I got a chance to audition the meze 109 Pro a few days ago. I had a really weird experience with it that i cannot really explain. I listened to the Emperyan, the Lyric and the 109 Pro.
The Empy and Lyric sounded like i know it, just normal, good headphones, but no special kind of presentation.
Source was an Astell & Kern Sp3000 and Feliks audio Euphoria Evo.
The 109 on the other hand presented the music completely weird and my brain was not able to understand. I listen to a lot of electronic music and the bassdrums/ Kickdrums were often shifted to the left side. In my listend tracks, these bass hits are normally centered. Other instruments aswell, like there was no balance like i know it from every other headphone i know. In one of my reference tracks, Heilungs “Fylgija Ear”, the drum that i always hear right in the middle of my head, was shifted to the front left. Like i said, that happend on most tracks and for my ears, the headphones sounded just wrong, faulty, what ever, We tried different cables but nothing changed. I constantly tried to adjust the position of the headphone on my head but it didnt help. When i lifted one cup from my ear and than the other side, i would say, both sides had the same output volume wise. My reference headphone is my Beyerdynamic T1.2 - i got back home and everything sounded like i know it. Im questioning if the 109 has crazy different placement of instruments of sounds in the room.
Otherwise, it sounded clear, had a real physical punch in bass hits and a roomy stage.
Just the placement of everything was so off. I had a similar experience years back with the Audioquest Nighthawk. This one sounded off aswell, like something was completely missing from the frequency response.
I will probably go to audition it again soon, but i would like to hear if someone had a similar experience.
One other thought that i had is, that the highend source might be the reason for this, since i have only a Bifrost Multibit + Lake people g109s or bottlehead crack as comparison, but if that would be the case, the empy and lyrics wouldnt have sounded completly normal to me.
I have the same thought process. The 109s are amazing for the price I just could justify keeping them when the Aeolus and Atrium cover what they do for my ears…I also got to trade the for an empy soooooo yeah couldn’t pass that deal up.
Throw the on R2R and tubes if you have that setup and it could be endgame for a lot of people.
I suspect the Argons will be heavier due to having more wood. I sold my Argons almost a year ago. They are Very different headphones.
The mids on the 109’s are Amazing and way ahead of the Argons, going by memory.
The 109’s show as much bass as is needed for the song. I haven’t tried bass boost yet. IMO, the Argons needed bass boost to shine.
The 109’s have lots of treble. Too much sometimes, when the music gets hot up high. I don’t recall the Argons having a lot of treble. I think they had just enough.
Appreciate the info. Yeah, I use Equalizer APO on mine pretty heavily and they’re miles above the other products in the price range. Ended up with the earpads they sold specifically for them too.
I am kind of missing my Argons. I loved those fat earpads that just felt like pillows. And with bass boost they really woke up.
Nothing in the mids or treble stands out in my memory though. While the sound didn’t stand out to me, they were beautiful, comfortable and fun. GREAT rock 'phones.
!
