• WANTED: Happy members who like to discuss audio and other topics related to our interest. Desire to learn and share knowledge of science required. There are many reviews of audio hardware and expert members to help answer your questions. Click here to have your audio equipment measured for free!

Meze Liric Review (Closed Back Headphone)

Rate this headphone:

  • 1. Poor (headless panther)

    Votes: 32 19.2%
  • 2. Not terrible (postman panther)

    Votes: 63 37.7%
  • 3. Fine (happy panther)

    Votes: 54 32.3%
  • 4. Great (golfing panther)

    Votes: 18 10.8%

  • Total voters
    167
D

Deleted member 22141

Guest
I generally don't like to EQ - anything in my arsenal. I prefer things to be good 'by design'. If you need to do EQ (what I personally believe, it may differ with others or may all others), there's clearly a fault there. I rather just find the gear that sounds best to me rather than get caught up in the EQverse.

If anything needs correction, and maybe so much of it, it's physically faulty. Also, EQing may suggest that the equipment is not built to deliver those parameters, so why try to force it to fake it?

Anyhow - that's my general opinion on EQ. Nothing's perfect - but things that matter to any individual specifically, must be as close as possible by being built that way in the first place.

I'd like to explain this via the following image:

View attachment 175126

I know I may be bashed for saying this - for some I may be a blasphemer - but I will have to take it then.

PS: Verily this one (the Liric), for the money, raises a lot of eyebrows with the questionable performance.

The Harman target is certainly the only one backed by research, but it's not "correct" in any serious sense.

Have you established beyond any question that your preference exactly matches the Harman curve? And if so, which one, as they have changed it a number of times? So which one is it that it has to match to be acceptable to you? Fully 1/3 of listeners don't exactly match the standard preference curves.

1640708852220.png


Simply judging a headphone as lacking because it doesn't exactly match the Harmon target is a little odd. If you can't find something that fits your own preference then EQ is great, and the ability to EQ without distortion is important.

I think it's great that we get FR maps, overlaid on the Harman curves, but to then say "and because the overlay isn't exact there is something wrong with these headphones" is a pretty large and unwarranted step.

I think I'd probably quite like this headphone without EQ and it seems to have a lot of other good features. I'm definitely going to find one to try out sometime.
 

Remlab

Member
Forum Donor
Joined
May 22, 2021
Messages
74
Likes
186
Location
Oceanside California
Liric_driver_explosion.png

From the same guy who created the Oppo PM series diaphragm/motor assemblies
 

nyxnyxnyx

Addicted to Fun and Learning
Joined
May 22, 2019
Messages
506
Likes
474
fantastic review sir amir!
sorry for this off-topic question, but in the queue of the products you are going to review, are there any biodynamic headphones? (E-MU, fostex, denon etc...)
 

PuX

Senior Member
Joined
Feb 16, 2018
Messages
324
Likes
203
Should a $2,000 headphone match our target? Ideally so but the industry has yet to adopt this stance
I don't really see why every company would follow this specific target.

also not quite sure why Harman would be a good target - isn't a fully neutral headphone supposed to produce a straight horizontal line? same as a speaker. or am I missing something?
 

fastfreddy666

Member
Joined
Dec 16, 2021
Messages
56
Likes
100
One question. Can somebody please explain the difference between an ordinary planar magnetic driver and a Isodynamic hybrid array driver?

OMG. It's a ISODYNAMIC HYBRID ARRAY DRIVER

Liric_driver_explosion.png

Don't you just love exploded view photographs? I love them because I'm an engineer and you can immediately see how a device is assembled.
They look pretty similar to ordinary planar magnetics.

The website states that the driver creates a 0.3 Tesla Isodynamic magnetic field required for a uniform activation across the whole diaphragm surface. Wow. That's impressive. I recently had some kind of epileptic seizure. They did a MRI of my brain. The first thing I asked the operator of the thing. was: how big is the magnetic field? He didn't know. How can you not know that? The neurologist also didn't know. It was not her department. Come on now. You got to know the specs. It turned out it was 3 Tesla. Higher magnetic field strengths improves the SNR. Now we're talking. I know what that means. Yay. The scan couldn't determine the cause of the seizure so I still have no idea what caused it but I'm okay with that. By the way. MRI machines are noisy as hell even with ear protection. They can go up to 130 Db. I'm digressing again...

The Frequency response of this headphone isn't exactly isodynamic (having equal strength or force) This thing is crap. Just buy a Focal Utopia by Tournaire for the bargain price of $120,000 and be done with it. I'm just kidding. It's a little out of my price range to put it mildly. It's about six times the price of my second hand Toyota.

I indulged myself this Christmas and bought myself a Massdrop X Sennheiser HD 6XX for $179. It was on sale and I still think that was a little excessive. I'm a little frugal I guess. I blame my parents. But hey i buy you a beer if the bars weren't closed due to some kind of Corona virus. I believe they call it Omikron (it's the 15th letter of the Greek alphabet). Vaccines work like a charm apparently. But nature (the house) always wins.

They sound nice. I can't elaborate because of my hardcore objectivist philosophy. If you want subjective sound impressions you can go to head-fi and have endless pointless discussions about the sound quality of headphones. Hopefully Amirm will measure them at some point and then I can give you the (somewhat) objective details.
 

LTig

Master Contributor
Forum Donor
Joined
Feb 27, 2019
Messages
5,760
Likes
9,442
Location
Europe
The website states that the driver creates a 0.3 Tesla Isodynamic magnetic field required for a uniform activation across the whole diaphragm surface. Wow. That's impressive. I recently had some kind of epileptic seizure. They did a MRI of my brain. The first thing I asked the operator of the thing. was: how big is the magnetic field? He didn't know. How can you not know that? The neurologist also didn't know. It was not her department. Come on now. You got to know the specs. It turned out it was 3 Tesla.
Traditionally in MRI and NMR people use the resonance frequency (Larmor frequency) of protons (1H) as measure for the magnetic strength. You can deduct the magnetic field from that, e. g. using this online calculator.
Higher magnetic field strengths improves the SNR.
... and resolution.

By the way. MRI machines are noisy as hell even with ear protection. They can go up to 130 Db. I'm digressing again...
It's the switching of the gradient coils which makes the noise. The measurement involves RF pulses which are not audible.
 

NDRQ

Active Member
Joined
Nov 24, 2018
Messages
178
Likes
247
I don't really see why every company would follow this specific target.

also not quite sure why Harman would be a good target - isn't a fully neutral headphone supposed to produce a straight horizontal line? same as a speaker. or am I missing something?
This is not a compensated frequency response graph so it cant be a horizontal line. If stg prefectly tracking the Harman curve, than that would be the straight horizontal line in a compensated graph. The compensated graph is just showing the difference between the Harman curve and the actual response of the speaker/headphone. Only straight horizontal line, if there is no difference.
 
  • Like
Reactions: PuX
OP
amirm

amirm

Founder/Admin
Staff Member
CFO (Chief Fun Officer)
Joined
Feb 13, 2016
Messages
44,368
Likes
234,386
Location
Seattle Area
The Harman target is certainly the only one backed by research, but it's not "correct" in any serious sense.

Have you established beyond any question that your preference exactly matches the Harman curve?
Has there been a determination that any of the responses from these headphones correct? Answer is no. Every company seems to be making up its own response. That is certainly not good for us as consumers and those that use them to produce music.

At this point, we need standardization to one target and then we can change it here and there to taste. After testing nearly 100 headphones now, for me the Harman curve is very close to ideal. Deviating from it screws up spatial cues, impact of sub-bass, brightness, etc.

There is a ton of room for differentiation between headphone companies from price to feel and looks. They don't need to produce wildly different frequency responses. Speakers have for the most part moved to flat on-axis response. Same needs to happen here as far as target.
 

Firefly00

Active Member
Joined
Aug 30, 2021
Messages
137
Likes
96
Location
New Zealand
fantastic review sir amir!
sorry for this off-topic question, but in the queue of the products you are going to review, are there any biodynamic headphones? (E-MU, fostex, denon etc...)
I believe the E-MU Teak has been measured here
 

solderdude

Grand Contributor
Joined
Jul 21, 2018
Messages
15,891
Likes
35,912
Location
The Neitherlands
Hopefully Amirm will measure them (HD6XX) at some point

Amir already did (HD6XX = HD650)

One question. Can somebody please explain the difference between an ordinary planar magnetic driver and a Isodynamic hybrid array driver?

 
Last edited:

Tks

Major Contributor
Joined
Apr 1, 2019
Messages
3,221
Likes
5,494
Kinda crushes the hope I have that the Empyreans would perform better (seeing as how this product seems to be a cost-cut version and simply closed off instead of open back).

Shame to, I take the Empyreans to be the best looking/best finished headpone by a mile compared to others (though I do like the HD800 look, and choice to go plastic for comfort with lower weight).

I really would've hoped these would also follow some other drivers that achieve virtually no distortion at all, given that it's planar design hype they've done, and given the price/company prestige.
 

NHL99

Member
Joined
Apr 15, 2021
Messages
65
Likes
81
A concerted effort to review the item

Soundwise the summary is 'As good as the Liric are, we’re not fully convinced by their dynamic ability. The subtleties are handled well but there’s a notable lack of punch, particularly at low frequencies.'
 

wwenze

Major Contributor
Joined
May 22, 2018
Messages
1,284
Likes
1,827
Should a $2,000 headphone match our target? Ideally so but the industry has yet to adopt this stance so we continue to get dual personality headphones: not so good as is, and excellent with EQ.

I'm starting to see why headphones have to be graded differently from speakers thanks to this quote. With the latter we don't have to bother with a target curve, at least in anechoic situations.
 

solderdude

Grand Contributor
Joined
Jul 21, 2018
Messages
15,891
Likes
35,912
Location
The Neitherlands
A concerted effort to review the item

Soundwise the summary is 'As good as the Liric are, we’re not fully convinced by their dynamic ability. The subtleties are handled well but there’s a notable lack of punch, particularly at low frequencies.'

'Punch' is in the exact area where the response is lacking (150Hz area) so that conclusion is not that weird.

Liric-768x374.jpg


see my 'tonal character chart' below.

descriptors2kl-1.png
 

FrantzM

Major Contributor
Forum Donor
Joined
Mar 12, 2016
Messages
4,337
Likes
7,730
I don't really see why every company would follow this specific target.

also not quite sure why Harman would be a good target - isn't a fully neutral headphone supposed to produce a straight horizontal line? same as a speaker. or am I missing something?
You are... Read a bit about how the curve came up.
A good place to start:

And one of the first paper:

Peace
 

Bow_Wazoo

Addicted to Fun and Learning
Joined
Jan 3, 2021
Messages
758
Likes
661
I love my liric.
It's the best closed over-ear I've ever heard.
It sounds incredibly dynamic, rich in detail, and at the same time relaxed.
The imaging can actually be described as 3D. This is unique. The comfort is divine.
The build quality as well.
2000 € are extremely failr!


IMG_3720-2.jpg


My settings
Screenshot_20211230-122600_Neutron Player.jpg
Screenshot_20211230-122526_Neutron Player.jpg
 
Last edited:

PuX

Senior Member
Joined
Feb 16, 2018
Messages
324
Likes
203
You are... Read a bit about how the curve came up.
it's interesting that some compensation has to be done and without overlaying the target, one wouldn't know a straight line is not neutral :)
 
Top Bottom