Absolutely killer product at the price
 
I originally got into the audiophile game about 5 months ago when I bought a pair of Thinksound On1 headphones at an extremely good price. I was floored by these woodies and the sound that I was able to get from them, even through my phone, but I felt that my PC audio was an absolute let down as it always felt like it was much flatter and less alive than my phone.
I started reading around Head-Fi, trying to find something to take the place of my poor onboard sound. I needed something that was able to be plug in and play as I work from a laptop and my home PC. Honestly, thank God I found the Meridian Explorer. I had to have my girlfriend's uncle bring it down from the US on his business trip to South Africa, but it was well worth the effort.
 
First Listen and life with the Meridian Explorer
I unboxed them as soon as I got home and listened to the mastered Red Hot Chili Peppers album with my girlfriend. Although this is a well known badly mastered album (which I would find out afterwards) I still watched with excitement as I gave it to her and her eyes darted around, following the music.
 
This little guy puts everything in its place and lets you know where you are sitting in the mix. Sometimes I suppose I get a little too comfortable with my sound and think that maybe it isn't all that, then I give a listen to my laptop's onboard and I remember why I got this. It really is incredible how you know the size of the room and how much clearer the bass and treble is. Voices might sit a bit more forward and the drums are in the back with the guitar on either side ... AND YOU CAN HEAR IT !
 
Conclusion
I'm super happy with the purchase and am currently looking to improve my headphones (Philips X2, not available here in SA but looking into importing) and buy an IEM (most likely the Klipsch X11i ... we only have Klipsch, Shure and AKG in SA) and I'm truly looking forward to discovering my music all over again.

This is my first audiophile grade headphone and I truly believe that this is a brilliant introduction to how awesome music can sound!
 
I live is South Africa, a country that is renowned for ripping off it's consumers. With the dwindling value of our Rand, I had resigned myself to asking a friend to bring a pair of headphones back from USA or Europe. Local prices of headphones and any audio equipment are exorbitant. 
 
With a heavy heart and a patient wallet, I waited for word from friend until one day a local site had them on an incredible special for one day. I bought these off of an extremely good site called onedayonly.co.za for a price of R1899 ~ $160. Incredible!
 
Build
When I received them I was absolutely blown away by the look of them. Wood does amazing things to people's perception of quality, but it's a bit of a pity that I can't say the same for the plastics used. I know that these are made of recycled material. Regardless, everyone I showed them too were blown away by the look, and said that they'd never seen headphones made of wood like this! It would have been nice if these had come with a hard case as the provided hemp bad doesn't give me confidence in transporting such beautiful headphones. Minor gripe, but one worth mentioning.
 
Comfort
The padding on the earphones are more than adequate, with lush memory foam and synthetic leather that I can pass off as real leather the only issue that I have with them is that the headband padding, while looking more than sufficient, seems to separate at the ridge that runs down the middle of my skull. What I mean is that the quality of the foam seems to be lacking, and as a result it gives way to the weight of the headphones and compresses to the point where I can feel the metal band in the headband. I have a little bit of bruising in the week that I have been wearing them, but I've decided to take a teaspoon of cement and toughen the hell up because I can hardly take them off! This leads me to the sound ...
 
Sound
Ladies and gentlemen, load your weapons, because what I'm about to say will surely anger you ... I am using my 8 year old Logitech X-530 headphone jack as my source. Straight onboard produces too much emf noise. As I said, I'm just starting out in the world of audiophile music and haven't been able to get a decent source. With the price of just a Audioquest Dragonfly 1.2 going for what equates to over $350 here, I've shifted my goal to the $150 Meridian Explorer that I'm hoping my girlfriend's uncle can bring back on his next business trip (If any of you are headed to SA and would like to do me a solid, send a PM ).
 
On to the sound: Absolutely brilliant! Despite my cringe worthy set up, I have been floored by the quality and separation of the music. Everyone that I play this for literally have their jaws on the floor. Now despite my avatar name of biggysmalls (neighborhood nickname growing up) I listen mostly to folk, rock and acoustic. With Foobar2000 installed I've been listening to FLAC albums of Queens of the Stone Age, Milky Chance, Sam Smith (who sound amazing with these), Noah and the Whale, Beck, Queen and Taylor Swift. A SA band, Al Bairre, who releases all their music in high quality recordings have also been high up on the list. All of them sound as what I imagine they were meant to sound. These are extremely versatile headphones that will adapt to whatever you decide to throw at them. From the bass to the treble, the movement is very fluid and nothing seems really accentuated. I'm not a bass guy so I'm very happy that the bass, while slightly accentuated, is not overblown.
 
Conclusion
I'm not going to throw fancy words around because I honestly would probably make a fool of myself amongst such professionals that frequent this site, however I can say that I've gone from someone who almost never listened to music through headphones to being the permanently glued to them. One minor issue I have is that there is very slight sibilance. Very minor, but I'm hoping to kick these babies into the next level when I eventually get the Meridian Explorer in the coming months! Update to follow!