Meze’s amazing models join our headphone range

The Headphone market – or ‘Head-Fi’ as it is commonly referred to – shows no sign of abating. According to market research company GfK, headphone sales during the 2018-19 financial year were roughly equivalent to the total sales of Bluetooth speakers, soundbars and home audio systems (which includes companies such as Sonos and Yamaha) combined! They report that in excess of 850,000 sets of headphones were sold in December last year alone. Admittedly 65% of all headphone sales during the year sold for less than $100, but it is still an imposing result. Generations of music lovers have been introduced to listening to their music via headphones, or in most cases earbuds, thanks to Apple iTunes. Having easy access to all the music in the world, many are now demanding a higher quality of delivery, and high-performance headphones are one way of achieving that. We have been singing the praises of Stax Electrostatic Earspeakers for decades. We have now added another highperformance headphone to our offering – Meze Audio. This Romanian brand has been making many friends during the last few years and represents something of a chameleon approach. Their piece-de-resistance is the no-holds barred Empyrean (above), a superb planar headphone that sells for $5,299. Their next most expensive headphone sells for less than 10% of that at $499 (the ‘99 Classics’, left). The Empyrean is, as you would expect, an amazing headphone. The 99-Classics (and the $330 ‘99-Neo’) are amazing headphones for the money.