As the cost of entry goes up, so do expectations. Thanks for demystifying the Elite’s driver tech and A/B testing against a less-expensive alternative. The Meze is beautiful, but personally I’d only shell out another USD$1k if it, well, sounded $1k better.

Great review as always!

Thanks for the thoughts and thanks for reading!

After reading your review, I listened critically to my Meze Elite, to see if I hear the veil you described with the hybrid pads. I don't hear a veil with either set of pads. I have seen no other reviews that describe the Elite as sounding "veiled". The tuning seems more neutral and pleasing to me with the hybrid pads, which present better bass response and a forward, very clear and detailed mid-range, and smooth highs. With the velour pads, the bass and mid-range are recessed, with emphasized high frequencies.
Your preferred HP appears to be the HiFiMan HE1000v2. I understand that this HP has a more v shaped frequency response, with a brighter high frequency response than the Elite with hybrid pads. My guess is that the Elite's more neutral frequency response might sound veiled to you since you are accustomed to the highs of the HekV2. When you switched to the velour pads on the Elite, the highs sounded more similar to the HekV2, and the perceived veil went away.

Firstly, thanks a lot for the review. Awesome feedback and a great point of reference. Thanks for taking the time to write it up.

The in depth comparison to the well known HEKv2 was really useful for me.

Hifirman is shouty and etching treble should be veiled. Your comparison to hifiman only makes your review biased kindly revise it and include other totl hp.

I have the Empyrean and the stock cable is utter garbage! I highly suggest using either their upgrade cables or a 3rd party silver cable. I was totally shocked how much improvement I got when I changed the stock cables. I'm hoping that you compared the Elites and your HE1000v2 both with stock cables. If not then there's clearly bias towards the HE1000v2 if you didn't use stock cables on it.

Some people in this comment section seem to have a hard time accepting your honest review. kindly ignore them.

If they need confirmation bias, Don’t worry, I’m sure they’re great headphones none the less and remember everyone is right. Can’t force anyone to like something.

Thank you for your honest review, learned a lot with the HEKv2 comparison.

I feel some disbelief that such impression could be had. It was as if the reviewer were listening to a different headphone.

FIrst, detail retrieval, compared to the Susvara, Utopia, and Grado 2000e, has is as fine grained as it gets. Soundstage and physical images of instruments and players have a spooky specificity, height, and 3-dimensionality of stage and musicians/players. It is an almost disturbingly transparent headphone. The treble is "considerate", one might say, but it is extremely airy and intricately and variably textured (texture is a strength across the board); there is no lack of extension to the highs, and all the hallmarks of a rich timbral and acoustic reach are on full display.

The muddy gunk in the upper-bass/lower midrange I simply cannot duplicate. I have no loss of clarity or articulation on any of the recordings I play - the balance of qualities across the frequency range is a consistent strength.

Continued from above:

This response is simply a way to clarify how your mileage may vary.

For reference, I am using all kinds of files except mp3 from a recent iMac, along with Roon's streaming Qobuz . Bryston's Manic Moose software. The DAC was the Bryston BDA 3.14, alternating with a Schiit Gumby, and amps were the Bryston BHA-1, Woo WA5-LE, and SChiit Mjolnir. Cables were Audioquest Fire and AQ power conditioning, with JPS Labs and Audioquest NRG-Z3 power cables.

@WaveTheory What cables did you use on the other headphones mentioned in your review?

@Noobzilla stock all 'round for direct compare. I normally use a Plussound Poetic GPH for general listening on HekV2.

Nice review