Meze Audio LIRIC

Introduction​

If you’re reading our reviews, you definitely know a company called Meze and its products. Today I would like to write about their TOTL closed-backs – Liric. But let me remind you of their story. The brand was founded in 2011 but its first headphone, the Meze 99 Classics was released in 2015. The launch was followed by a very successful Indiegogo campaign. What’s more interesting now, in almost the last quarter of 2022 the 99’s is still considered a good and worth recommending headphones.

Almost 8 years have passed since 2015, in the meantime, in 2018 Meze released Empyrean, which maybe wasn’t considered as a best sounding flagship headphone, but damn, the build quality just crushed any other flagships. After three years, in 2021 they released another open-back flagship – Elite, which I would call a very improved Empyrean MK2, which has similar technology, but is more expensive. But the closed-back lineup was slightly forgotten, in 2017 Meze has released the 99 NEO, but it’s a cheaper version of the 99 classic with plastic ear cups instead of wooden ones. But a few months after Elite launch, it was another release from Meze, their flagship closed-back portable headphone – the Liric. The reviewed headphones inherit the technical legacy of Empyrean and Elite, but in a more transportable-friendly body.

Packaging​

When the box from Meze arrived to me, I just took a peek inside the “outer” cardboard, inside was a simple box, if I would see any other headphones packed in that kind of packaging, I would say that it was fine, but damn, it’s Meze, I expected much more, but whatever, I got back to my work and let the box wait till the evening.

Later on, I opened the box, and at that moment I thought no Kamil, no this was so not right. Inside that box was another box and the inner box looked much more premium. It’s made of very thick cardboard with leather-like material on top. At this moment I did know I’m unboxing the Meze product. Inside the box, there was a hard EVA pouch (pretty similar to the one that you can find in the package of meze 99 classic and 109 pro). Inside the pouch there are two cables, the shorter one is about 1.5 meters long and the second one is about 3 meters long (to be honest I didn’t even expand it, because it looks and feels exactly the same as the shorter cable), 6.3mm jack adapter, airplane jack adapter and of course the headphone.



The unboxing experience is so good that I would love to get another Liric just to unpack it. I usually wonder if the package is safe enough to survive the delivery by the worst delivery man I can imagine, but this package looks like it could fall out of the plane and nothing would happen to the headphone.

Design, Build and Comfort​

I feel that this part of my reviews of Meze products is getting boring. This headphone feels so great to play with. When you think about industrial design icons by country, like Giugiaro from Italy, or Eames from the States you should definitely consider Meze and his products as the icon of Romania. The build quality is as good as Meze made us used to. Magnesium skeleton is very solid but light as well – it’s the material used for example to manufacture top-end DSLR bodies.

The adjustment system, which is pretty similar to the one from Empyrean and Elite is made of aluminum, and the headband whose main part is made of spring steel and it’s covered with genuine leather from the outside and soft, breathable material from the inside.
The hybrid ear pads are very soft and deep, so even people with very big ears should feel comfortable wearing the headphones. The outer part of the pads is made of leather and the inner is made of suede-like material. I only wish they were easier to remove, like in Elite or Empyrean, unfortunately, Liric has pads glued with double-sided tape, so if you remove them, it will be nearly impossible to put them back again.

The next thing I would like to mention is noise isolation. Meze Liric is one of the best passive noise-isolating headphones I’ve ever used. Ok, It’s not the isolation level of custom IEMs, but for noisy places like an open space office, or a house with some dogs and kids inside, it performs awesome, I didn’t need to volume up music too much to be able to hear it. And the last advantage of them is that the music doesn’t leak outside the earcups, so you don’t have to worry if you will wake up your better part while burning the midnight oil while listening to the music, or if your colleague will complain that they have to listen to your music.

The last thing according to design and build quality is the quality of the cables from the package. As I mentioned above, both are exactly the same, the only difference is the length. They are OK, nothing more, just basic cables to survive till you will order an after-stock cable. A thing worth mentioning is that till the end of September (2022) you can get Meze Liric with a good quality premium Meze cable for free.

Tech​

The build quality is superb, but the technology inside is cutting-edge as well.
Headphones can be amazing in terms of comfort, but without a driver, they won’t reproduce any sound. To produce top-notch drivers, Meze cooperated with Rinaro Isodynamics again. After the Empyrean and Meze flagship – Elite, Liric is the third product that was created in the collaboration lineup. Paweł has already written something about the company in his review of Elite, but let me quote a fragment about Rinaro company from the Meze Liric website:

“Rinaro originated in the USSR (today’s Ukraine) during the Cold War, as part of a state-funded acoustic technology research program. With government backing and access to advanced testing facilities, the team was able to focus all of its efforts on planar magnetics. A field they have continued to innovate in for the last 30 years, since the collapse of the USSR. In the last decade, Rinaro have expanded their capabilities and capacity with the development of state-of-the-art R&D and manufacturing facilities in Ukraine and Poland. The new facilities have been a driving force in the creation of the revolutionary Isodynamic Hybrid Array technology found in Meze Audio EMPYREAN, ELITE, and LIRIC headphones.”

So in the Romanian body lives the Ukrainian heart, and damn, that’s a very interesting heart. In Meze Liric the driver is called MZ4 and it has a similar hybrid design to the previous models, but this time it’s way easier to drive.

But first, let’s focus on the hybrid voice coil design. Most planar-magnetic (or orthodynamic/isodynamic) drivers have a coil-shaped in a repetitive pattern, but Rinaro MZ4, as I mentioned above, has a hybrid coils pattern, this means the driver has a switchback coil that reproduces lower frequencies and a spiral coil that is more efficient in reproducing midrange and trebles. The first coil is positioned in the upper part of the driver and the second one is placed directly over the ear canal entry, enabling more direct sound waves to enter the ear. This results in improved 3D imaging and spatial localization.

Another very interesting thing is the material the diagram is made of. It’s a custom-developed thermally stabilized polymer with a conductive layer. Thanks to this unique processing method, the diagram is rigid and very light as well. The driver has an active area of 3507mm2 and the diagram weighs only 0.08g.

Sound​

Meze Liric has great design, an amazing look, and a lot of interesting tech inside so I just want to play with it, but at the same time I want to keep it on my head, but at the end of the day what’s most important in the high-end headphones is the sound.

Let’s start with the bass. It’s not too wild, but Liric is the headphone for people who like when the music has solid bass. Its timbre is very natural, and full-bodied, for me it could be slightly faster, but the texture does an amazing job. While listening to “Tubular Bells” by Mike Oldfield I just heard the texture of the bass guitar notes and it was even without any psychedelics. Another great song to benchmark the lowest part of the frequency range is “Life Itself” by Glass Animals. The attack of each drum hit is just great, but the control is very good as well. The bass is very saturated, but not too much, just perfect to sit down, relax and discover new subtleties in the bass of songs you thought you knew. Maybe it’s not the level of Susvara, but if you had the opportunity to listen to the gear in a similar price range, then you will be more than satisfied.

The midrange thanks to the bass characteristics is also very powerful, but unfortunately, it’s not as pushed forward as the bass or treble, but for example, SMSL SU9, can fix that issue and make the Liric sound more evenly, because “flat” isn’t a good description for the signature of this setup. The vocals are realized in a very interesting way, they’re not recessed, but it’s also not too close, so I feel like Imelda May is singing her “11 past the hour” right in front of me, but not directly to my ears creating a very intimate stage, so I could feel like the listener, not the microphone. I’m also very impressed with how the Liric reproduces classical guitars in “Mettavolution” by Rodrigo and Gabriela. If my guitar teacher read this part he would lose all respect for me. He studied flamenco music and to be precise Rodrigo and Gabriela use flamenco guitar, which is a special kind of guitar but for simplicity and because classical guitars sound great as well, I wrote it. The guitars sound very detailed and powerful, I think that Meze Liric is one of the best headphones to listen to acoustic music.

Another very strong part of the Meze Liric sound signature is the treble. It’s fast forward, so it’s very important to find a synergetic source that won’t make the highs will steal the show. That happened when I plugged the headphone into both Chords – Mojo 2 and Hugo 2. The treble became harsh and very unpleasant. Even well-produced songs sounded like the sound engineer forgot to switch on the DeEsser Plugin. But on the other hand, when plugged into Feliks Echo MK2, highs became relaxed and very pleasant to listen to, but without losing details. Maybe I wrote it slightly wrong, writing “without losing details” in the context of the Meze Liric is understating. In terms of details in the treble, it’s one of the best headphones I’ve ever listened to. Maybe it’s not the level of properly driven HiFiMan Susvara, HE1000se, or Final D8000 Pro, but these headphones are way less expensive and power-hungry, so you can enjoy almost the same details without spending tens of thousands of bucks.

Now let’s move to the soundstage because considering that Meze Liric is a closed-back headphone, it’s very impressive – very wide and deep. The imaging is great as well. I could finally play Apex Legends without forcing my girlfriend to listen to the sounds of the game and I heard where my opponents were. Up until the time I received the Liric, this level of 3D imaging from headphones in my collection was available only with HiFiMan Ananda, but to be honest, Liric when I got used to its soundstage does it better but don’t get me wrong, I’m still silver beside headphones I’m using.
If you’re a gamer audiophile now you can finish reading the review, because now it will be something for audiophiles who focus on listening to music. If you’ve read any of my previous reviews, you will know that my benchmark for the soundstage is “To Be by Your Side” by Nick Cave, sorry, that’s the entry song from Winged Migration – the first movie I’ve watched on my dad’s 5.1 home theater system. So yes, this song is just amazing when played with the reviewed headphones.

Comparisons​

Hifiman HE-R9



The first comparison I would like to do is with HiFiMan HE-R9, it’s a closed-back headphone priced at $749. Maybe I will skip the entry about the maker and the history of the headphone because it was recently reviewed at our site – you can read the full review here.
Let’s move directly to the comparison. At first glance you can see that the compared headphones are from different price ranges, the build quality of HE-R9 is fine but the fitting of the elements is on a completely different level. HiFiMan produces perfectly sounding headphones, but they need to keep up with the competitors in terms of build quality. Fortunately the HE-R9 despite the size is very lightweight, so it’s very comfortable even during long listening sessions.
The bass of HiFiMan is very, but I mean VERY powerful, it takes a leading role. The HE-R9 is definitely more fun biased, while Liric is more balanced sounding. While listening to “bad guy” by Billie Eilish with Meze I felt the bass hitting my eardrums strongly, but with headphones from HiFiMan, I thought my head would explode because of the bass. It’s a very pleasant yet exhausting experience, so for me, it’s great for listening to one or two albums, but I wouldn’t pick it as a daily driver, while Meze Liric has been playing this role for a couple of weeks.
The difference in the midrange is also big, yet again HiFiMan reproduces it in a very smooth and warm way, whilst Meze creates more texture. The vocals from HE-R9 are rich and natural but it’s definitely more recessed when compared to Liric.
The treble distinguishes the compared headphones the most. It’s nearly impossible to find a source that will make the highs of HE-R9 unpleasant but definitely when comparing them in terms of reproduced details Liric is far ahead in front of HiFiMan headphones.
The last thing to compare is the soundstage, HE-R9 does reproduce it finely, it has good 3D imaging, and decent depth and width, but Liric just outperforms it in these terms. The staging of Meze headphones is just amazing and to be honest it would be hard to find closed-backs that would be better than the reviewed cans in that field.
To sum up, HiFiMan HE-R9 is a decent, fun-biased headphone, while Meze Liric is definitely more balanced and all-round gear. It would be nice to have a HE-R9 in a collection, but if I had to pick one headphone, then Liric is way more universal.

Dan Clark Audio Ether C Flow 1.1



Dan Clark Audio Ether C Flow 1.1 is a closed-back headphone priced at $1750. It was the flagship model from the American brand and one of the best closed-back headphones I’ve ever listened to (DCA Stealth is great, but its power requirements are so tremendous that most people won’t be able to drive it properly and hear 100% of its capacities). To be honest this comparison is the toughest one – both headphones are amazingly engaging and if only I could, I would keep both of them. When I wanted to compare them – listen to part of the song and then change to another headphone, I was catching myself, that I was listening to a couple of songs and I didn’t notice it.
But let’s move to the real comparison and let’s start with the build quality. The original cable of DCA headphones is good, the quality is top-notch, and it looks and feels like a high-end headphone cable should. The only issue I found is the proprietary connectors, so if you have some aftermarket cables, they probably won’t be compatible, so in that case the 3.5mm jack from Meze Liric is a way more universal connector. The Ether C Flow ear cups are made of carbon fiber, the rest of the materials are aluminum and titanium, so the construction is lightweight yet very durable. The only thing I don’t like is the headband, made of two wires. The Lirc headband feels more durable and comfortable for me, but a friend of mine who has a much smaller head, has a completely different opinion, the DCA headband is way more comfortable for him. So as always mentioned, the comfort is very subjective, but both headphones can be considered quite comfortable gear.
Now the sound comparison. I would like to add one more side note, the American headphone is way more source demanding, so if you would like to use the Ethers as portable headphone and run it with dap, it’s possible, but it won’t optimally reproduce the sound.
Okay, first I would like to compare, is the soundstage of Ether C Flow is great, with perfect positioning, very wide and deep. I think it’s even better realized than the soundstage of the closed-back variant of the Ether Flow. Meze has a slightly deeper soundstage, but the imaging and positioning of the sound sources are slightly more chaotic. Don’t get me wrong Liric soundstage is awesome even when compared to open-back headphones, but DCA did this even better.
The treble reproduced by both headphones is similar and very detailed and if the source is bright it may become quite exhausting, but if you will find proper synergy, both of them can produce a very pleasant sound in high range.
The mids are the biggest difference between the compared headphones. DCA Ether provides a much closer midrange, but the vocals reproduced by Meze Liric are more vivid and natural.
And the last thing – the bass, both headphones are amazing in that case. Ether’s bass is more precise and stiff (in a very positive way) and there is more sub-bass which keeps in check the whole bottom range. Liric’s bass is more powerful and relaxed, so maybe it’s not the best for techno music, but if you want to feel the bass pleasantly flowing I would pick them.
In this competition there is no clear winner, both headphones have their strengths and weaknesses, so you will need to decide what’s more important for you.

Summary​

The Meze Liric is an amazing piece of equipment. The build quality is as good as in their flagship headphones, you can see so much leather and you know it’s premium stuff. The sound is relaxed yet very detailed, with very powerful bass and an incredibly good soundstage. I’ve received them some time ago and if I wouldn’t have to write other reviews I would keep listening to music only with this one headphone. And the best part – it’s a very power-efficient headphone, so you can run it even with a portable DAC/Amp or DAP and it will show what it’s got.

Just imagine Meze Elite on the go – wrapped in more portable construction, with slightly amplified edges of the frequency range that are less power-hungry. That’s what Liric’s soul is.

Highly Recommended.

Gear used during this review for the sake of comparison and as an accompanying equipment:

• Headphones – Campfire Audio Vega 2020, Craft Ears 4 CIEM, Dan Clark Audio Aeon 2 Noire, Dan Clark Audio Ether C Flow 1.1 (closed-back), Dan Clark Ether Flow 1.1 (open-back), Dan Clark Audio Stealth, Focal Elegia, HiFiMan R9, HiFiMan Ananda,, Meze Advar
• Sources– Astell&Kern SP3000, Chord Mojo 2, Chord Hugo 2, Ferrum Audio ERCO + OOR + HYPSOS, Fiio M11 Pro, HiFiMan EF400 (as a DAC) + Feliks Audio Echo MK2, JDS El DAC II + SMSl SP200, SMSL SU9 + Topping A90, MacBook Pro 14

Big thanks to Meze Audio for loaning us the Liric for this review. I wasn’t paid or asked to say anything good or bad about this product, all of the above is just my personal, unbiased opinion. Meze Audio hasn’t seen this review before publishing it.

You can get your Meze Liric here.

About myself:
My usual music genres are pop, rock, jazz, a bit of electronic. I noticed lately that I mostly preferred songs are with female voice with not too busy strings and lots of bass in the background. My last discovery is Jennifer Warnes, absolutely stunning.

My tonality preferences: I like it warm. I do not need upper mids and treble energy. My ear channel acoustics gives me plenty.
Bass shall be there, a lot. Deep, moderately controlled.
I love the sound of my Empyreans including the"recessed highs" and "elevated midbass". I am looking for a similar sounding closed back, even if I have some aversion against closed back sound. What usually disturb me most is some sort of reverb which is easyest to pick after single drum hits.

Take my jurney with Liric with this info as background.

I have never written a formal review before. As part of the Liric tour I would like to share my experiences more in form of a story rather than a review.

Prolog​

I happened to be around my favourite HP shop (k55.ch) so I jumped in for a quick snip of air and a comparision between T+A Solitaire P and Meze Elite. I was surprised by the new shop setup. The listening room was moved, became more space, more light, more comfortable sofas, more HPs on display. Among many, a pair of DCA Stealth. As the tour Liric was on the way to me I thought it would worth to listen to some high end closed back sound to have a reference point. Plans changed, Stealth on head. To exclude the shortcoming of the south part of the chain I choose Dave direct as source, fed from my Hiby R8 on USB. Based on Head-fi readings I was expecting some harsh sound, but no. It was nicely balanced, clean sound. Someone mentioned (@Thanatos) that Lyric has very strong subbass. As I had the Stealth on head, which according to the rumors has also very deep bass I put together a new test list from my recent favourites, which I thought would fit the Liric:

https://open.qobuz.com/playlist/8744464

Almost all of the songs on it are showing the most important elements already at the first 30 seconds, so it is easy to go through when multiple HPs are involved in test.

So everything was ready for further experiments, and a beautiful Verite Closed was also available for audition - it had to go through the same parcours.

When already in the process, and Lyric is also available, then let's go for it, best is direct comparison What an experience!

What remained im my memory is about the stage (strangely, because normally I do not care too much about it. Maybe because my current lineup gives me good enough result).

If I compare to a FullHD television (16:9) , where some old programs (4:3 format) gives the picture only in the middle, left and right black bulk - that was the Stealth. Same FullHD TV with movies gives the black bulk up and down - that was the VC. FullHD with picture overall- that was the Liric.

Soundwise the Stealts was a bit flat for me. Sweetest was the VC. Best (deepest?) bass - Lyric. If some sharpness in the tonality was not there, the Lyric would have been the overall winner. Most noticed in the "September in Montreal" from Anne Bisson on the above mentioned list.

Main act​

I got home - a box waiting.

Unboxing - with great excitement. I would not loose too much words on it, many did already. Wonderful experiment, Meze knows how to design down to the last details. The big box, the carry case, the accessory pouches, and the Lyric itself - a joy for the eyes and to touch.



Comfort - top notch. Light to wear, disappears on the head immediately. I think I have an average head, apart of a lenghty bump in the middle which could cause a hotspot, but not with the Liric.

Three notes about the ergonomics:

1. The light weght invites the lazy to handle the thing with one hand only - which works, but in that case the height rods are slipping out of the set position. With two handed handling it does not happen.

2. The Lyric has some anti pression holes on the cup. When on head without sound, they generate some funny wind noise on the move. With music it is not audible.

3. Setting the height: the most comfortable when set so that the space around the ear is evenly distributed. However, I noticed that it sounds better, if I pull it up a little, that it pushes the earlobes up a little. Might be personal. (I just tried the same trick with my Empyreans while writing this - works the same way)

The cables:

Two almost identical cables, difference is just the length - does it make sense? They are good looking, fit to the HP, not microphonic - but why not a balanced cable with multiple heads/adaptors. Or at least one of them. Many, who likes good HPs on the go has a good player/stick with balanced out. The Lyric benefits from power. On mobile eqipment the balanced out almost always has more power.

In the tour set a beautifully braided balanced spc cable was included, originally designed for the Meze Audio 99. It emphasized the brightness, which is not my preference, therefore it did not get the listening time what the aesthetic would have required.

Sound:

First impression: it does not sound like a closed back. The typical closed back reverb that mostly disturbing me does not exist. Soundstage is wide open.

Bass: clean and deep. No midbass hump as on the Empyrean. It justified the assumption and rendered all the bass passages of the songs on the tailor-made playlist with ease and fidelity. My favourite became the "Blue Jeans" from Natty Bong. That bass is just addictive. And it can go even deeper, as in the "Keep The Wolves Away" from Uncle Lucius on "And You Are Me". I suppose that must be the subbass area.

Mids and highs: It is clean a crisp. Let's say when I set the volume level where the bass is (very) satisfactory, it sometimes tends to produce brightness that I do not like. I suppose it is in the area of upper mids. Not my favoirute tuning. As I read on the Empyrean thread that many people was lacking energy in this range, I suppose they will be satisfied with the Liric.

Equipment pairings

I mentioned earlier that the Liric needs power. On every equipment I had to turn the volume a bit higher than with the Empyrean. Let me share my notes that I made with different equipments, climbing up the quality ladder.



LG V60:
- volume almost at max (69 out of 75),
No harshness, deep, highs, have I ever heard anything this good on this?

Lotoo PAW S2
- now we are singing. Mids arrived. "I am my fathers doughter"
Hadouk "soft landing" - very good.
Nardis - the snag drum is not up to, but everything else are. Volume 70 of 100.

When paw S2 is connected to R8 (does it make any sense?) , 62 is enough, there is much more bass then when connected to the LG V60.

Kann (OG):
Perfect match. Bass comes through in full, highs are slightly tamed by the warmth of the Kann. Just perfect. As dac from LG V60, or AK connect + mconnect of iPhone. (I do not have local music stored on the Kann).
Volume 92 of 150.
More bass, more mids, punchier than S2.

Fiio X3ii:
Power 83 out of 120 - what? As good as Kann OG? Not after direct comparision. Mids are missing a bit. But still, impressive.

Kann Cube:
Less warm bass, more treble, more details. 89/150

Hiby R8:
58/100
Cleaner bass.
I was listeneng to the Liric mostly on this due to the mobility, ease of use and the quality droving power of the R8.



R8 with MHA200
Softer deeper bass, softer overall.

Burson Conductor 3XR:
Wider image, cleaner.

Rockna WaveLight + MHA200:
Even deeper, still soft bass, even more detail.
By a lucky coincidence the Rockna WaveLight was by me for home auditioning during my share of the Liric tour.



Looking back on this list, I can see that the Liric is showing very clearly the sonic properties of the equipment it is connected to. A feature of high end headphones. Some say 'the Liric scales very well'

Gaming rig: Khadas Tone2 Pro + BX2+ : ahoj! No brightness! Background music, effects (like explosions), as enjoyable as with my goto can LCD-3, or even more - without any complain from family. Not the slightest even from 2 meters distance.

Comparision to Empyrean:

I would say one can hear that they come from the same house. This shall not lead to the conclusion that they have the same frequency characteristics though.

Subbass goes deeper and more obvious due to lack of midbass thump. In upper region there are more energy. Of course the Liric can not race in opennes against the open back older brother. (Or sister? I always think about it as feminine).

Epilog​

It could be a perfect closed back for me, if it was not for the bright scent time to time. What makes me thinking is that during HP shop audition it was less obvious. Do I have to invest in a Dave? Would 100-200 hours of burn-in help? Or a different cable? Due to the superb (sub)bass performance, the comfort, the wide stage and not at last the optic, my hands are still itching to give another chance to this beauty.

Let me say good by with my favourite picture, my dream triumvirate.



Many thanks to Andy and the Meze crew to give me the possibility to take part in the tour.

Introduction:

The Romanian-based Meze is a brand that has solidified their place in the high-end headphone ecosystem. While their range of headphones may he a tad polarizing (with the tuning of the Empyrean being at the forefront of that), there are nearly-undeniable truths about Meze's devotion to the craft; these are very well-built, finely constructed, comfortable and attractive headphones. Antonio's dedication to the hobby and to the industry is equally undeniable.

Over the past year, Meze has unleashed a double-strike on the game; the top-of-the-line Elite, and the closed-back Planar, LIRIC. The closed-back Planar market is fairly (and somewhat surprisingly) limited, with the most notable previous entrants to the field being from Audeze. LIRIC takes the Meze Planar approach and scales it down to a Closed, Semi-Portable format, while avoiding a true high-end price tag (although certainly in the upper-middle echelon of headphone pricing).

Everything but the Sound:

Look and Feel - This is an understated, but premium, headphone. Aesthetics are not as striking as the Empyrean, bringing a bit of a "boxy" vibe, but they maintain attractiveness for the form factor, with the bronze trim adding an elegant touch. Build quality is robust, with the headphone emanating quality while in the hand.

Comfort - The pads feel plush and comfortable around the ear and on the head; the headphone is fairly light-weight, and brings overall strong comfort.

Stock Cable - It is adequate with no auditory concerns or significant ergonomic pitfalls, but is a bit microphonic. An upgrade cable might be worthy of consideration to reduce microphonic tendencies and slightly increase ergonomics.

Isolation - With resprect to Closed-Backs, this category is fairly important. It can be characterized as good, potentially above average, although there are other headphones (including Elegia) that seemed to have a very slight amount of additional isolation.

The Sound:

Overall tuning - This is a sonewhat-neutral, but leaning on warm, tuning. The tendency towards slight warmth is more due to the muted treble than an overabundance of low-end.

Bass - There is good depth here and acceptable impact ("slam"), although this is certainly not amongst the hardest-hitting Closed cans. Bassheads will be yearning for more, but the bass never gets in the way here.

Mids - A bit recessed (mostly notable on female vocals) but not overly warm; more natural tonality than both some other Closed-Backs and Planars, but not quite approaching the natural timbre of a ZMF Auteur or a Rosson RAD-0. Overall, a pleasing mid-range presentation.

Treble - Muted and lacking in "sparkle," will please those who are susceptible to treble fatigue. Reminds me a bit of ZMF treble tunings (most notably as such on the Aeolus). This may be perhaps one of the more polarizing elements of the LIRIC, for those who prefer a brighter presentation.

Sound Stage/Imaging - Somewhat closed and narrow, acceptable but unremarkable imaging. No "wow" factor to either staging or imaging here.

Resolution/Detail Retrieval - There is no real yearning here in that you're lacking in clarity or transparency, but details and nuances you may pick up on the top-tier headphones in this class will be lost here.

Comparison versus Focal Elegia (with Dekoni Sheepskin pads):

One of the most popular hifi Closed-Back headphones over recent years is Focal's Elegia, which continues to be used by a wide array of folks despite being recently obsoleted by two other Focal offerings. While Elegia and LIRIC play in two different price points, many may look at the LIRIC as a potential upgrade option for diving into the deeper end of the Closed-Back pool.

LIRIC is notably more comfortable than Elegia, with superior build quality. LIRIC has more bass depth and impact than Elegia (especially comparing to Elegia with stock pads; the Dekoni leather pads do narrow the gap a bit). Elegia has a more-forward mid-range presentation than LIRIC. LIRIC's mids are smoother than Elegia's, but slighly-recessed in comparison. Elegia has greater emphasis in the treble region than LIRIC. Elegia does have a tendency to sometimes be too forward, too aggressive; LIRIC does not possess that quality. LIRIC does, at times, come across as a bit "muddy" compared to the Elegia, and I prefer Elegia's soundstaging over LIRIC's.

Conclusion:

This headphone was built for listening; from the comfort, to the robust build quality, to the no-frills, crowd-pleasing tuning (slightly warm with no fatiguing qualities), this headphone exists to be used, to be listened to regularly. This headphone exists for the music, not to be lost in the technicalities. I find myself sometimes listening to the headphone more than the music itself, so to speak; with this headphone, that problem doesn't exist. The trade-off there is that it may not be the most exceptional headphone on the market and it's technicalities may not "wow" you; but for it's particular use-case as a semi-portable closed-back headphone, it certainly excels, and may very well be the best option on the market for that particular use-case.

Playlist (used directly for comparison to Focal Elegia):

Donald Fagen - Morph the Cat
Emily Haines - Siren
Death - Zero Tolerance
Sonny Rollins - I'm an Old Cowhand
Boz Scaggs - Sierra
Skrillex - Bangarang
Sade - Why Can't We Live