[Dionietzscheus]

Oo la la. What a FUN-TASTIC combo!

 

[Dionietzscheus]

Hello
I have just got my new 109 pro and now I am looking for a good amp to pair
Any suggestion?

I tried 109 with Mojo 2 & M15. To my ears, the Questyle sounded more lively, exciting and dynamic. Used the upgraded Meze Silver Plated PCUHD 4.4 cable & ddHifi TC09S USB C to C cable in the chain. See my other post for pix.

 

[AudioAndCoffee]

meze 109 with mojo + topping a50s + pcuhd copper wire = fantastic smooth sounding.

I like this combination more than directly using sony wm1am2, which seem better clarity but slighly darker. Mojo is more brighter, holographic sounding which make me more happy. Using mojo directly also work, but less warm and less bass. Definitely prefer the external amp.

I think meze 109 is good in the sense that it can adapt to different player and give slightly different enjoyment to user. My other headphone doesn't give me this

 

[Tada]

Very nice review. I find it interesting that the 109 is often described as not detailed/analytical, yet just as many times it is described as bright and sparkly. So I still haven’t a clue as to what it really sounds like (in these current days of no longer being able to go to a local shop and demo, unless you happen to live in your country’s biggest city).

Detail retrieval is a technical ability and brightness is simply how a headphone is tuned. They are not the same thing

Think of a digital image taken with a camera. If you raise the exposure in an app the image would get brighter, but if the image was taken with a low resolution camera you will not see more detail.

The more technical headphones are like high resolution cameras. They will retrieve all the information that is provided by the source, and then tuned brighter (elevated mids/highs) to reveal the details. There are no dark sounding headphones with good detail retrieval great revealing resolution (edited due to incorrect wording) because you won't be able to hear it. It's like trying to read a book in the dark.

Now, the reason the 109 Pro sounds so good to me is because it's an above-average resolution headphone that is tuned a bit brighter. It always has enough warmth in the lows and mids to make it sound rich. Just a fantastic tuned headphone for vocals.

Btw more resolution is not always a good thing. My new HE1000 Stealth, for example, is super detailed, bright, fast, and mid/treble forward. It's awesome for classical, orchestra and jazz. But for tracks that have a lot going on, like pop, rock and edm, it gets fatiguing as it's constantly cramming details down your throat. I don't like it for vocal centric tracks either because the details can get distracting. Sorry to revert back to photography (it's one of my other hobbies), but it's like taking a portrait photo in a crowded area with a lot of distracting things in the background. A lot of times a portrait works better with just a beautiful sunset in the background. I get that same feeling when listening to vocals with the 109 Pro. Just enough details to make it sound great.

 

[ThanatosVI]

There are no dark sounding headphones with good detail retrieval because you won't be able to hear

T+A Solitaire P is a dark sounding headphone with Susvara levels of detail retrieval.
Detail is much more than brightness and inherent technical ability of the driver.

Most often it's about bumps and Dips at the right places to accenuate certain freuquencies.

The picture analogy is great though

 

[Tada]

T+A Solitaire P is a dark sounding headphone with Susvara levels of detail retrieval.
Detail is much more than brightness and inherent technical ability of the driver.

Most often it's about bumps and Dips at the right places to accenuate certain freuquencies.

The picture analogy is great though

I worded that incorrectly. It may retrieve detail as much as the Susvara but if it has a dark tuning I'm sure it won't sound as resolving in stock form. Perhaps using EQ to increase the treble region by a few dB would open up the details. You are correct that if the driver cannot retrieve detail it would be incapable of revealing it even with EQ.

 

[headstef]

"More perceived detail" can mean two different things:

a. Hearing all little elements of a recording in a natural and balanced way.
b. Hearing many (but not all) of the little elements, easier and more obviously (louder) than natural. Since most of the "detail" for the human hearing lays in the mids and highs, this can be achieved easily with boosted mids and highs.

The first (a) is what a truly high-quality (or high-end if you like) headphone or loudspeaker will do. It is the hard way for a designer/maker of headphones or loudspeakers. It demands at least an even frequency response ("even" as perceived by the ear) and very low distortion.

The second (b) is a great way to excite and satisfy many listeners by "cheating" a bit, but in the end it sounds unnatural or even fatiguing in long term. Anyway it doesn't serve well the finest recordings. But if it is done well and within reason it can be quite successful.

I think most people here are in quest for the first (which can be expensive) but this quest seems without end. Sometimes we think that we found our "end-game" headphone but it seldom is. However, after reading so many impressions in Head-Fi one thing becomes clear: Headphones of the above (b) case or headphones with full but unnaturally exposed detail (like HD 800/800S) don't become one's end-game or even favorite for long.

 

[Beagle]

Detail retrieval is a technical ability and brightness is simply how a headphone is tuned. They are not the same thing

Think of a digital image taken with a camera. If you raise the exposure in an app the image would get brighter, but if the image was taken with a low resolution camera you will not see more detail.

The more technical headphones are like high resolution cameras. They will retrieve all the information that is provided by the source, and then tuned brighter (elevated mids/highs) to reveal the details. There are no dark sounding headphones with good detail retrieval great revealing resolution (edited due to incorrect wording) because you won't be able to hear it. It's like trying to read a book in the dark.

Now, the reason the 109 Pro sounds so good to me is because it's an above-average resolution headphone that is tuned a bit brighter. It always has enough warmth in the lows and mids to make it sound rich. Just a fantastic tuned headphone for vocals.

Btw more resolution is not always a good thing. My new HE1000 Stealth, for example, is super detailed, bright, fast, and mid/treble forward. It's awesome for classical, orchestra and jazz. But for tracks that have a lot going on, like pop, rock and edm, it gets fatiguing as it's constantly cramming details down your throat. I don't like it for vocal centric tracks either because the details can get distracting. Sorry to revert back to photography (it's one of my other hobbies), but it's like taking a portrait photo in a crowded area with a lot of distracting things in the background. A lot of times a portrait works better with just a beautiful sunset in the background. I get that same feeling when listening to vocals with the 109 Pro. Just enough details to make it sound great.

If this were the case, one could conceivably get everything they need in an Audix A140/150. But they want to spend more money than that.

Funny you say detail retrieval is a technical ability, and brightness is how a headphone is tuned, and they are not the same thing. Yet you also say dark headphones cannot reveal detail. So which is it? It can’t be both.

 

[Tada]

If this were the case, one could conceivably get everything they need in an Audix A140/150. But they want to spend more money than that.

I'm not sure how you came to that conclusion reading my post. A cheap headphone is like a cheap camera with low resolution. No matter how much you tweak the image in post-processing (EQ for audio) you cannot reveal detail that the camera sensor (headphone) can not retrieve.

Funny you say detail retrieval is a technical ability, and brightness is how a headphone is tuned, and they are not the same thing. Yet you also say dark headphones cannot reveal detail. So which is it? It can’t be both.

Try using EQ and decrease your mids/highs by -6dB and see how much less detail you will hear. That is tuning. Inherent technical capabilities like detail retrieval is another. They are not the same thing.

 

[Beagle]

I'm not sure how you came to that conclusion reading my post. A cheap headphone is like a cheap camera with low resolution. No matter how much you tweak the image in post-processing (EQ for audio) you cannot reveal detail that the camera sensor (headphone) can not retrieve.


Try using EQ and decrease your mids/highs by -6dB and see how much less detail you will hear. That is tuning. Inherent technical capabilities like detail retrieval is another. They are not the same thing.

So your saying you can drop -6db and still have good “detail retrieval” because they are not the same thing?

 

[Thoeri]

So your saying you can drop -6db and still have good “detail retrieval” because they are not the same thing?

Well, imagine a TV. A TV with better specs will usually be more detailed. That's related to its technical capabilities. Now, with the wrong type of settings (color balance, brightness etc), the details will take a hit. Yes, frequency response does also play a part in how detailed a headphone is. Upper mids/treble area especially. If it's too recessed, details can get hidden in the music or sound veiled. It's just that some headphones can't get very detailed, even with a good frequency response. If you use an EQ, the frequency response part is usually covered pretty well anyways. The rest depends on the technical capabilities of the headphone.

 

[Beagle]

Define “details”. If “details” are obscured by high amounts of distortion (“Q” modes, resonances etc), then “technical abilities” would be the ability to operate without these distortions. But even if it could do that, a skewed frequency balance would negate this. So to me, lack of distortion and an even frequency balance should provide whatever details are on offer in the source.

 

[kellustzall]

Define “details”. If “details” are obscured by high amounts of distortion (“Q” modes, resonances etc), then “technical abilities” would be the ability to operate without these distortions. But even if it could do that, a skewed frequency balance would negate this. So to me, lack of distortion and an even frequency balance should provide whatever details are on offer in the source.

Details also depend on the amount of understanding of music in reality of the listeners. People who spend lots of time surrounded in and consciously researching how eventful actual sonic enviroments are, usually have more "realistic" hearing ability over someone who listen the gears purely by their instinct and theories on papers. And I don't think there's absolute "truth" behind this hobby, as foundationally we listen to the performance of electrical sparks and various types of drivers, that alone is already far from the "truth", besides, you don't expect the musicians to have the same set up as yours in the studio do you? It's just, what's kind of "fake" reproduction you prefer? Vynils are not more "realistic" than CDs after all...

 

[Beagle]

Details also depend on the amount of understanding of music in reality of the listeners. People who spend lots of time surrounded in and consciously researching how eventful actual sonic enviroments are, usually have more "realistic" hearing ability over someone who listen the gears purely by their instinct and theories on papers. And I don't think there's absolute "truth" behind this hobby, as foundationally we listen to the performance of electrical sparks and various types of drivers, that alone is already far from the "truth", besides, you don't expect the musicians to have the same set up as yours in the studio do you? It's just, what's kind of "fake" reproduction you prefer? Vynils are not more "realistic" than CDs after all...

That has been a point of belief for me. A true reference should be the sound of actual live instruments and voices. Not another headphone or a recording. If the recording can get close, you can use that for a direct reference, but nothing beats the memory of what 'real' sounds like. So detail and timbre co-exist in this reference. And as you pointed out, every piece of gear in the recording and playback chain has it's own character. So we can approximate at best.

Given this, How is the Meze 109 Pro at approximating?

Open to all of course..

 

[Tada]

The 109 Pro is colored (often described as musical, if tuned to one's preference) and not a reference type of headphone you speak of. I don't think it was intended to be one either.