Hardly a budget buy, but the Meze Audio Liric wired headphones are money very well spent indeed.
Extended functionality? Nope. Mainstream pricing? Hardly. Adaptable or undemanding? Not a chance. You don’t get pampered by the Meze Audio Liric wired over-ear headphones, except in one regard. Buy a pair and it’s you who’ll be doing most of the pampering. A considerable amount of money put Meze Audio’s way buys an old-fashioned product. The Liric are big, hard-wired headphones fitted with esoteric planar magnetic drivers – and though their closed-back configuration and (laughably big) carry-case makes them better for portable listening than most Meze Audio over-ear headphones, they’re neither discreet nor especially portable. They’re beautifully made, though, from high-quality materials. And if there’s anything you take away from this Meze Audio Liric review, it should be that they sound – with one caveat – superb. If it’s detail you want, a proper reading of a recording as a performance, insight into tone and timbre and shape of individual notes, you’ve come to the right place. The Liric are a convincing and utterly musical listen, and rank among the best over-ear headphones for sheer fidelity. They’re not the punchiest or weightiest headphones around, mind, and for some listeners that’s not going to fly. But if you can live with rather modest low-frequency presence, the Meze Audio Liric are money very well spent. The Meze Audio Liric are available to buy now, and in the United Kingdom you’ll need to part with £1,799 to secure a pair. The equivalent in the United States is $1,999, while in Australia they cost around AU$3,399.
‘Not cheap’, then, is to understate Meze Audio’s pricing strategy somewhat. Just because the company sells headphones that cost more than twice this amount, there’s no avoiding the fact you can have very nearly five pairs of Sony WH-1000XM5 for the same outlay. How on Earth, then, does Meze Audio justify the asking price? If you thought a premium price means extended functionality, think again. The Meze Audio Liric are headphones – you put them on your head, physically attach them to your source of music, and then listen. There is no voice-assistance, no active noise-cancellation… just a cable from each earcup at one end and a 3.5mm connection at the other. Two cables are provided in the frankly huge hard-shell carry-case the Liric arrive in: one of 1.5m, the other 3m long. They’re both robust, and both feature sturdy and quite glitzy terminations. As far as attention to detail and perceived value go, there’s obviously been some effort made.
