You’re spoiled for choice when it comes to reasonably affordable true wireless in-ear headphones, but with the A100 SE Cambridge has made your choice even more extensive and even more tricky to make. They have the sound and the specification to compete with the very best at this sort of money.
- Sound expertly balances dynamism and detail
- Open, organised and controlled presentation
- Great Bluetooth codec compatibility is one of several specification highlights
- Could express rhythms a little more fluently
- Touch controls can occasionally be hit-and-miss
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SBC, AAC, LDAC and aptX Lossless Bluetooth codec support
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39 hours battery life in total
The market for relatively affordable true wireless in-ear headphones is enormously competitive – but Cambridge reckons its new A100 SE have one or two points of difference that will help them stand out.
What are they, exactly? And do they have the desired effect?
- Dangly stem configuration
- Touch control
- Choice of three finishes
Previous Cambridge true wireless in-ears demonstrate the company isn’t wedded to the idea, but for the A100 SE it’s gone with the dangly stem design originally popularised by Apple and since imitated left, right and centre.
The earbuds, and the slender charging case in which they travel, are made of ordinary-looking and -feeling plastic, and the ‘buds are easy enough to extract – which puts them ahead of any number of alternatives.
The quite carefully ergonomic shape of the driver housing means it’s simple enough to get a comfortable fit, and this is helped by the selection of three different sizes of silicon ear-tip that are supplied. The quality of build and finish is more than up to standard, and the blue colour of my review sample is joined white and black alternatives.
The outer end of each earbud features a capacitive touch surface, and it’s a simple and fairly reliable way to operate the basics of playback and telephony, as well as cycling through your ANC options too. And you have the option of remapping the touch controls in Cambridge’s Melomania Connect control app.
- SBC, AAC, LDAC and aptX Lossless Bluetooth codec support
- 39 hours battery life in total
- App support
The app is as stable as, and even more reliable than, the touch controls themselves, and it also features a seven-band EQ with half-a-dozen presets plus the ability to save a few custom settings of your own.
You can check for firmware updates, switch Wear Detect on or off, engage Gaming mode, specify a length of time the earbuds stay awake with no signal before powering down, and more besides. The most gratifying feature, though – and by some distance – is hidden in the Audible Feedback section.
Select Tones, turn audible feedback off altogether, or select from a number of different languages – as well as English, there’s an option labelled Southwark. Select this and you’re greeted by the unmistakable sound of Matt Berry letting you know what’s what – it isn’t the first time a pair of Cambridge headphones has enjoyed this completely gratuitous feature, but it’s just as much fun here as it is anywhere else.
The A100 SE connect wirelessly via Bluetooth 5.4 – and their compatibility with codecs up to and including LDAC and aptX Lossless means that the current state-of-the-art where wireless streaming is concerned is available. As long as your source player is up to it, aptX Lossless means CD-quality, bit-perfect 16-bit/44.1kHz resolution is available, and the appearance of Snapdragon Sound (complete with dual-core 240MHz Qualcomm Kalimba DSP) means there’s support for lossy 24-bit/96kHz streams as well as ultra-low latency.
Once the digital audio information is on board and converted to analogue, it’s powered by the same type of Class A/B amplification Cambridge uses in its well-regarded CX and EX ranges of full-size hi-fi amplifiers.
Ultimately it’s delivered to your ears via a pair of 10mm drivers that incorporate recycled Neodymium – Dolby Audio is on board, accessible via the control app and thus available from any source player, for those who prefer their sounds to seem a little less they’re being served directly into their ears.
Dual-point connectivity means you can pair to two components at the same time, and switching between them is simplicity itself. An all-in total of 39 hours of battery life (from the earbuds and the charging case) is available, as long as you’re not absolutely caning the volume – and if the worst should happen, the A100 SE support both wireless charging and fast charging via USB-C.
The earbuds feature a total of six Qualcomm cVc mics – these take care of voice-assistant interaction and telephony, of course, and are also in charge of the adaptive hybrid active noise-cancellation. And an IPX5 rating means you don’t, strictly speaking, have to be as careful with your Cambridge A100 SE as you might think.
- Spacious, insightful and well-organised presentation
- Ample dynamic headroom
- Fractionally lumpy when it comes to rhythmic expression
What’s perhaps most immediately notable about the way the A100 SE perform is how reluctant they are to sound as if music is being piped into your head. Some TWS can be almost oppressive in this respect, but the Cambridge manage to offer a little space and openness to their sound that prevents the auditory experience from being overwhelming.
This sensation of space is helped no end by the authority and control the earbuds demonstrate when it comes to creating a soundstage. There’s proper width and no little sensation of depth, and the A100 SE quite carefully organise the elements of a recording like Rotary Connection’s I am the Black Gold of the Sun so there’s appreciable distance between them without anything ever sounding remote.
Leave the EQ settings well alone and the balance of the frequency response, along with the even-handedness of the tonality, both impress. There’s a slight tilt towards the lowest frequencies, which is a little less than ideal but far from fatal – and besides, both the midrange and the top end are properly represented. The tiny suggestion of warmth to the default tone is probably the cause or the effect of this mildly bass-forward nature.
Detail levels are high across the board – the A100 SE are more than capable of identifying and revealing the more minor occurrences in a recording, and are able to give them an appropriate amount of emphasis at the same time. They pay impressively close attention to the dynamics or harmonic variation – and when it comes to the broad dynamics of volume and/or intensity they breathe more than deeply enough to make these fluctuations absolutely apparent.
Despite the relatively non-invasive nature of their presentation and the amount of space in which to operate they give to a recording, though, the Cambridge are a unified and quite direct listen. The stage is convincing, and the way each element of a recording relates to the next is confidently described.
In fact, it’s really when it comes to expressing rhythms that the A100 SE can be described as anything less than confident. The control of the attack and decay of low-frequency information isn’t too bad, and there’s certainly no overhanging or drag in the way the earbuds deliver bass sounds – but there’s not as much fluency as is ideal, and no particular sensation of flow. And as a result the Cambridge can sound just fractionally lumpy, and less sinuous than some recordings are comfortable with.
Should you buy it?
Very good sound at an affordable price
You’re interested in balanced, punchy and spacious sound but don’t want to pay an arm and a leg to get it. The A100 SE is more than capable than giving a scare to true wireless alternatives costing a fair bit more than this.
You like a rhythm to vibe to
You focus strongly on the rhythmic aspects of music – the A100 SE are by no means a disaster in this respect, but it’s not exactly their area of absolute expertise.
Perhaps I’m shallow, perhaps I’m easily pleased… but the Cambridge A100 SE could be a fair bit less sonically accomplished than they actually are and I’d still want to wear them.
Once you’ve heard Matt Berry announce “device one… connected!” in his fruitiest tones it’s very difficult to go back to something less entertaining…
I connect the Cambridge A100 SE to two Apple devices (a MacBook Pro and an iPhone 15 Pro) and also to a FiiO M15S digital audio player. All three devices are running Qobuz and TIDAL apps, and the FiiO also has plenty of hi-res content stored in its local memory.
The M15S’s compatibility with the LDAC codec also allows it to deliver rather more information-rich streams than the AAC stylings of the Cupertino devices.
- Tested for several days
- Tested with real world use
Yes, the blue of my sample is one of three – you can also have white or black.
No, the Melomania Connect app strictly relates to the earbuds themselves – you’ll also need the native app of your favourite streaming service(s) open to get a complete experience.
| Cambridge Audio A100 SE Review | |
|---|---|
| Manufacturer | Cambridge Audio |
| IP rating | IPX5 |
| Battery Hours | 39 |
| Wireless charging | Yes |
| Fast Charging | Yes |
| Release Date | 2026 |
| Audio Resolution | AAC, aptX Lossless, LDAC, SBC |
| Driver (s) | 10mm recycled Neodymium drivers |
| Noise Cancellation? | Yes |
| Connectivity | Bluetooth 5.4 |
| Colours | Black, Blue, White |
| Frequency Range | – Hz |
| UK RRP | £129 |
| USA RRP | $149 |
| EU RRP | €149 |
| CA RRP | CA$239 |
| AUD RRP | AU$249 |