ckhirnigs113
Headphoneus Supremus
I also find my Elite more comfortable than any of my ZMF headphones. That being said, ZMF’s are also really comfortable. The Elite is next level though.
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MEZE AUDIO ELITE - The New Isodynamic Hybrid Array Headphone - official thread
- Thread starter MezeTeam
- Start date
I love both, but I use the Caldera with thick pads as opposed to the stock pads. This gently elevates bass, smooths out upper-mid/lower treble area and enhances perceived soundstage depth. Elite is the comfort king, but I find Caldera comfortable too, despite the weight. Sound-wise Elite is larger, more spacious and airier. Also, a bit softer and mellower. Caldera has more excitement, quicker attack. Caldera while operating with a smaller stage in direct comparison, has excellent instrument separation and positioning. While Elite already has very good note weight and timbre characteristics, to me Caldera edges out the Meze here with even more note weight and even more organic vocal and instrument timbre. This I think is partly due to the wooden cup reverbs. While both headphones are relatively easy to drive, they both appreciate a quality source and amplifier, pairing can make or break these headphones for a discerning individual (like most of us here).
As I said, these are probably my two current favourite headphones. I love the Elite for its gentle, large, laid-back and sweet, engaging listening experience. I love the Caldera for its organic life energy and most realistic timbre form a planar. If someone held a gun to my head, I would probably give the edge to the Caldera due to a more accurate and slightly more lifelike timbre, but the engaging, airy mellowness of the Elite would be hard to pass as well.
GridIroN
100+ Head-Fier
Hello fellow humans.
As a new owner of the Meze Elite for several weeks, and having recently got in the new hybrid DUO pads from the awesome @MilitaryHifi, I have been demo'ing them on my amps for the better part of the last 2 days or so, and I figured I'd offer a humble comparison review between the two pads as most of the reviews I found when researching were from users testing in show room or convention environments.
* I'll note that to my ears, the angled Alcantara pads offered an increase in soundstage clarity/precision (especially vertically) to the default leather pads but offered significant reductions in most other qualities. Much better comfort wasn't worth it to me.
Meze Elite with Hybrid DUO pads vs Stock leather:
Testing on a Yggdrasil LiM DAC and Icon Audio HP8 (NOS tubes) as well as a Cayin HA-3A (NOS tubes)
On that note, super important note: the comfort of the headphone goes from 5 to 8.25. As most people probably already know who own the Elite in here, the head clamp on the headphone is rather weak and requires a moderately sized head to sit properly, otherwise it sort of rests atop your head instead of being clamped to it. These pads add about 2cm of girth to each side and the headphone sits far more securely. Night and day difference. With the leather pads I was afraid they might fall off my head onto my soldering iron when doing some hobby work at my desk. The DUO's clamp firmly to my head.
Ultimately, I'd say these pads still keep the Elites a top quality headphone. They are equal to the stock leather pads, just a different flavour. I would personally take the increase in comfort and clarity over the bass quantity and they will probably be my daily drivers. A good amp or tubes for a tube amp can mitigate the change in sound profile a bit and claw some of the "fun" back. Changing the tubes in my HA-3A to ones I know I really like still did a great job emphasizing the bass impact where it was needed and made me stop missing that bass wash closed leather pads do so well.
As a new owner of the Meze Elite for several weeks, and having recently got in the new hybrid DUO pads from the awesome @MilitaryHifi, I have been demo'ing them on my amps for the better part of the last 2 days or so, and I figured I'd offer a humble comparison review between the two pads as most of the reviews I found when researching were from users testing in show room or convention environments.
* I'll note that to my ears, the angled Alcantara pads offered an increase in soundstage clarity/precision (especially vertically) to the default leather pads but offered significant reductions in most other qualities. Much better comfort wasn't worth it to me.
Meze Elite with Hybrid DUO pads vs Stock leather:
Testing on a Yggdrasil LiM DAC and Icon Audio HP8 (NOS tubes) as well as a Cayin HA-3A (NOS tubes)
- A not insignificant increase in general clarity
- More coherency in the soundstage, particularly in left-right pans (Yoshi Harikawa's "letter" is lifelike)
- Sharper/clearer treble. I don't want to say it's extended because it isn't really, but it sounds perhaps...of a more polished, faster treble presentation
- About a 70%~80% decrease of subbass, almost certainly from loss of seal integrity with the outer perforations. This does have the effect of making the Elites as bit less fun sounding.
- Bass impact is preserved, and slightly more forward. Less warm, less muddy. Not to say the Elite's bass is ever muddy, just that these pads are even less so. Gives the impression the drums in particular are moved forward and occupy a more defined space. For example, I was able to tell in a song I'm familiar with that the impact of the snare is not impacting the same location on the drum in the mix. I could not discern this on the leathers.
On that note, super important note: the comfort of the headphone goes from 5 to 8.25. As most people probably already know who own the Elite in here, the head clamp on the headphone is rather weak and requires a moderately sized head to sit properly, otherwise it sort of rests atop your head instead of being clamped to it. These pads add about 2cm of girth to each side and the headphone sits far more securely. Night and day difference. With the leather pads I was afraid they might fall off my head onto my soldering iron when doing some hobby work at my desk. The DUO's clamp firmly to my head.
Ultimately, I'd say these pads still keep the Elites a top quality headphone. They are equal to the stock leather pads, just a different flavour. I would personally take the increase in comfort and clarity over the bass quantity and they will probably be my daily drivers. A good amp or tubes for a tube amp can mitigate the change in sound profile a bit and claw some of the "fun" back. Changing the tubes in my HA-3A to ones I know I really like still did a great job emphasizing the bass impact where it was needed and made me stop missing that bass wash closed leather pads do so well.
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