Meze Elite

The last pair of headphones you will ever buy?

Here's the thing I noticed after buying my first high end pair of headphones: buying more headphones always led to buyers' remorse. Case in point, after buying my Sennheiser 800s I bought a pair of Audeze that cost a third of the price and for about a year or so I felt good about my purchase because they just hit different, but after awhile I started to prefer my 800s. So I realized that the only way to buy another pair of headphones was up. Up in quality and that meant up in price. The 800s was worth every penny for me -- but this was in part because I lacked a pair of really good headphones when I bought it. Now to upgrade I had to justify owning both pairs or sell the 800s for a loss and live with that. So I felt stuck. I (probably) would have never bought these if not for a sudden health issue. It was touch and go for awhile and in those moments in the hospital when I was low and using my streaming music as an escape and missing my headphones I gave myself permission to buy maybe one last pair of headphones when I got home IF I could find a pair that could be worth being the last pair that I buy. And after a LOT of research I landed on the Meze Empyrean II. But the more I thought it through the more I thought, "If we're doing this, let's really do this," so I looked seriously at the Elite. And after living with them for about 3 weeks now (and having passed the burn in period) I have some opinions. Simply put: I find listening to the Elites to be transportive. I put them on and press play and I am someplace else, emotionally speaking. I find them to be hypnotic. They command my attention and yet they are elusive, if that makes any sense. They don't have a strong "personality," if that's the word. They are balanced like I've never heard and I've been listening to the 800s for the last 8 years. But while the 800s can sound robotic at times, the Elite sound alive and fleshy; where they reveal flaws, the flaws sound organic and earnest. That's the charm of these. Everything sounds alive and present. They have a way of taking hold of me and once they have me in their grip, I am theirs. I put them on and I don't want to take them off. And it's not just with music. Streaming TV and movies sound unbelievable in these. I have always had incredible hearing and am very sensitive to treble fatigue, but not with these! One word of warning though: they only come with one cable. I was confused on this fact. And YOU have to choose the cable. I SHOULD have chosen the 6. 3mm for the versatility but instead I went with the XLR which is "fine" but for a variety of reasons I really should have gone the other way. And if I could exchange the XLR for the 6. 3 I would. So keep that in mind and choose wisely. So in the end, do I have buyers' remorse? (Well, maybe in the cable choice, but no. ) No, I am very happy. Obviously, I'm not a reviewer of electronics, and I can't tell you how these work their magic or why they have to cost so much, I just know, to me they are worth it. And in my opinion, if someone were to buy these, the only reason they would ever have to buy another pair of headphones is if something unfortunate happened to this pair.

Absolutely incredible, definitely endgame headphones

After a lot of thorough research and comparison, I decided to get these headphones. They sound incredible, the build quality is super sturdy. The thinner leather pads were a bit too thin because the tip of my ear would touch the metal grill, so I had to get the original Empyrian/elite pads. The Alcantara pads are perfect. I’m very happy with my purchase.

Sounds great but large for smaller heads

The audio from these is very good. Better than any of my other headphone I own. But the headphones are quite large and this prevents me from getting a seal above my ears using the hybrid pads, which I prefer acoustically. I need to reach out to Meze for solutions. I would hate to return these!