Meze 109 Pro – A Beautiful, Balanced Listen

I bought the Meze 109 Pro at the end of 2022 (on the 26th of December as a late Christmas present), it looked beautiful and I’d read good things! This review/impression is based on spending a long time with this set. It’s probably not objective in the least so be warned.

The 109 Pro is a beautiful headphone. Photos really don’t do it justice and other than a single one I’m not going to provide anymore, it’s been photographed a lot and is a great looking headphone. It’s lightweight set but feels solid, and everything is nicely put together. No creaks, no weird tolerances. Just well built.

The fit on these has always been great, no complaints at all.

I never used the stock cables on these; I bought the 3.5mm copper pcuhd to 4 pin xlr with the set and never looked back. This upgraded cable is extremely well made, sounds great with the 109 Pro, and looks as new as the day I received it. That’s a good point actually – the headphones still look nearly brand-new after two and half years of use. The pads have held up well too, they’re not at a point where I’d look at replacing them yet.

Listening Setup:

The 109 Pro has been used with my desktop setups. Primarily from my Sony TA-ZH1ES, but also from my topping A90/D90 stack for a little. The Sony is my clear preference for these, and as they are relatively easy to drive the Sony had more than enough power to get everything out of these.

More recently I picked up a Hifiman EF500 for my work desk and have been using these on that too, it also sounds great from that and only needs a slight turn on the volume knob.

I’ve listened to absolutely everything on these over the past two and half years, and it handles everything without issue.

Sound Impressions

Bass:

This is not a basshead headphone—but the bass here is very good. It’s clean, controlled, and has real texture. It’s an open back so you’re not getting rumble, but it does have a satisfying feel to it.

I’ve grown to really appreciate this kind of bass over my time with them, it’s not “look at me” but it’s always there when the music calls for it. It works perfectly with the tuning they’ve gone for, whenever I put these on it doesn’t feel like anything is missing, I just get transported to the sound scape that the artist has created and exist there for a while.

Mids:

The mids are easily the highlight for me on the 109 Pro. Vocals, acoustic instruments, strings, brass all sound effortless and right. There’s warmth and clarity without becoming thick or shouty. Male vocals sit with a nice presence, and female vocals are similarly great. Vocals have proper weight and again never really leaving me wanting more. Are they my favourite mids…? Probably not, I’m a big Sennheiser fan and the HD600 holds a special place in my musical heart (I own three sets…) however that’s more preference, objectively it’s hard to find anything wrong with these.

The space that it creates sounds realistic, it sounds lifelike, wonderful.

Treble:

Treble is clean and airy, with enough sparkle to keep things interesting but no harshness or glare. I’m moderately sensitive to treble peaks, and the 109 Pro has never crossed that line for me. It has just enough energy to bring out cymbals, plucks, and reverb trails without dominating the overall signature.

If you’re someone who wants that super crisp, edgy top-end, this may not be the set for you. But for my taste, it feels well balanced against the rest of the tuning.

Technical Performance:

Soundstage is wide but not artificially stretched. It’s an open headphone, so you do get that sense of space, but it still keeps things cohesive. Imaging is excellent—I’ve found myself following specific instruments in live recordings without even meaning to, I’ve found myself reaching for these when wanting to listen to a live recording for this reason. There’s a natural sense of positioning and depth.

Detail retrieval is strong, but again, it’s not analytical. You hear the textures, the breaths between vocal lines, the subtle decay of piano notes, but never in your face. A very balanced approach which will appeal to most.

Dynamics are also great. The 109 Pro handles subtle shifts in intensity very naturally—quiet moments are delicate, loud moments have real punch—and it all feels very fluid.

Subjective Thoughts:

This is a headphone that doesn’t try to wow you in the first 30 seconds. It’s not tuned for impact or drama. Instead, it quietly gets under your skin, session after session. And once it’s there, it stays. Since getting this headphone it hasn’t gone for a long period off my head. I always find myself coming back to these to get lost in music for a while.

I’m not a one and done individual, I’ve got over 250 sets between headphones and IEMs, however if I was the 109 Pro would be making a good case to be that set for me. It straddles the balanced approach to a headphone superbly well. The fact that I’ve had so many new sets come along in the past two and a half years and still reach for this at least once a week says a lot. I love this headphone.

Overall:

I picked them up over two and half years ago, and sat here writing these impressions I’m still delighted by the sound that they deliver. I’ve been listening to Lady Gaga’s Mayhem album as I wrote this review and I’ve just reached the last track, being ‘Die With A Smile’.

I’ll transform this line ‘If the world was ending I’d want to be next to you’ into ‘If my headphone journey was ending I’d want to be next to you’ and leave it at that.