Meze RAI Solo review

Meze Audio is a great indicator that unusual and original headphones made with the soul will always find a buyer. The beginning of life for this Romanian company was quite standard, but everything changed with the release of the Meze 99 Classic: a full-size model that greatly changed the market for medium-budget headphones. Good body, great sound with profitable, unusual tuning — and all for a little money.

Of course, they found a lot of buyers, and the company started the next product: the flagship full-size headphones Meze Empyrean, which gathered all the experience of the company: perhaps the best design among the headphones and the sound, which was also put by many, if not in the first place, then among the candidates for it.

Definitely, company is famous for full-size headphones, but today we will talk about the other side of the company, in-ear headphones and their first and initial model, RAI Solo.

Package

RAI Solo are delivered in a branded black box of medium size made of a dense black polymer material. One of the features is a galographic sticker that confirms the originality of the product.

In the box, in addition to the cable, there is a hard, covered with artificial leather case with a metal logo.

Along with the headphones comes a set of replaceable ear pads made of soft silicone: a total of 8 pairs of different sizes and types.

Package include: 1.3m MMCX braided cables made of silver plated copper custom wires ending in high quality 3.5mm, hard Case: protective EVA case with Meze Audio metal logo, 3 pairs of soft silicone eartips S, M, L, 3 double flanged eartips S, M, L, 2 deep insertion double flanged eartips M, L.

Design

Headphones body from Meze is one of the main themes for the love of the company: the legendary 99 classics with wooden cups, the flagship Empyrean — all models of the Romanian manufacturer had a great design. And even if there is less space for creativity in intra-channel earphones, the Rai solo still turned out to be very interesting: the metal body of a complex shape, incredibly pleasant to the touch and surprisingly ergonomic. You will immediately notice the pleasant tangible weight of the metal body in contrast to any other earphones, which gives a special charm and solidity to Rai solo.

But the design is not only about appearance, but also about usability. The model is held in the ear with the entire body, reminding this approach of something custom made, but the versatility does not suffer, it suited even owners of very small ears. But here’s what the model did not adopt from custom made – soundproofing, it will be enough for ordinary streets, but for metro, planes or just very noisy rooms — no, “thanks” to the large compensation holes.

The cable is perhaps the only thing done just fine, but not great, even if it remains a very good stock option. The main point here is a completely authentic conductor from a twenty-core silver-plated copper litz, the accessories also do not raise questions.

We can find fault here about the lack of the ability to choose a plug on a complete cable, but in practice, this is the norm for the market. By the way, you can buy a separate upgrade cable for any model of Meze headphones in their official store.

Sound

If we talk about sound tuning, Meze chose a comfortable, slightly darkened and very musical presentation. On the other hand, the frequency response of headphones does not have obvious peaks — as it should be in the Top segment. Let’s take a closer look at each range.

Low frequencies

Are slightly emphasized, but not by quantity, but by weight — thanks to a good dynamic driver, they go far down, and the instruments play out very naturally. The attenuation is a little longer than it could be in comparison with armature drivers, this is the advantage of a dynamic driver — more details, great study of natural instruments will never be superfluous. As everyone has already understood, the model is clearly not suitable for fans of low frequencies.

Mid frequencies

Also do not strive for monitorability: while preserving detail and transparency, they do not try to show all the disadvantages of the recording as much as possible how to convey emotions. And they succeed – the vocals and live instruments sound very lively, with a good body. Female vocals sound especially lively on them – headphones were literally created for vocal and instrumental genres and this is felt. We don’t even talk about the width and depth of the stage, this is really done at the height.

High frequencies

Perhaps this is something that you can scold at least somehow, but here you can also see the consequences of that very comfortable tuning: while maintaining excellent speed, separation and the amount of air, Rai Solo simplify the very top of the treble a bit, thereby slightly reducing recording requirements and increasing the maximum time listening. Not everyone will like this simplification, but here everyone has to choose for himself: maximum audiophilia or comfort.

Conclusion

Meze again proved the high level of their brand, many years of work are more noticeable than ever, and we has seen another great earphones. Our main association with Rai Solo is comfort: both in design and sound. Rai Solo is made for people who understand the sound and likes to enjoy this, and they are made the same advanced professionals, which can not but please.

We would like to emphasize the high-tech body, as well as the sound tuning, and it is difficult to imagine how Meze managed to combine both of these points so organically. Definitely, we have a product of very high quality with an appropriate price, which is sure to find its buyer. “Our choice”.

Specification

Driver: 9.2mm UPM dynamic driver
Diaphragm thickness: 9µm
Impedance: 16 Ohm
SPL: 105±3dB at 1mW/1kHz
Frequency response: 18Hz – 22kHz
Distortion: <1% at 1mW/1kHz
Stock cables: MMCX connector ending in 3.5mm
Warranty period: 2 years

Official site: mezeaudio.com