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Meze Audio has the flexibility to current headphones as an expression of design, ritual, feeling. The trick is making engineering really feel like craftsmanship, and the Romania firm’s new STRADA isn’t any completely different. If you happen to’ve adopted PopSci’s Meze headphones protection—from the 105 SILVA being framed as a wearable refuge to the POET’s “whirlwind romance” of design and sound—STRADA continues that very same human-first thread, however with the door gently pulled shut behind you. It’s a closed-back dynamic driver headphone that gives sufficient isolation to lean right into a voice, a kick drum, just a little studio air.
STRADA is constructed round a 50mm dynamic driver platform first launched in the 109 PRO, newly retuned for closed-back management. The carbon fiber-reinforced cellulose composite dome guarantees to maintain treble element clear with minimal distortion, whereas a semicrystalline polymer torus, coated with beryllium through Bodily Vapor Deposition, provides stiffness and snap. Precision-cut 45.5° grooves refine management, and a copper-zinc alloy stabilizer absorbs micro-vibrations to scale back distortion. How that will translate to tone: punchy, outlined lows, a impartial midband that lets guitars and voices hold their true colour, and highs that sketch texture and house with out turning tracks right into a fatigue take a look at.
All that’s mounted inside unique Macassar ebony with golden-brown striations (acquainted from the LIRIC II), a hand-painted deep-green magnesium chassis with a delicate metallic shimmer, and magnetically mounted pads that snap on with a reassuring little ‘yep.’ At 330 grams, with a delicate cross-pattern headband that spreads stress and lets air circulate, it’s made for lengthy classes as bassline bloom and vocals murmur intimately. Specs keep wise (5 Hz–30 kHz, 40 Ω, 111 dB, THD <0.1%, twin 3.5 mm jacks), and the entire thing is absolutely serviceable. Obtainable from at this time, Jan. 21, for $/€799 worldwide.
Want to show a nook right into a STRADA listening station? The not too long ago revealed iFi iDSD Phantom is a $4,499 all-in-one DAC/community streamer/amp that’s hilariously overhill in the easiest way. This compact stack options quad Burr-Brown conversion, a streaming engine as much as 768kHz/DSD512, DSD2048 and K2HD “remastering,” USB-B 3.0, coaxial, AES/EBU, TOSLINK and Ethernet inputs, and sufficient Class An influence (7,747mW peak) to make even probably the most cussed headphones behave. It doesn’t matter what it is advisable to stream or convert, the iDSD Phantom can feed it to three.5mm, 4.4mm balanced, 4-pin XLR, twin 3-pin XLR, and each constructive and inverted part 6.3mm outputs. After which there’s iFi’s signature potential to season to style, with J-FET strong state snap or GE5670 tube glow, XBass Professional, XSpace Professional, and varied filters. Plus, iFi already is aware of what Meze’s heat desires. The ZEN CAN Signature MZ99 was tuned across the 99 Classics’ voicing, so synergy isn’t guesswork.
We’re trying ahead to auditioning one, if not each, of those for future protection.
