Posted by Pros: More comfortable than the V1
Acoustic Absorbers to tame some of the sound
Included DAC
At 16 ohms, easy to drive
Cons: The tuning is neither fun V shaped or analytical, it sits in the middle unsure
Female vocals are alternately thin and shouty
Treble is overextended in some tracks and sibilant notes are heard
No balanced cable in the box
So the Meze 99 Classics V2 are here for review. I thank Meze for including me in their India tour and making this review possible. My impressions as always are mine.
I’ll have to admit I’ve always been an IEM sort of person but over the past few decades I’ve owned a few headphones that I’ve enjoyed. A Koss, the famed ATHM50x, an Edition XS, and most recently an Arya Stealth, and an equally famed HD600. But for this review instead of doing the whole apple and oranges thing, I have borrowed a 99 Classics V1 to compare the new kid on the block with.
Looks and boxes
The V2 like it’s sibling comes in a nice box within which is a carry case and furthermore a little pouch with a cable, a usb-c DAC and a 3.5 to 6.3 convertor and it’s all held together with a bit of velcro that also sticks to the little felt pouch/case that it comes in. The cable is supple and Kevlar coated and feels more premium and less tangle-prone than the older V1’s cable. Visually the two are identical and are up there in the list of beautifully crafted devices. A black leather headband with a black stainless steel frame that self adjusts (!). There are brass accents and the cups are walnut wood and like all things wood, no two are the same due to the grain. The finish is not shiny but smooth and natural to touch. The V2 has some changes from its predecessor – larger cups, a more responsive suspension, wider 3.5 ports, a bass relief port adjacent to them with the same brass accents. Just off the bat, the V2 is more comfortable to wear than the V1. The pads are larger, softer and sit better over my head, with or without spectacles. The headphone is comfortable with an acceptable clamping force on my head, but a bigger headed human may feel differently. To me it felt just a tad tighter than the HD600 and the Arya was much more comfortable. It could also be the size of the ear cups. The better fit also leads to better isolation and the outside sounds do not enter and the inside sounds dont leak out. The box also comes with pads that apparently change the tuning but we’ll get to that.
Technically the V1 and V2 use the same 40mm DD but the V2 is tuned very differently and has a lower impedance of 16 ohms. Which means it’s really easy to drive. For this review it was tested on the VE Prime Stack, Fiio M33 and the stock dongle as well.
Bass
The first thing that hits the noticeable reduction in bass when compared to the V1. On ‘Doing It Right’ by Daft Punk, the sub-bass feels insipid and has a rapid decay that just doesn’t go much further into the brain than the middle ear. Kicks and Bass are recessed just a bit and feel like they could do with a little upliftment. The entire low end has been redone to sound more balanced but it sounds like it’s almost there but lacking, a look but don’t taste level of tantalizing but not in a good way. On busy tracks like ‘Dance of Eternity’ and ‘New Millenium’ by Dream Theater, the double bass drum that forms an undeniable part of what Mike Portnoy is to Dream Theater is represented fairly well with no muddle and the kicks are clean and well heard but leaves the avid listener wanting just a little more weight. Same with Victor Wooten’s bass on ‘Big Country’ and ‘Flight of the Cosmic Hippo’ by Bela Fleck and the Flecktones, the reproduction is spot on but not all there. It’s articulate but thinner in substance. The bass and kick drums are well separated, however, and if that was Meze’s intention in the new tuning, they may have gotten that spot on. But that has come at the cost of an enjoyable listen.
Mids
On ‘Helplessly Hoping’ by Girl Named Tom, the acoustic guitar notes are clean and attack and decay well but could do with a little reverb, and yes you have to let it linger. Male vocals are well represented with the lower tenor registers showing a natural timbre and decent weight even without a bass spillover into these frequencies. Hozier’s voice on ‘Take Me To Church’, starts beautifully and a little boost on volume helps it along but as he gets into the meat of the song there is definitely a shoutiness and sibilance that comes in the upper mids that make it hard to listen to the song. On ‘Diamonds on the soles of her shoes’, by Paul Simon, the entire intro by Ladysmith Black Mambazo is fluid and sounds near perfect but the entire upper midrange suffers from poor timbre and sibilance. Tracy Chapman’s voice feels thin and definitely shouty. Overall, the V1, honestly, is more listenable in these registers.
Treble
Details are fairly well represented but there are definitely peaks in the upper registers that make me wince but I am more treble sensitive than most. On a frequency sweep I found peaks in the vicinity of 2, 4 and 8 kilohertz that had me gnashing my teeth a little more than usual. Again this doesn’t work well with pop from the ‘90s (Spice Girls and Janet) but tracks like ‘Got A Match’ by the Chick Corea Electrik Band do reasonably well since most of the meat of the song is the low end. I personally prefer the tuning of the V1 since most of the annoying peaks that irk me were veiled and now that little comfort has been lifted. That being said, this set is comfortable for long enough that at least half my test playlist went past with me not feeling any discomfort.
Staging, imaging and resolution
The V2 definitely has excellent detail retrieval and every instrument has its place even on jam packed tracks like orchestral music and jazz fusion like Snarky Puppy. I felt the V1 and 2 have comparable staging but slightly different in interpretation. The bassier reverb sort of gives the V1 a taller, deeper stage and airer treble sort of gives the V2 a wider one. This sounds completely subjective and hey, it is. I just hope it makes sense because this sort of thing is hard to articulate on a good day. Imaging is fairly spot on with nothing overlapping or losing its position in the sound scape. The headphone really does scale well with power and the low end of at least the midrange gets a little more weight and character. Which brings me to the last gripe – why no balanced cable Meze?
Oh and included are foam inserts that can be installed behind the earpads to tame some of the sound issues. Fitwise, installing them reduces the space available for the pinnae so I can feel the inner membrane of the earpads. I think there is some 10% improvement in the high mids and treble. It tames the 2kHz annoyance and maybe moves the 4 and 8 to an in between 6kHz annoyance. A marginal improvement in the shoutiness of vocals but alas nothing with the bass.
Go for this if the aesthetic works, if you don’t mind this kind of tuning which is maybe somewhere between fun and analytical and not quite either. The “acoustic absorbers” help but only to some extent. It is hard for me to recommend this and to be fair the OG V1 is a lot more fun to listen to albeit lacking in the detail that the V2 delivers.