Sounds awesome AGAIN! 🔥 Melomania A100 SE Review

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In my opinion, the previous A100 is one of the best sounding earbuds. Even in my TWS rankings that doesn’t rank sound quality as a criteria, it has one of the best scores. But what is new with the A100 SE is that they support Dolby Spatial Audio, Bluetooth 6, and they come in a new blue colorway.

That seems to be it, but by the end of this video you will know if the A100 SE can surpass the previous model’s performance, and how does it rank versus the competition at loudnwireless.com/rankings. So buckle up!

Microphone Quality

Melomania A100 SE (Left) Melomania A100 (Right)

In terms of microphone quality, there’s no difference at all. Voice pickup is just as loud and clear in quiet conditions, and in noisy conditions the background noise reduction as well as voice filtering is the same. That’s why, just like the A100, I’m giving the A100 SE a B rank in my mic quality rankings.

👉🏻 Listen to the mic quality samples

Active Noise Cancelling

In terms of active noise canceling, it doesn’t seem that different from the A100. Frequency sweeps do show that it’s a tiny bit weaker in the upper frequency regions, but a bit more noise is canceled in the lower frequencies. In actual testing, any differences seem to be so tiny that they’re actually quite identical in terms of their noise canceling power. And so I’m giving the A100 SE a B rank just like its predecessor.

👉🏻 Listen to the ANC quality samples

Transparency Mode

In terms of their transparency mode, again, they measure in a very similar way. But there is a difference in terms of the quality of transparency. The A100’s transparency sounds pretty hissy whereas the new version’s sound cleaner. Might not measure differently but it is an improvement.

Sound Quality

As for their sound quality, frequency sweeps do show that they’re both very similar, almost down to a tee, but with one difference. To my ears, the A100 SE sounds more refined in the upper mids. There used to be a tiny bit of sibilance in vocals on the A100 especially when listening to electronica, funk or rock, but I’m not hearing that on the SE version.

Both are on the same flat settings with DynamEQ turned on so it’s not a settings thing, rather, the signature’s a little more smooth. Considering that I already consider the A100 almost in the same league as the Pi8, one of the best sounding earbuds, the SE is even closer to that. 

So the SE supports Dolby Spatial Audio, and while there isn’t an actual toggle for spatial audio, and there is no head tracking, when I’m playing Dolby Atmos content there’s a bit more diffusion in the surround channels, and I could hear the channel traveling better instead of the stereo upmix that I got with the A100.

I got that watching this segment in the Top Gun: Maverick trailer that puts you in the cockpit as the jet barrels left and right. You can hear the rotation of the plane on the SE but not the older A100.

👉🏻 Listen to the sound quality samples

Conclusion

My criticism of it is that, just like the first A100, the SE’s graphic EQ doesn’t have any numbers so it’s hard for anyone to share their precise settings.

It’s got a tiny bit of buzz when in noise canceling and I’m not playing anything, but if I’m playing some audio it’s not noticeable at all.

And it only has tap gestures so if I were to use just one earbud, I can’t have every control which forces me to prioritize what controls to set it to in the app. Aside from that, both are very similar, they have the same battery life, the same codecs, mono audio from one earbud, even their performance is very much similar.

As such, if you already have the A100, there’s little incentive to get the SE, but if you don’t have it yet, it’s one of the best earbuds. They aren’t the best at certain things like noise canceling or mic pickup, but they scored a very high 27 points on my rankings list which is like ‘S’ tier, and it is, in my very subjective opinion, one of the best sounding earbuds under $200.

Check latest price:

Melomania A100 SE - https://amzn.to/4jgFXNa

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