The Meze Audio STRADA are closed-back audiophile headphones built to carry reference sound beyond the listening room. The name is Romanian for street — a quiet manifesto from a company convinced that serious sound should travel. Around a driver inherited from the acclaimed 109 PRO, the Meze STRADA gather Macassar ebony, hand-painted magnesium and a sealed acoustic chamber into a design as much at home above the clouds as beside a valve amplifier at midnight.
A Driver Descended from the 109 PRO
Meze Audio could have commissioned a new driver for a new chapter. Instead, the engineering team returned to the 50 mm dynamic unit that made the open-back 109 PRO a modern reference and asked a harder question: how does that transparency survive inside a sealed chamber? The answer lies in re-tuning rather than reinvention. A W-shaped dome of carbon-fibre-reinforced cellulose composite keeps the moving mass stiff yet light; a torus of semicrystalline polymer wears a beryllium coating applied by physical vapour deposition, scored with grooves set at precisely 45.5 degrees; a copper-zinc alloy stabiliser holds the geometry true. Frequency response stretches from 5 Hz to 30 kHz, with distortion held below 0.1 per cent at 1 kHz — figures quoted quietly, because the result is heard rather than read.
Carved in Ebony, Cast in Magnesium
Macassar ebony forms the ear cups — a dense, figured hardwood chosen as much for acoustic character as for beauty, with no two pairs sharing the same grain. The surrounding frame is cast in magnesium, light enough for all-day wear and rigid enough to hold the acoustic chamber inert. Meze Audio finishes the metalwork by hand in a deep green laced with metallic particles, built up across four coats — a colour that shifts as light moves across the surface. The chassis geometry descends from the LIRIC, refined here for a new purpose.
Comfort Measured in Hours
Numbers describe comfort poorly, but 330 grams is a good place to begin — remarkably little for headphones carrying real timber. Memory-foam ear pads meet the skin through supple PU leather, while Alcantara lines the inner chambers to soften reflections close to the ear; magnets hold each pad in place, so renewal takes seconds rather than a service visit. Above, a soft-padded headband with a symmetrical cross pattern spreads the load, and the adjustment rods glide without clicks or notches — a fit found by feel rather than by increments. Long-haul flights and long albums pass without announcement.
The Meze STRADA, Sealed for the World Outside
Closed-back headphones make a simple promise: music stays in, the world stays out. The Meze STRADA honour that promise with a fully sealed chamber that softens carriages, cabins and open-plan offices, while keeping late-night sessions private. Electrically, the design asks little — 40 ohms impedance and a sensitivity of 111 dB SPL/mW mean a phone, laptop or portable player will drive the STRADA with ease, and a dedicated desktop source rewards with further refinement. Cables detach via a 3.5 mm TS jack at each ear cup, packing flat and replacing in moments. Few audiophile headphones move between worlds so willingly.
From Baia Mare, With Intent
Every pair is designed and made in Baia Mare, Romania — the town where Antonio Meze founded the company, and where the STRADA are built today. The name promises the street; the construction promises years. To hear how much of the listening room the Meze STRADA can carry outside, arrange an audition or speak with our specialists — the conversation is where every good system begins.
About Meze
Meze Audio began in 2011 in Baia Mare, Romania, where industrial designer Antonio Meze set out to build headphones worth keeping — objects of wood, metal and leather, engineered to be serviced rather than replaced. The 99 Classics carried that philosophy to a worldwide audience; the Empyrean and Elite flagships proved a small Romanian house could sit at the summit of personal audio; the 109 PRO distilled the same values into a dynamic-driver reference. Design longevity remains the thread: replaceable parts, honest materials, nothing disposable. The Meze STRADA extend that promise beyond the listening room.
