Arcayne
100+ Head-Fier
My main concerns are mainly with the change in sound. Technicalities aside, I'm curious to find out if it will manage to maintain the Empyrean's personality, and provide a subjectively improved version of the same kind of experience. Next question would be whether I'd have to change things up in my source chain to get the synergy in order and what that might potentially cost/earn me, and if the resulting improvement will justify the cost of upgrading, which will probably be more than €2k on top of what I could get back from selling my current Empy.A slightly heavier, hungrier version of the Empyrean with improved performance would be a huge win. (Per metal571's review) The original is so comfortable and easy to drive that Meze could add some extra magnets to the design and not really lose out on much in that arena, though whether or not that would necessarily yield higher sound quality is another question....
And I'm also very curious to try the Elite pads on the OG Empy, assuming (or hoping) that they could be different but interchangeable. That'll at least be worth exploring as a middle-ground, providing an option to gain some kind of potential improvement without breaking the bank.
Either way, I'm paying my dealer a visit once he has it on demo, and I'll just go in without too many hopes/expectations. Of course I'm super excited to get my ears on it and experience what Meze cooked up this time, but I don't really desire any specific outcome for my personal needs. I'm still happy with my Empy as-is, and there are currently a lot of things on my radar outside of audio as well, so to deliver enough of an improvement to make it to my shortlist won't be that easy.