Meze EMPYREAN - the First Isodynamic Hybrid Array Headphone

[Hoegaardener70]

Do I think the TC is worth $5k. Meh. You can run it over with a car and the weak point o rings are now easily user-replaceable.
Is the sound worth $5k. I happily forked over $4k and honestly don't have a complaint.

Within the system, I only feel the Empyrean should have been classed lower to keep bitching to a minimum.
I will say it again, I have a hard time swallowing $3k for the worlds most comfortable headphone.

Hoegaardener70 has a contrary and valid ethos.

I feel the same about your points - very valid. For me, if I spend a fortune on a headphone, I must love its design, and find it comfortable so that I max out my time with it. But this is very personal. As is my pet topic of easiness: I do not mind spending multi k bucks one time for a headphone, but I hate it if a purchase requires me to invest more and more to get the gear running at all. This makes Stax, Sus and similar complicated gear outdated (by the way, the TC still cuts it, it works fine on mid-level gear).

 

[Tachyon88]

Any of you chaps EQ yours to the harmon target ? What did ya think ?

 

[Ichos]

Empyrean is about tonality and timbre.
They sound lifelike and close to a good speaker.
The other TOTL headphones mentioned they sound like ultra detailed headphones.
There is a market for both but don't imply that the Empyrean isn't tuned correctly.

 

[BowWazoo]

L

 

[BowWazoo]

Any of you chaps EQ yours to the harmon target ? What did ya think ?

Had the Empyrean here a year ago.
At that time I packed it up again after 30 minutes.
From the factory, the Empyrean is much too dark for me and too present in the upper bass.

Unlike today, I didn't work with Oratory's EQ settings back then.

So set, the meze has supplanted my utopia.
Whereby I go one db down with Band 6 and two db up with Band 10.

I can only advise anyone who is interested in the Empyrean to listen to it after the said settings.

At the moment I prefer the leather pads. The volur create too little intimacy for me.

 

[Zhang Enyuan]

earmuffs

 

[Zhang Enyuan]

Phoenix Coil fine-tuning The target sound will be slightly changed
2019vs2021
C9 At present, portable ear expansion is most suitable A choice

 

[Tachyon88]

Empyrean is about tonality and timbre.
They sound lifelike and close to a good speaker.
The other TOTL headphones mentioned they sound like ultra detailed headphones.
There is a market for both but don't imply that the Empyrean isn't tuned correctly.

You will be happy to know the false motive you attributed to me is of your own creation. The rest of what you said is irrelevant to what I asked....I read it on the brochure /s

 

[Tachyon88]

@BowWazoo Oh wow, what does the emp do for you now with EQ vs the utopia ? Who does the better bass and sound stage ?

 

[lumdicks]

Relax all and guess what headphone I was listening last night?

I own Stellia and Empy, and once owned Utopia as well. I enjoy Stella and Empy equally as they are both great headphones but on musicality and engagement, I think Empy is the best out of my experience.

Reviews and impression are all subjective. Without speculating on conspiracy, just trust your ears, try auditioning all gears before getting it and then sit back and enjoy your music.

 

[Mike C]

Might be very , very different from the Empy.
The older you become, the sooner you need a headphones with
more energy in the high-tone


I find the graphics very helpful ,
if you can read graphics well, you can take a lot of it.
The biggest difference is certain
Five to 10 decibels ! between 4500 and 10,000
Hertz. That's a completely different sound.
And the differences in basic tone and bass .

Might be very , very different from the Empy.
The older you become, the sooner you need a headphones with
more energy in the high-tone

The graph reminds me of something I learnt from experience listening to speakers, and technical input from experts when I built speakers myself (and measured and tuned them by both measurement and ear).
It was said that speakers with a slight gentle roll off of about 3 dB at the top end tended to sound more natural, whereas dead flat response out to 20KHz tended to sound a bit more like hifi; OK, perhaps very good hifi. Now this is a very big generalisation and there will be oodles of exceptions! I accept this, but my experience tends to support it somewhat.
This is one way in which different makes of speakers are 'voiced' differently. Dead flat can tend to be more impressive in the showroom, so is often done for that reason.
The graph of the Empyrean shows pretty much this kind of rolloff, which perhaps explains in part why many people regard them highly for a natural sound.

As others have suggested, frequency response curves need to be interpreted with care; but sometimes one can correlate a curve with a listening experience, and then it gets interesting. I feel that is happening here.

 

[saudio7]

Empyrean is about tonality and timbre.
They sound lifelike and close to a good speaker.
The other TOTL headphones mentioned they sound like ultra detailed headphones.
There is a market for both but don't imply that the Empyrean isn't tuned correctly.

I don’t agree with you, both Solitaire and Susvara are much better then Empyrean if you consider lifelike sound and they don’t sound like ultra detailed headphones, you are right in case of Utopia, as you can get headache if you listen for longer time.

 

[MatW]

Interestingly this discussion has rekindled my interest in the Empyrean. It was my first high end headphone. I loved it, but at the time, I was looking for more resolution/details, and I moved on to the TC, Susvara, LCD 4. Now that I have better gear and the ability to EQ, I'd like to try it again and maybe add it back to the stable for a complementary sound signature. When I see a good deal I may go for it.

 

[BowWazoo]

Definitely.
Because the details / Resolution are there.
Only these appear to be pushed far too much into the background, with the "factory settings"

 

[adydula]

I have found that the Empyreans have excellent resolving power and the pushing into the background experience is more of the actual recording and how it was produced IMO.
.
Playing a wide variety of music and recording its clear to me that the recording if its well mic'd and mastered has a pronounced affect on how it comes across.

Yes the Empys IMO are warm / dark etc use your descriptor of choice....

But this may make you think that stuff is reduced in amplitude or missing all together, but after hundreds of hours of listening to music of all sorts, its all there IMO.

Good Morning!
Alex