Apple created an earbud with user-replaceable silicon tips of different sizes in order to help the users with different sized ear canals. This also fixed the issue that some users had where their ears didn’t fit the one size fits all universal fit that the original Airpods had and with these new silicon tips, this created a better seal that drastically improved sound quality and sound isolation. I also really like the attention to detail with the silicon tips themselves. Some earbuds have a plastic tip that sticks into your ears, which could kind of get uncomfortable if you’re wearing them for a long period of time.

However, with these earbuds, the silicon tips are silicon all around, which means they are so comfortable to wear even for a very long period of time. Also, with a lot of earbuds when you jam the earpiece into your ears, it kind of compresses the gas inside of your ear canals causing a buildup in pressure, which makes you feel like you’re kind of underwater or in an airplane. But the new Airpods Pro includes a pressure valve that opens up and releases the built-up pressure making them so comfortable to wear for a long period of time. I absolutely have zero complaints because the silicon tips made them feel like I was literally wearing nothing in my ears even when I was wearing them for a longer period of time.

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FEATURES:

Cambridge Audio Melomania

The company claims that these are truly wireless, and Bluetooth 5.0 which is really good to have a stable connection. It also works with Siri and Google assistance and it got the silicone ear tips to get the seal. There is a microphone in the earbud, which will pick up your command for voice assistant and you could hear the voice assistant through the headphones. You can also make calls, listen to music, play-pause your music, by using the voice assistant.

As far as the touch controls, they are very easy to use. The touchpad performs different functions like if you just tap twice on the right earbud it’ll skip the track forward, if you tap twice on the left one it’ll skip backward, tap once to pause and again once to play, once to answer your phone calls, and if you press and hold the right earbud they’ll turn your volume up, and if you press and hold the left one that’ll turn the volume down. So, pretty easy, really been pretty standard and the usability is very good.

Pairing these up was really easy. As you take them out of the charging case, it goes into pairing mode and turns on the Bluetooth in your device, it finds them straight away and they pair very easily. You didn’t have to press any buttons, they just pair straight up when you take them out of the case. I tested out the lag latency, what does it mean is, is there any delay between what we see and what we hear while watching a video or while playing a game. During my testing time, I found out that there was no lag at all.

Apple Airpods Pro

The pressure sensor performs the functions such as if you squeeze once it’s going to play-pause, squeeze twice to skip the track, squeeze three times to go to the previous track, and if you just hold it’s going to switch between transparency mode off or noise cancellation mode. This is also nice to have because there’s no chance for your Airpods to be accidentally knocked out of your ear because you are holding your Airpods Pro to squeeze.

Once you get your Airpods Pro for the first time connecting them is so easy. Simply open the case beside your iPhone and click connect. As per all recent released wireless earbuds, the following times you connect you just have to pop the AirPods out of the case put it into your ears and it’s going to turn on and connect automatically.

Also because of the seal, the sound isolation is greatly improved which means you don’t have to crank up the volume when you’re listening in a loud environment. So, noise-induced hearing loss can be reduced, in fact, I’ve never really had to go above 60 volume ever even in a loud environment. The seal is also what makes the noise cancellation tech possible. So, choosing the right size ear tip is very important.

In the settings of the Airpods Pro, you can do something called an ear tip fittest, where they play a quick few second audio tracks right into your ears. Then they use the inward-facing microphones to listen to what you’re listening to and determine whether or not you have a good seal. This is very nice to have especially if you are a first-time noise cancellation earbud user because it gives the user a layer of reassurance that they are using the correct tip. Furthermore, with the inward-facing microphones, they hear exactly what you do. 

The Airpods Pro has three modes noise cancellation, transparency which means you can hear your surroundings clearly, and off mode which means you are just listening to your music. The off mode just sounds like regular old passive earbuds, your surroundings are muffled and it’s kind of in-between noise cancellation mode and the transparency off transparency mode. When you put your Airpods Pro into noise cancellation mode, it is so cool to hear how the noise-canceling just fades in so smoothly. It’s like you’re melting into silence.

The noise cancellation does a very decent job at cutting off the constant white noise and low pitched hums, such as the engine of a public transit bus or the constant murmur of a cafe. The noise cancellation isn’t perfect in theses but it does reduce the volume pretty significantly. Any sharp noises like a jackhammer or sounds of drums will not be canceled out as well because the device won’t have enough time to adjust and react to the sudden change in sound levels. The transparency mode works so well even for conversations or if you want to be aware of your surroundings, it literally feels like there is nothing in your ears.

9.3 Cambridge Audio Melomania 1 1

BATTERY LIFE:

Cambridge Audio Melomania

They claim nine hours of playback out of the case, and 36 hours they’re extra in the case. But in my experience, if you’re playing it as reasonably loud, you’re probably lucky to get six hours out of it. Still, it’s pretty good at six hours but they don’t stay for nine hours. If it would be on volume 50% or less then it may remain for nine hours. The battery performance is pretty good in these.

Apple Airpods Pro

The battery life might be a little bit under the advertised time of 4.5 hours on transparency or noise cancellation mode. After long continuous listening sessions at half volume on noise cancellation mode during three-time trials, I averaged around 4.5 hours before they are fully dead, which is not bad but definitely not the best in the market. The quick charge on the Airpods Pro does work very well. Apple claims five minutes of charge will give you one hour of listening time but personally, I get around another 1 hour and 20 minutes of listening time after 5 minutes of charge.

SOUND:

Cambridge Audio Melomania

The sound on these is extremely detailed. They go reasonably loud, the high ends are good, the details are good, the voices are very full but not too far forward, it’s got good mids, good highs, but I couldn’t get any bass out of it. I thought I’d try all the different ear tips so that if I get a good seal then I may feel the bass but still it didn’t work. I use to push earbuds well into my ears to get any bass out of them. A lot of people say these sounds amazing but I just wasn’t feeling it. I had to push and hold them there in the ear to get a good seal so that I can feel the bass and as soon as I let go the earbuds the bass went. People who get the good seal out of these can get the good heavy bass from these, so the seal is very important in these.

Apple Airpods Pro

The Airpods Pro fine-tune the audio by adjusting the equalizer in your earbud, in order to give you the best sound possible with minimal distortion and better sound. Personally, I think the sound quality is not bad. It is definitely better than the first-gen Airpods, certainly not audiophile quality. Though they kind of sound like regular Airpods but with the bass improving quite a bit because of the seal. The bass just sounds a lot more full and a lot more immersive. Most importantly these earbuds for me are mid to lower treble-heavy, so female vocals do sound really good.

The instrument separation is also not bad, it is definitely not mushy. These earbuds sound really good until you compare the sound quality and instrument separation of professional headphones or Studio Monitors. I’m not saying that the Airpods Pro sound bad, it just doesn’t compare to the well polished and rendered sounds of actual professional Studio Monitor headphones. If you are a casual listener then these earbuds will sound amazing to you.

9.3 Apple Airpods Pro 3

WHICH ONE IS BETTER FOR THE PRICE?

If you are looking for earbuds that last a long period of time then you can go for the Apple Airpods Pro because the quality of these is better than the Cambridge Audio Melomania at its price range. But if you are looking for earbuds which are budget-friendly for daily use, then you can go for Cambridge Audio Melomania.

Expert Review of Cambridge Audio Melomania:

By SoundsGuys
The Cambridge Audio Melomania 1 true wireless earbuds are a great alternative for listeners who stylish earbuds with solid battery life. Bluetooth 5.0 firmware paired with aptX and AAC codec support results in reliable connection strength and high-quality audio. If you can overlook the micro-USB charging and dubious fit, they’re a solid truly wireless contender.

By TechAdvisor
There’s really very little to complain about with these amazing true wireless earbuds from Cambridge Audio. Not only are they cheaper than most big-name rivals, but they also offer longer battery life, some neat features, and overall excellent sound quality too.

By TechRadar
The Cambridge Audio Melomania 1 wireless earbuds simply blew us away, with a sound performance to rival even the best over-ear headphones. Cheaper than the Apple AirPods, they’re a fantastic option for anyone who wants audiophile sound quality without the wires.

By Pocket-lint
It’s rare to find such a complete pair of earphones at such a low price point, especially in the wire-free category. With Cambridge Audio’s first untethered in-ears you get superb sound, convenience, reliability, and stupid long battery life, for less than the price of any big-name rival.

By Trusted Reviews
While they’re not the most attractive pair of in-ears, the Melomania 1 boast better battery life than Apple’s AirPods and are far less expensive than Sennheiser’s Momentum True Wireless. This puts them in the sweet spot for anyone looking for an affordable pair of true wireless in-ears. Considering what they do, the Cambridge Melomania 1 are talented beyond their price

Expert Reviews of  Apple Airpods Pro:

By wareable.com
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If you are looking for wireless earbuds that can block out outside noise, deliver great sound quality, and aren’t very bulky, the AirPods Pro is the best ANC device you can get right now. It may not be perfect but it sure comes close. If you are an…

By IndiaToday
AirPods. Apple launched its first set of wireless earphones in late 2016. I never liked them. The design, even if it soon became part of our pop culture, was weird with its long stalk, and a rather bulbous and broad earpiece meant that for many people…

By gadgetsnow.com
Love them or hate them, the AirPods are Apple’s biggest success stories of recent times. The AirPods Pro will only add to the growing coffers of Apple as they offer everything one is looking for in wireless headphones. They are sleek, easy-to-carry…

By VR-Zone
We stress-test the AirPods Pro in our ultimate review: including a 34-hour return flight & long-distance running in tropical weather about a month ago, we published our Day 1 Review of the AirPods Pro, where we established that they’re one of the best…