Meze Audio Liric Review | 93 Data compared

The Meze Liric is a premium, non-folding closed-back headphone priced at £1,799, designed in collaboration with Ukrainian driver specialist Rinaro Isodynamics. Reviewer Chris Baillie highlights its exceptional build quality, featuring a lightweight 391g magnesium outer frame and highly comfortable vegan-friendly protein leather padding. Equipped with a scaled-down Isodynamic Hybrid Array driver and Phase-X technology, the headphones deliver an incredibly wide soundstage and natural, engaging sonics that eliminate the typical spatial limitations of closed-back designs. The sound signature is celebrated for its outstanding timing, texture, and insightful detail retrieval, revealing hidden nuances in dense tracks and providing a deeply emotional, intimate experience with vocals and acoustic instruments. However, the review notes distinct limitations, explicitly stating that the Liric is not a headphone for bassheads, as its low end can feel somewhat loose or lacking in power when paired with softer sources like the Astell&Kern SP2000T. It is also highly source-dependent, showing a strong synergy with punchier Chord DACs while losing its dynamic drive on less optimal equipment. Furthermore, dense, large-scale musical productions can occasionally sound small in scale and lack dynamic...

The Meze Audio Liric is a high-performance, closed-back headphone designed in collaboration with Rinaro Isodynamics, featuring the advanced MZ4 hybrid array planar magnetic driver. Architecturally, it stands out for its exceptional build quality, utilizing a magnesium earcup, a steel-and-aluminium headband wrapped in breathable soft leather, and elegant copper-coloured accents. The primary advantage of the Liric is its ability to blend the superb clarity, texture, and 3D spatial imaging of a planar magnetic design with the powerful bass slam and noise isolation typical of a closed-back system. It is highly efficient and easily driven by standard portable sources like MacBooks or iPods, maintaining a consistent, detailed sound resolution without requiring a volume "sweet spot". Despite these significant strengths, the review notes a couple of distinct drawbacks. While the headphone is marketed as portable and comes with an elegant travel case, its physical footprint makes it more "transportable" for use at a final destination rather than convenient for active commuting. Sonic trade-offs are also apparent with specific genres; while the Liric delivers exceptional vocal articulation and coherence, it lacks the raw, gutsy...

The Meze Audio Liric is a premium, closed-back wired over-ear headphone developed in collaboration with Rinaro Isodynamics, featuring an MZ4 elliptic planar magnetic driver tailored to the structure of the listener's ear. Priced at £1,799 / $1,999, these old-school headphones are built flawlessly from luxurious, high-end materials like magnesium, steel, aluminium, and real leather, ensuring deep comfort during long listening sessions despite weighing nearly 400g. Reviewers highlight that they deliver an exceptionally detailed, eloquent, and spacious sound signature with startling clarity and precise tracking of musical timbre and tonality. However, the headphones do come with a few notable drawbacks. On the sonic side, they are not the heaviest bass hitters, presenting a mildly soft and cautious low-end compared to their highly rigorous mid and high frequencies. They are also highly demanding, requiring a high-quality music source, such as a dedicated digital audio player or a proper headphone amp/DAC, to truly shine. Physically, the narrow design of the earcups may cause uncomfortably tight confinement or make them fit like "on-ear" models for individuals with larger-than-average ears. Finally, they do not fold...

The Meze Audio Liric is a $2000 closed-back, planar-magnetic headphone designed to scale down the performance of the brand's larger Empyrean and Elite models into a more travel-friendly package. Weighing 405 grams, it uses a downscaled Rinaro Isoplanar diaphragm alongside a "Phase-X" technology intended to restore spatial cues often lost in closed-back designs, plus an Earpad Air Flow venting system. In terms of pros, the reviewer praised its luxurious build, excellent detail retrieval, and powerful, tight bass that correctly captures acoustic instrument body resonance without blooming. Furthermore, its spatial rendering is a standout feature, offering 10% to 20% more spaciousness than competing closed-back designs and successfully delivering a natural, open-back sound feel. It is also highly practical and easy to drive directly from a phone or portable DAC-amp. However, the Liric has a few notable cons and sonic trade-offs. The overall sound presentation is quite polite, with a subtly rolled-off upper treble that may not offer enough energy for detail-obsessed audiophiles. A narrow emphasis in the mid-treble can also make elements like ride cymbals sound a tad bright, while a...

The Meze Audio Liric offers an engaging, high-energy, and punchy sound signature, characterized by a well-extended bass and intimate mids that are easy to drive from portable sources. Featuring a premium industrial design and exceptional comfort for portability, this closed-back planar headphone is highly efficient. However, the Headfonics review notes a slightly metallic treble timbre above 5kHz and reduced absolute resolution compared to higher-end open-back models. Additionally, the soundstage is quite intimate, prioritizing vertical height and depth over wide lateral staging.

The Meze Liric is a $2,000 closed-back hybrid planar magnetic headphone noted for its luxurious feel, lightweight 360-gram build, and exceptional physical comfort during long listening sessions. Objectively, the headphone features a unique frequency response that delivers surprisingly robust sub-bass energy, matching the company's low distortion claims at 94 dBSPL. However, the stock sound signature deviates heavily from the standard Harman target curve. It exhibits an unpleasant energy excess around 1 kHz, an impedance resonance at 1.8 kHz, and a prominent shortfall between 1.8 kHz and 5 kHz, which collectively result in a rather dull native sound and degraded spatial qualities. Because of these deviations, the review explicitly states that the Meze Liric cannot be recommended for use without equalization (EQ). Fortunately, because the primary acoustic flaws stem from excess energy rather than deep uncorrectable nulls, the headphone responds beautifully to parametric EQ. Once specific filters are applied to pull down the 1 kHz and 8.5 kHz peaks and boost the upper midrange, the headphone transforms to offer superb tonality, excellent resolution, and highly impressive spatial effects for a closed-back...

The Meze Audio Liric is a luxury, closed-back over-ear headphone priced at $2,000 / £1,850 designed specifically for high-end portable listening. It features an advanced MZ4 isodynamic hybrid array driver created by Rinaro Isodynamics, which scales down planar magnetic technology into a lightweight, easily driven 391g design. Built with high-end magnesium, aluminum, steel, and soft leather, the headphones offer exceptional build quality and strong physical comfort. Sonically, the Liric excels with impressive clarity, detail resolution, and precise control, providing a highly agile and transparent performance that masterfully handles complex musical arrangements. However, the headphones fall short in dynamic expression, lacking the low-end punch, attack, and visceral excitement needed for heavy beats or intense crescendos. While designed for portable use, their practicality is hindered because they do not fold and neither of the supplied cables includes an in-line microphone or remote. Overall, the review awards the Meze Audio Liric high marks for build and compatibility but gives it a slightly lower score for sound due to these dynamic limitations, making them a credible choice that prioritizes sonic sophistication over pure raw...

The Headfonia review characterizes the Meze Audio Liric as an expertly crafted, closed-back planar magnetic headphone featuring a lightweight, comfortable design and an expansive soundstage with natural, smooth mids. Utilizing Rinaro isodynamic hybrid array drivers, it offers excellent stereo imaging, high clarity, and high efficiency (30-ohm impedance), making it easy to drive with portable devices. Conversely, the review notes that the lower frequencies can occasionally lack texture and a defined shape, with bass performance appearing slightly sluggish compared to the quick upper register. Additionally, the Liric falls short of the technical refinement found in open-back flagships like the Meze Elite and provides relatively weak passive isolation for a closed-back design. For the full, detailed review, visit Headfonia.

The Meze Audio LIRICGo is characterized by reviewers as a premium, closed-back planar magnetic headphone featuring a neutral sound, exceptional build quality, and effective passive isolation, making it ideal for portable use. Key praises focus on the deep, controlled bass, spacious soundstage, and ease of driving, which deliver high-fidelity audio without requiring heavy desktop amplification. Conversely, user feedback highlights significant cons, most notably that the hybrid earpads are glued with double-sided tape, making maintenance difficult. Additional criticisms include a small ear cup opening that may cause discomfort for some users and a high price point that limits accessibility.

The Meze Audio Liric ($2,000) is a premium, closed-back planar magnetic headphone designed in collaboration with Rinaro, featuring a compact magnesium chassis that weighs 390 grams. Reviewers praise its superb build quality, sleek aesthetic with copper accents, and highly functional hardshell carrying case. It stands out as one of Meze’s most well-balanced and immediately enjoyable tunings, offering a cleaner transition from upper bass to lower mids than the Empyrean, and a more present upper midrange than the flagship Elite. Its bass response is described as warm and deep, closely tracking the 2018 Harman Target with excellent extension into the lowest sub-bass frequencies (20-50Hz). Additionally, its proprietary PhaseX System delivers outstanding instrument separation and layering, allowing listeners to clearly peer into complex mixes despite the inherently intimate soundstage of a closed-back design. However, the Liric has notable drawbacks, particularly regarding its treble tuning and physical dimensions. The frequency response is counter-clockwise and bright, featuring a peak at 6kHz that can introduce low-mid treble sibilance, and an over-energetic air region above 10kHz that can make vocals, cymbals, and classical instruments sound artificially...

In his first impressions review on The Headphone List, Ryan Soo highlights the Meze Audio Liric as a $2000 USD closed-back flagship headphone that balances portability with desktop-level luxury. Developed over three years in collaboration with Ukrainian company Rinaro, it features a shrunken-down MZ4 switchback dual-motor planar driver and a unique Phase-X system designed to minimise phase distortion. On the pros side, the Liric boasts an exceptional magnesium alloy build that cuts weight to 391g, a low-profile, padded headband, and step-less sliders that smoothly fold flat for transit. Acoustically, it shines with deep, hard-hitting sub-bass slam that outperforms open-backs, a crisp lower-treble presence that brings great clarity to percussion, and an impressively wide, deep soundstage with high separation for a closed-back design. However, the review details several notable cons regarding ergonomics and tuning. For comfort, the headband bend is quite aggressive, which might cause discomfort for users with wider heads, and the low clamp force makes it feel less effortless to wear than traditional suspension bands. Maintenance is also a concern, as the plush 30mm ear pads are now glued...