Meze Audio celebrates 10 years with limited-edition Empyrean Headphones

Phoenix
(Image credit: Meze)

Boutique headphone manufacturer Meze Audio is marking a decade of operation by releasing a limited run of their flagship Empyrean over-ear headphones. 

The new Art Gallery Empyrean Phoenix headphones will be restricted to just 100 products worldwide, each with a unique serial number and CNC sculpted aluminium chassis, and hand-painted with a flame-inspired red and black design.

The fiery headphones also employ Meze's patented isodynamic array drivers using technology allegedly acquired by Soviet spies during the Cold War. Whereas conventional headphone drivers have a movable diaphragm and a central electromagnetic coil, here the diaphragm is suspended between two coils that vibrate independently as the electrical current flows. But does it help the headphones sound better? Meze Audio certainly thinks so.

Each pair of Art Gallery Empyrean Phoenix headphones will cost £2900 ($4000, AU$6000) and ship with two sets of earpads - leather and Alcantara - and the option to upgrade to a High-Purity Oxygen-Free Copper cable of your choice. 

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Mary is a staff writer at What Hi-Fi? and has over a decade of experience working as a sound engineer mixing live events, music and theatre. Her mixing credits include productions at The National Theatre and in the West End, as well as original musicals composed by Mark Knopfler, Tori Amos, Guy Chambers, Howard Goodall and Dan Gillespie Sells.