12 Classics
As the name strongly implies, Meze Audio masters in creating classic pieces of art. In the audio world, almost everybody is knowledgeable of Sony, Bose, Philips or Audeze and their great-sounding headphones, yet no big company is as mindful to details and quality of workmanship as Meze Audio is, and they proceed to persist with this tradition without jeopardizing an unforgettable audio experience you can only attain from masterfully engineered high-end headphones.
If you’re the type of person who craves the convenience of earphones, yet desire elegance and lavish craftsmanship of a product that also doesn’t fail to deliver vibrant and rich content, Meze 12 Classics are the perfect example that would suit your style.
The Romanian company hasn’t gone for an extravagant look with the 12 Classics, but they’re nonetheless very classy and refined. As far as design goes, the sound is on par with the exceptional manufacturing.
The earphones retain a select sound quality, energetic on the low end and up front but sparkly mid frequencies that carry some weight building a pronounced upper mid which eventually chills out into the high-mids and brilliance. If the vocals ensure your pleasure of listening to music the most, you might enjoy the sharp and pronounced vocals of the 12 Classics.
1. Overview | 2. Product Review | 3. Advantages & Disadvantages | 4. Conclusion
Overview
12 Classics is a delicately conceived elegant wooden earphones that pack the stunning sound of which the voices of your beloved music artists can entertain your ears the best. The in-ears are part of an array of stylish headphones within reach of most consumers and provide a high-quality stereophony
Key Features
- Good and in my opinion very neutral sound
- Large frequency spectrum range
- Valuable processing
- Very good price / performance ratio
Meze 12 Classics Review
The Meze Audio 12 Classics adopts a resolute, but compelling appearence that has no flaws build-wise. It’s obvious the company did not restrain from using high-quality materials and components while maintaining a lightweight package; the housing made primarily of metal and the wooden part suffice the commonly used plastic found in second-rate earphones that are found even at higher price then 12 Classics. Likewise the main framework, the braided cable is rather bulky and contains oxygen-free copper wire with high conductivity enveloped in a layer of rigid plastic.
Everything appears of high caliber, and the comfort isn’t missing at all. The cable itself looks solid and firm as well as the straight 3.5 mm plug doesn’t capitulate being protected by a metallic sheath, the in-line control is also very intuitive and sturdy, and in-line with the character of the whole package. All-around, the earphones central control unit and both ends of the cable are shielded with a metalized shell that increases the sustainability, making them more reliable in the course of time.
Details
Brand
Meze Audio
Model
12 Classics
Specialization
Casual listening
Package
Hard case, Shirt clip, 4 Sets of silicone ear-tips, 1 Set of Comply ear-tips
The subtle slopes and ingenious shape allows for a better fit into ears and make it into a high level of comfort and coziness. Only after a bit of time, I observed the absence of volume control as I usually don’t use it and consider it relatively less practical, but that’s just me.
Having stated the volume issue, we may as well jump into the sound performance to help you decide whether or not these pleasantly aesthetic looking wooden in-ears possess a sound worthy of your attention.
The bass develops quite nicely from the deep-bass and keeps its well rounded, warm sound signature until the entrance of mid frequencies. Although they aren’t as protrusive and detailed as the middle section, they also don’t lack power, but this area is a bit darker. The situation changes past the 1 kHz mark, with an ascension going as high as 10 dB. The sound signature isn’t neutral and analytical at all and neither flat or tight, but rather sharp and colored with variations in tonality that also changes depending on which ear tip you use. It could be best to clarify and expand more onto the mid-range as my previous description of “sparkly, sharp and pronounced” might scare some people off.
The mids do indeed have more personality, they carry a higher sense of clarity and presence into the sonic spectrum that isn’t overwhelming the music with fuzzy sounds, or an irritating blend of aggressive tones. More precisely, the female voices, guitars, violins and other musical instruments in this range will sound more transparent and slightly impactful.
In the end, the treble is the area where I think Meze Audio 12 Classics lacks some presence between 15 and 20 kHz; the quantity isn’t high, but in contrast to the rest of the spectrum the significant difference is felt.
Advantages & Disadvantages of Meze 12 Classics
One of the most significant qualities of these classy Meze Audio in-ear headphones is the build quality, followed swiftly by dynamic stereophonic processing and lastly the features it provides, which aren’t too many.
It does have a beautiful, robust build and microphone that works in good order, two sets of different ear tips that provide a bit of versatility, using the memory foam tips you can enhance your experience with better isolation and less sound leaking, resulting in a slight uptick in the high-mids and decrease in the treble.
The vocals are forward and pleasantly exalted, while the bass is glorious and uplifted a bit as well. After reviewing Jays q-Jays V2.0 a few days earlier, I currently consider that having complete compatibility with all devices is also a nice add-on 12 Classics is to be appreciated.
- Energetic rendering & Excellent sound presence
- Imperative build quality & Finesse
- Compatible with any device
- Microphone & Decent sound isolation
- Mids are sligtly highlighted
Conclusion
The thing about headphones is that we all buy them to get one of the most beautiful audio experience every time we play the play button. More than just a few times, 12 Classics made me feel excited to play a whole album of favorite songs as if each one sounded like a brand new song, but still the same. Replaying most of the songs I liked offered me an entirely new different experience, a refined one.
In the end, having a classic pair of earphones that I was as impressed and intrigued by their construction, design and the way they felt at the touch as I was of their intensified sound was a distinctive perspective I never had. I highly believe that if you care about the physicality of your devices and the quality of manufacturing as much as you care about the stereophonic reproduction, you should get these since there aren’t numerous options as distinguishing and high-graded in this price area as Meze’s 12 Classics
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