Meze Audio Strada review: refreshingly closed-back over-ears that offer a beautifully wide soundstage — but are quite wide literally

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Meze Audio Strada: Two-minute review

Visually, the Meze Audio Strada are more than a little reminiscent of the company’s much more expensive Liric II planar magnetic over-ear headphones. In terms of the most important technical aspects, they share quite a bit with the brand’s 109 Pro open-back model. But despite all this apparent cross-pollination, the closed-back, dynamic driver-toting Strada manage to be a distinct and individual proposition. And not only because they’re only available in a combination of ebony hardwood and a delightfully deep, slightly metallic green.

The materials that have been deployed — magnesium, PU leather and memory foam as well as that good-looking quantity of Macassar wood — feel luxurious and utterly fit for purpose. The standard of build and finish cannot be argued with. It’s even possible to overlook the rather unsophisticated ‘adjustment rod’ mechanism that alters the fit — although it is not possible to overlook the fact that even at their smallest adjustment these are quite large headphones. The smaller-headed music-lover can probably stop reading now.

best wired headphones can deliver. By the standards of the closed-back configuration these headphones sound large and airy, and create a well-defined and expansive soundstage. The have plenty of dynamic headroom, great neutrality where both tonality and frequency response are concerned, a proper facility with rhythmic expression thanks to excellent control over the deep and textured low frequencies they generate, and an overall sense of refinement and sophistication that is bound to satisfy a whole lot of customers.

In fact, if they didn’t play the ‘refinement’ card quite so strongly, even when dealing with the most unrefined music, they could conceivably snatch that extra half-a-star.

Meze Audio Strada headphones with wooden ear cups, in close-up and with their case and cables visible, on a white table

(Image credit: Future / Simon Lucas)

Meze Audio Strada review: Price & release date

Released January 21, 2026
Priced $799 / £799 / AUS1,499

The Meze Audio Strada (stylised to ‘STRADA’ in the company’s marketing materials) are on sale now, and in the United States they sell for $799 per pair. They’re £799 in the United Kingdom, and AU$1,499 in Australia. Which means they have so very stiff competition, from both inside and outside their parent company, to overcome if they’re going to be a hit…

Meze Audio Strada headphones with wooden ear cups, in close-up and with their case and cables visible, on a white table — (Image credit: Future / Simon Lucas)

Meze Audio Strada review: Features

50mm dynamic drivers
5Hz – 30kHz frequency response
111dB sensitivity

There are very few pairs of passive headphones that have a long list of features, and the Meze Audio Strada are not among them. The one significant feature they do have, though, has quite obviously come in for an awful lot of attention.

The 50mm dynamic drivers Meze Audio has used here are derived from the drivers fitted to the company’s open-back 109 PRO model — but naturally it’s been finessed in order to suit its new closed-back environment.

So each driver features a ‘W’-shaped dome made from carbon fibre-reinforced cellulose composite — it’s a combination that offers light weight and durability, and is designed to reject most of the resonances that can cause audible distortion. The torus surrounding the dome is made of semicrystalline polymer that’s been beryllium-coated; the coating adds to the durability of the component, and because it adds stiffness without any knock-on effects where weight is concerned it doesn’t hamper transient response. The torus also features some grooves positioned at carefully calculated angles to further boost its effectiveness. And there’s a copper-zinc alloy stabiliser surrounding the membrane that absorbs unwanted vibrations and reduces distortion yet further.

This painstaking arrangement results in a frequency response, says Meze Audio, of 5Hz – 30kHz, which in real terms means ‘staggeringly deep’ to ‘inaudibly high’. The 4ohms impedance measurement is nothing to be alarmed by, but a sensitivity rating of 111dB (SPL/mW @ 1kHz) seems to suggest a fairly powerful DAC or digital audio player will be required to get the best out of these headphones.

Meze Audio Strada review: Sound quality

Spacious, organised and detailed sound
Seem comfortable with pretty much any style of music
Could conceivably sound a little more demonstrative

If you’ve read the words ‘closed-back’ during the course of this review and have assumed the Strada are going to sound intimate, direct and quite, well, closed then I can’t really blame you — that’s how the vast majority of closed-back headphones sound, after all. But what’s most immediately striking about these Meze Audio is how open and spacious their presentation is. They can do ‘direct’ and ‘conspiratorial’, sure — a listen to a nice big FLAC file of Elliott Smith’s Between the Bars lets you know they can communicate on a very one-to-one basis. But switch up to Shabaka’s Ol’ Time African Gods as a 24bit/48kHz file and it quickly becomes apparent the Strada create a big, well-organised and airy soundstage on which pretty much any recording gets the space to stretch out and express itself.

Tonally, the Meze Audio are almost entirely neutral from the top of the frequency range to the bottom. There’s the tiniest suggestion of heat at the lowest frequencies, but it’s not even close to making you want to take your pullover off. And the frequency response they muster is similarly even-handed — though they dig very deep into the lowest frequencies, and have great shine and a polite amount of shine at the opposite end, they neither under- nor overstate any particular area of the range. And in between those two extremes, they communicate in the most unequivocal manner — listen again to that Elliott Smith tune and the eloquence of his voice in unarguable.

These headphones seem able to turn their hand to pretty much any type of music, too. They have the sort of dynamic reach to put huge distance between the quietest and the most intense passage of Bernstein’s rampage through Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, they are deft enough to tease out the harmonic over- and undertones that exist within the squeal and grind of The Stooges’ I Wanna Be Your Dog, they have the power and the facility with rhythmic expression to make the heavily sedated skank of Dr Alimantado’s Best Dressed Chicken in Town roll by in the most natural and convincing manner.

Really, about the only meaningful criticism I can level at the Strada is not so much about the nuts and bolts of music reproduction but more about attitude. There’s a slightly self-conscious sense of refinement to these Meze Audio headphones, a grown-up and unflappable character that’s very pleasant and welcome right until the moment that it isn’t. If there’s energy in a recording, the STRADA do more than just allude to it, but at the same time, they seem unwilling or unable to properly sink their teeth in. I get the impression they think this sort of behaviour is both juvenile and a bit beneath them — if they could sound a little more demonstrative when it’s absolutely crucial, they’d be holding all the cards.

Sound quality score: 4.5 / 5

Meze Audio Strada review: Design

Macassar hardwood ear cups
Magnesium frame
PU leather ear pads attach magnetically

The Strada are, at a glance, a dead ringer for Meze Audio’s (much more expensive) Liric II over-ear model. The fact the pricier headphones use planar magnetic technology to produce sound, rather than the dynamic drivers that are fitted here, goes a long way to explaining the price difference — certainly there’s nothing about the way the Strada are designed, built or finished that suggests penny-pinching.

The magnesium frame contributes towards a very acceptable 300g weight (without cables attached), and the carefully considered hanger arrangement and clamping force also helps the comfort quotient. Or, at least, it does if you’re not one of the smaller-headed among us — the Strada, like almost every pair of Meze Audio headphones I’ve encountered, are large.

The rather prosaic ‘adjustment rod’ mechanism that alters the fit of the headphones allows the size to run from ‘quite large’ to ‘very large indeed’.

As well as being quite large, these headphones are quite wide — and the generous nature of the PU leather-covered memory foam earpads makes them larger still. Happily, the broad headband (which is covered on the outside with more PU leather) is much more judiciously padded on its fabric-covered inside, and the layout of the padding allows air to flow and prevents your head from warming up too quickly.

The outside of the ear cups are, just as with the Liric II, made from some handsome and actually quite tactile Macassar ebony hardwood. The lustre of the wood contrasts nicely with the colour of the frame — it’s a mildly metallic variation on British Racing Green, it’s applied by hand (all four coats of it) and it’s your only option when it comes to the colour of the Strada.

The headphones arrive in a fairly large, rigid EVA travel case, and there’s a little pouch inside containing two 1.8m lengths of braided Kevlar OFC cable. Each has two 3.5mm terminations at one end (both Strada earcups must be wired), and at the other end there’s either a single-ended 3.5mm connection or a 4.4mm Pentacon alternative. Plug in both ear cups, plug the other end of your preferred cable into your source of music, and away you go.

Meze Audio Strada review: Value

Aesthetically very similar to much pricier Meze Audio cans
…and luckily, they sound very good too

If you’re judging purely on looks, it’s hard to argue against the value that’s on offer here — after all, the $799 / £799 Strada look very, very similar indeed to the $2,000 / £1899 Liric II. If you’re judging on engineering prowess and integrity of construction, it’s similarly tricky to suggest the Strada don’t represent value. And then when you consider the sound quality that these headphones are able to serve up, their case becomes even more watertight.

Should I buy the Meze Audio Strada?

Swipe to scroll horizontally

Section	Notes	Score
Features	Two cable options in 1.8m, lovely build and finish	4.5/5
Sound quality	Detailed and beautifully accurate, just erring half a star over on ‘refinement’	4.5/5
Design	The only issue here is, they’re a touch large for some heads	4.5 / 5
Value	They look much more expensive than they are (similar to a lot of other Meze cans that actually are)	4.5/5

Grado Hemp — great sound, interesting materials and a decent saving over the Strada, but hardly the last word in luxury.

If closed-back is your thing, though, then the Audio Technica ATH-W1000 (for a little less money than the Meze Audio) and the Audeze LCD-2 (for more-or-less the same price) should be on your radar.

Meze Audio Strada headphones with wooden ear cups, in close-up and with their case and cables visible, on a white table

(Image credit: Future / Simon Lucas)

iFi iDSD Diablo 2 headphone amp/DAC that’s hooked to an Apple MacBook Pro via USB-C. Additionally, I connect them to the 6.3mm headphones socket of an Eversolo DAC-Z10 pre-amp/DAC (using a 6.3mm adapter on the 3.5mm cable) — this way I get to hear music delivered by a Technics SL-1300G turntable, a Rega Apollo CD player, and an Arcam ST25 network streamer.

Meze Audio Strada headphones with wooden ear cups, in close-up and with their case and cables visible, on a white table

(Image credit: Future / Simon Lucas)

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Type	Closed-back wired over-ears
Drivers	50mm dynamic
Weight	332g
Cable length	2x 1.8m
Cable terminations	3.5mm to 3.5mm; 3.5mm to 4.4mm
Frequency response	5Hz – 30kHz frequency response

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