Meze Audio Liric

MEZE

First Closed-Back from Meze Audio

Meze Audio’s new Liric

headphones, all designed and developed in Baia Mare, Romania, is the fi rst closed-back Meze design to use the unique Isodynamic Hybrid Array driver developed by the Ukrainian company

Rinaro that started as a state-funded acoustic technology research program focused on developing planar magnetics.

“We have wanted to do a portable planar for a while and following two successful collaborations with Rinaro, it was a natural next step,” said Antonio

Meze, the company’s founder and lead designer. “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 closed-back means that, unlike conventional planar magnetic designs, there is no sound leakage from the external cup of the headphones.

In the Meze Liric, powerful neodymium magnets are arranged into a hybrid array that creates an enormous 0.3 Tesla magnetic fi eld that works in conjunction with an isoplanar diaphragm with an active area of 3507mm² but a mass of only 0.08g. All this is contained in a polymer housing that’s been specially reinforced in order to withstand the demanding 10.7 Newton load generated by the magnetic fi eld.

The MZ4 driver in the Liric has the same dual-shaped voice coil array seen in the Meze Empyrean, where a switchback coil that is more effi cient at low frequencies is positioned in the upper part of the driver and a spiral coil (which is more effi cient at midrange and high frequencies) is positioned directly over the ear canal. The MZ4 driver also has Rinaro’s Phase-X™ system, which improves ambience and spatial sound imaging, often found to be a problem in closedback headphone designs.

The addition of the Phase-X™ technology to the Liric means that these new portable headphones achieve a correct phase response and a faster transient response decay. This allows for more faithful reproduction of transient sounds and improves ambience and spatial imaging for listeners, taking them closer to the environment of the original source recording.

Totally new on the Meze Audio Liric is an Earpad Air Flow (EAF) system that has precision-cut air vents which run from the Liric ear cup chamber into the ear pads, allowing the MZ4 driver to utilise acoustic volume from the earpads as well as the ear cup chamber, effectively reducing the weight and size of the Liric headphone without compromising acoustic performance, and ensuring an incredibly wide frequency response of 4Hz to 92kHz with distortion of less than 0.15%.

But it’s not only the sound of the Liric that is superb. There’s also the fi nish. The union of black leather, gloss-matte spatters on magnesium, and metallic copper accents make for a classic, contemporary aesthetic. Price $3,150