Romanian manufacturer Meze Audio are back with another high-end offering featuring hybrid array technology from long-term collaborators Rinaro Isodynamics. The musically and appropriately named LIRIC headphone seeks to set a new benchmark in high-quality immersive audio on the go.
In our folklore, lyricism is found in the smallest of details, from odes to poems, from flute songs to the melismatic tunes of the “doina” (a style of voice singing specific to Romania). Our first portable planar-magnetic headphone was born from our love for music, poetry, and the indisputable attachment we have to our home-country’s culture.
Antonio Meze (Founder – Meze Audio)
Re-Engineered For Day-To-Day
In true Meze style, LIRIC combines a unique blend of elegant design aesthetics, cutting-edge audio technology and an emphasis on user comfort.
LIRIC is the very first closed back headphone from the headphone manufacturer to feature hybrid array driver technology thanks to Rinaro’s scaled-down and retuned MZ4 design, a driver exclusively built for Meze Audio to deliver Empyrean-like performance even from a smaller circum-aural ear cup format.
The implementation of advanced hybrid array drivers within a closed back headphone achieves a remarkable preservation of clarity across musical material, along with enhanced definition and a minimising of external noise thanks to the ear cup’s physical barrier.
Every MZ4 driver draws on no fewer than 30 years of research and development and is hand assembled and rigorously tested by Rinaro’s own engineers in Ukraine.
Harnessing Multiple Coils
As with Meze’s Empyrean and Elite models, LIRIC employs two unique voice coils within the same diaphragm for improved accuracy of sound wave targeting. The switchback coil is adept at low-end frequencies and is deliberately situated at the upper part of the driver, while the spiral-shape coil lends itself better to middle/high frequencies and so is situated directly next to the ear canal.
This unique configuration from Meze decreases the impact of short-wave time delays through diffused field reflections, increases exposure, improves imaging and exerts impressive control over frequency localisation.
Introducing Phase-X
One shortcoming with closed back headphone designs is often a lack of ambience during playback. Recognising this issue, Meze have implemented a new feature called Phase-X to improve accuracy of imaging and ensure a spatial audio canvas more similar to open-backs.
Utilising new patent-pending technology, Phase-X delivers absolute linear phasing to boost audible information from instrumentation and the recording environment itself – a more linear phase response is achieved, as well as faster transient response decay. The resulting is a spatial image akin to hearing the music as if you were in the room during its creation.
Optimal Pressure Distribution
Following the comfort aesthetic of its hybrid array predecessors, LIRIC is designed for lengthy listening periods with absolutely zero sacrifice of comfort.
The lightweight magnesium skeletal frame supports a padded cushion intelligently designed with symmetrical indentations to allow proper airflow, low heat and reduced humidity during use.
Ovoid-shaped ear cups have been specifically selected to offer maximum coverage and passive sound isolation without any additional pressure or weight. Each ear cup also features Meze’s Pressure Equalisation System to improve air flow, chamber pressure and natural transparency in listening.
We've been wanting to do a portable planar for a while, and following two successful collaborations with Rinaro, it was a natural next step. 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.
Available Now
Limited LIRIC numbers have now landed in the UK! Check out our product page,