Meze 99 Classics Walnut Gold Headphones (Gold & Black)

Product Information

adapters, plus both a 1m cable with in-line remote for portable use and a 3m cable for plugging into a home system. Oriveti's new flagship hybrid offers a unique sound with Harman inspiration augmented by a big sub-bass focus. Now the bass is more controled, have a smooth texture and more transparency, mid bass is less agressive in attact but still weighty, mids are wide with good presence and tranparency, all layer are clearly separated and overall sound have more details and is more linear. All in all, the Meze feel from another league in term of musicality, even if the Pro82 is more energic and (micro)detailed it lack musical finess and lushness of the Meze. They have comfortable headphones and plenty of room inside to have no contact points with medium-sized ears.

The wooden components are carefully inspected and no flaws are permitted to reach the final assembly. Passionate I am of all things audio and I seek to sing its praises to the world, via the AudioKeyReviews. These two was meant to be togheter, DX90 being sharp to the point of sometime making bright headphones sibilant, here the Neo earn from this approach and mix its color with perfect musicality. I think the Denon’s are probably the closest competitor to the Meze’s, and in terms of midrange performance, it’s a pretty fair trade-off with both being equally enjoyable and tasteful to my ear. They’re coated in a soft, slightly grippy pleather that provides some extra fit stability but doesn’t feel as rubbery as that employed on the Denon MM-400’s nor as fragile as that used on the Sony MDR-1A’s (though I would assume that they wouldn’t age as well as real leather in the long term).MIDS are extremely charming but have dualist approach in some sens, because it will sound phenomenal with bass light music like Meredith Monk albums, in wich her voice it will be full of presence and wideness, with great timbre, enough decay and righly layered from other instrument when it occur.

There is some midrange spill though lower-mids are never overwhelmed by bass and remain quite clear considering the extent of the bass boost. The Meze 99 Neo is all about musicality, it offer a wide warm and well layered sound that enjoy as much playing contemplative modern Jazz or Classical quartet than muscular bassy electronic or pop music. In addition, it has an appealing sub-bass response if you cut back the upper range a bit with the help of an equalizer. They are a very natural, dare I say analogue sounding headphones that retain the organic characters of the wooden 99 Classics despite employing ABS earcups. This detracts somewhat from the overall performance of the mids, although it depends on the genre and mastering here.CNC carved wood ear cups, cast zinc alloy hardware with electroplated coating, stamped manganese spring steel headband, memory foam and soft PU leather are the materials your hands and eyes will get to enjoy. Given Meze’s other quite stellar packaging designs, the 99 Classics’ package is a great deal more modest, quasi-mainstream, everyday.