Verdict
So long as a refined and barely self-consciously grown up rendition of your tunes is what you’re after, and supplied they really fit your needs within the first place, the Meze Audio Strada are a brilliantly open, revealing and complicated hear
Managed, informative and interesting sound
Open and spacious presentation by closed-back requirements
Very comfy (in the event that they match)
Can fractionally overplay the sonic refinement card
Cable is barely noisy
One other Meze Audio product that mocks the smaller-headed
Key Options
Introduction
How do you’re taking a confirmed and profitable closed-back over-ear headphone design just like the Meze Audio Liric and scale back the asking worth greater than 50 %?
With its new Strada closed-back over-ear design, Meze Audio thinks it has the reply…
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Design
- Magnesium body
- Macassar hardwood earcups
- magnetically hooked up earpads
In the event you’re acquainted with the look of Meze Audio’s Liric II over-ear headphones, there’s actually solely the color of the magnesium body that’s going to set the design of the Strada aside. In the event you’re not, although, nicely – it’s like this…
These are comparatively vast, pretty gentle (330g with out cable) headphones, and so they characteristic magnetically hooked up earpads which might be a) comprised of reminiscence foam with a PU leather-based cowl, and b) so generously padded that they contribute to that width greater than considerably.
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The body is comprised of magnesium, and the elaborately formed yoke association is sort of strongly at odds with not-even-remotely elaborate adjustment rod mechanism that modifies the place of the scarf.
The scarf itself is pretty vast and skinny. It’s lined with extra PU leather-based on the surface, whereas on the within it’s lined in material and rather more judiciously padded than the earpads – the four-stage contact factors are designed to assist airflow and thus stop your head heating up too readily.
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The skin of every earcup is comprised of a amount of handsome and tactile Macassar ebony hardwood. And the body surrounding every of those portions of Macassar includes a 3.5mm cable connection – Meze Audio provides two 1.8m lengths of braided Kevlar OFC cable within the pretty giant EVA case the STRADA journey in. One is terminated with an unbalanced 3.5mm jack, the opposite with a balanced 4.4mm different.
The body of the STRADA is hand-painted, and accessible in only one end: a deep, mildly metallic tone that anybody with an curiosity in motor racing from again within the day goes to recognise instantly as a really shut relative of British Racing Inexperienced.
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Specification
- 50mm dynamic drivers
- 5Hz – 30kHz frequency response
- 111dB sensitivity
Essentially, all the stuff I’ve talked about within the design part constitutes the best way Meze Audio has determined to droop a driver over every of the listener’s ears. And it’s the motive force expertise deployed within the Strada that explains simply how they are often a lot extra inexpensive than their very similar-looking Liric II siblings.
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Not like the super-elaborate planar magnetic driver expertise fitted to the Liric II, the Strada use the rather more widespread dynamic driver expertise. Though this isn’t the identical as saying there’s nothing attention-grabbing, or complicated, about what’s occurring right here.
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Every STRADA earcup includes a 50mm dynamic driver that’s primarily based intently on the motive force discovered within the firm’s (very equally priced) 109 PRO open-back over-ear mannequin. For its use in a closed-back design, although, Meze Audio has naturally given it fairly a going-over…
The W-shaped dome is made from cellulose composite bolstered with carbon-fibre – which suggests it’s each sturdy and light-weight, and may be capable of scale back most of the resonances that may result in distortion.
The torus that surrounds the dome is of beryllium-coated semicrystalline polymer – the beryllium coating will increase each the sturdiness and the stiffness of the motive force with out weighing it down and compromising transient response. Fastidiously positioned grooves on the torus additionally contribute to the meant impact.
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Lastly, a copper-zinc alloy stabiliser is positioned across the membrane to soak up vibration and additional scale back distortion.
This association, says Meze Audio, delivers a frequency response of 5Hz – 30kHz, which is deeply spectacular if something like correct. Impedance of 4ohms is nothing to fret about, however a sensitivity score of 111dB (SPL/mW @ 1kHz) means a reasonably pokey DAC or digital audio participant might be so as in case you’re going to listen to the STRADA at their optimum.
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Sound High quality
- Presentation is commendably open fopr a closed-back design
- Articulate, detailed and interesting sound
- Prioritise refinement in any respect prices
The very first thing it’s vital to notice concerning the Meze Audio Strada, even earlier than you’ve gotten begun listening to them, is that it’s pretty vital to sit down nonetheless. Bumping or knocking the connecting cable will trigger noise to be transmitted – that’s the case, to a lesser or larger extent, with most wired headphones, but it surely’s extra pronounced right here than is the norm.
However when you’re sitting comfortably and never fidgeting, there’s an terrible lot to get pleasure from about the best way these headphones sound. Irrespective of in case you’re listening to a big-standard Spotify stream of Highwayman by The New Eves or a full-fat 24-bit/48kHz FLAC file of Ora Cogan’s Cowgirl, these are eloquent and informative headphones, and are greater than able to revealing and contextualising even the best particulars with a view to let you realize you’re getting the entire sonic image.
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The place soundstaging is worried, they’re significantly extra open, extra spacious and extra expansive than is the closed-back norm. They’ll do intimate and direct nicely, after all – however in the case of opening up a recording and placing significant house between each aspect of it, the Strada are extra harking back to open-backed alternate options.
This capability to present elbow-room to every participant doesn’t come on the expense of togetherness or singularity, both – recordings are offered as a unified entire.
In terms of frequency response and tonality, the Meze Audio are fairly rigorously impartial; and never about to stay their oar in too clearly. Element ranges are excessive at each stage, and although they will dig a good distance down and hit respectably laborious whereas they’re at it, the Strada give bass sounds loads of texture and variation – and so they management the assault of low-end data so nicely that rhythmic expression isn’t lower than naturalistic.
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The other finish of the frequency vary is equally detailed, and there’s ample substance to stability out the well mannered quantity of chunk and shine the headphones summon when describing treble sounds. In between, the midrange communicates in probably the most constructive approach, and voices are as expressive of perspective as they’re of tone or timbre. The frequency vary is described even-handedly, with no suggestion of understatement or over-emphasis at any stage.
There’s a good quantity of dynamic headroom accessible for when a recording shifts by way of the gears, and the space the Strada can put between hushed and heartfelt and furiously offended is sort of appreciable. Together with the eye they pay to the dynamic of harmonic variation and to transient response, it makes for a vivid and convincing sound.
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It’s actually solely once they’re requested to take care of content material that’s not directly tough across the edges, or that prioritises posture and assault over good style, that the Meze Audio are discovered even barely wanting.
Essentially, they’re a grown-up and fairly refined hear – and this place works nicely virtually all the time. However when requested to play music that ignores refinement and as an alternative prefers snottiness, the Meze Audio’s need to convey order to bear the place none is meant to exist ends in one thing of a stand-off.
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Do you have to purchase it?
You need greater than a touch of the usually spacious open-backed sound from a closed-back design
Small heads needn’t apply
You’re blessed with a head that’s smaller than common
Ultimate Ideas
I’ve been very well-disposed to just about each Meze Audio product I’ve come into contact with – and I’ve listened to lots.
However regardless of all the very many issues that I discover admirable concerning the Strada, I can not assist however surprise why the corporate appears to assume that folks with smaller heads don’t have the cash or the inclination to get into possession of high-achieving headphones.
On a great day I’m six ft tall, and the scale of my head in all fairness proportionate – however these headphones have to be adjusted to their smallest becoming in the event that they’re going to work for me. It’s a wierd state of affairs…
How We Check
I linked the STRADA on to an iBasso DX340 digital audio participant utilizing their 4.4mm-terminated cable. I used the identical cable to connect with an iFi iDSD Diablo 2 headphone amp/DAC which was, in flip, linked to an Apple MacBook Professional.
I additionally linked them to an Eversolo DAC-Z10 pre-amp/DAC utilizing a 6.3mm adapter on the three.5mm cable – this gave entry to a system together with a Rega Apollo CD participant, an Arcam ST25 community streamer and a Technics SL-1300G turntable.
- Examined for a number of days
- Examined with actual world use
FAQs
Is there a alternative of finishes?
No, the wood-and-dark-green you see within the photos is the one end accessible
Can I improve the cables?
Sure – it makes use of an ordinary 3.5mm connection at every earcup. An improve on the cable Meze Audio provides gained’t come low-cost, although…
Full Specs
Meze Audio Strada Evaluate
UK RRP
£799
USA RRP
$799
EU RRP
€799
CA RRP
CA$1199
AUD RRP
AU$1499
Producer
Meze Audio
IP score
No
Weight
330 G
Launch Date
2026
Driver (s)
50mm dynamic
Connectivity
3.5mm single-ended, 4.4mm Pentacon
Colors
Inexperienced
Frequency Vary
5 30000 – Hz
Headphone Sort
Over-ear
