Meze Audio Liric Review

The Meze Audio Liric is Meze’s new Flagship closed back headphone, selling for $/€2000 USD/Euro.

Disclaimer: The Meze Audio Liric was sent directly  from Meze Audio for the purpose of this review.

Meze Audio

The Romanian company no longer really needs an introduction. Meze Audio has become famous and big over the last few years, their recipe for success? Top quality sound, perfect build quality and gear in all product ranges. If you haven’t heard about them then you really have to read up on or “old” reviews or you can just read their “About us” on their website, right here.

The Meze Audio units have won awards all over the world and that really doesn’t come as any surprise, as everyone seems to love the Meze creations. I’ve had the pleasure to listen to many of their units and there really isn’t a single one I don’t like. On top of that the Meze team is incredible. They are always friendly, they know what they’re talking about and they’re just really nice people to hang out with during and after the shows. To me it’s one of the nicest companies in audio and I’m sure many will agree with me.

We have reviewed many of Meze’s products here on Headfonia, and you can find all of those reviews here: https://www.headfonia.com/?s=meze. A few weeks ago we had the world wide scoop of their ELITE headphone, and you can find that review here:

In today’s article we’ll be reviewing the brand new Meze Audio Liric. It’s Meze’s new closed back headphone flagship and it was launched only a few weeks ago.

Liric

We’ve had the pleasure of having the Meze Audio Liric with us for a few weeks already and I have spent a lot of time with it. Because of the very full planning and other commitments we couldn’t get the Liric review out faster and we apologize for that. The positive side of being late however is that we now don’t have to go in all the technical details as much as it has been covered by Meze and many others already already.

Liric’s dedicated webpage can be found here: https://mezeaudio.eu/collections/all/products/liric and you can buy the Liric directly from Meze Audio (make sure you’re in the correct shop: EU or International) or from their dealer network.

Naming it LIRIC was not a game of chance. It was an ideal metaphor to paint the

authentic, vivid and poetic sound disguised behind its ethereal silhouette.”

The new Liric is a high end closed back headphone, developed to get the very best sound quality on the go. There aren’t many high end closed back headphones on the market at this time, so it makes perfectly sense that more and more companies are now looking into them.

To achieve great sound quality on the go, Meze worked with Rinaro again on the drivers and they’re trickling down the technology from the Empyrean driver to achieve this. The MZ4 Isodynamic Hybrid Array driver was purposefully scaled down and tuned to deliver a comparable audio experience with its larger counterpart found in the Empyrean. Combined with the closed-back design, it according to Meze and Rinaro helps preserve the original clarity and emotion of your favorite music through enhanced sound and minimized external noise.

The MZ4 driver offers the same dual shaped voice coil array seen in the Meze Audio Empyrean. A new innovation to the MZ4 driver developed in-house by Rinaro isodynamics is the Phase-X system, which improves ambience and spatial sound imaging, often found to be a problem in closed back headphone designs. Each driver (like with Meze’s other Rinaro driven headphones) is entirely hand assembled and tested in Rinaro’s industrial facility in Ukraine.

Also important to mention is that Liric has a precisely tuned air vent integrated in the design, named the “Pressure Equalization System”. According to Meze this has a huge impact on how you perceive the sound around you. Meze also states that the use of the air vent results in a better controlled airflow, improved ear cup chamber pressure and a sound that is airy, transparent, detailed and flows naturally. We will find out later in this article how this impacts Liric’s sound.

If you want to read more about the Rinaro drivers, check out the detailed info over at the Rinaro website here: https://www.rinaro.com/ourprojects/liric

Technical Specs

General

Driver Type: Rinaro Isodynamic Hybrid Array® MZ4

Operating Principle: Closed

Ear Coupling: Circumaural

Frequency Response: 4-92,000 Hz

Impedance: 30 Ω

Nominal SPL: 100 dB (1 mW / 1 kHz)

Maximum SPL: > 130 dB

Total Harmonic Distortion (THD): <0.15%

Weight: 391 g

MZ4 driver

Geometrical Shape: Ovoid

Size: 92mm x 63mm

Driver Weight: 71 g

Casing: Fibreglass reinforced polymer

Diaphragm Type: Rinaro Isoplanar® MZ4

Active Area: 3507 mm2

Diaphragm Weight: 0.08 g

Acoustic Mass: 6.5 kg/m4

Lower Frequency Limit: 4 Hz

Upper-Frequency Limit: 92,000 Hz

The article continues on the next page. Click here or use the jumps below

Page 1: Meze Audio, Liric, Specifications

Page 2: Box, Accessories, Price, Design, Build Quality, Comfort, Sound Pt 1

Page 3: Sound Pt 2, Sources & Amplification

Page 4: Comparisons, Conclusion