Price: 119/129€
Where to buy: https://mezeaudio.com/products/99-series-silver-plated-upgrade-cables?variant=31315944669241
Specifications:
Braided cables made of silver-plated copper custom wires
8 wire to 4 wire continuous braid
2 x 3.5mm TS connection
1.2 m (3.9 ft) long
Unboxing and first impressions
Meze always cares a lot about their products’ presentations. This cable comes in a small, yet really elegant black box with silver engravings. There’s a fake leather pouch that contains the cable, tied with a Meze branded Velcro strap. Nothing more.
This cable reminds me of the upgraded 2019 Tin HiFi T2 one: the cores are pretty small, but there are a lot, which braided together have a similar feel to tissue. The build is fantastic, I have no complaints about it. The connectors are solid and the overall product is absolutely premium. The R and L indicator are clearly visible – considering that it’s printed on the jacks, which are small.
My variant is 4.4 Pentaconn gold plated – while the other two options are rhodium plated (2.5 and 3.5 mm). The jacks are obviously two mono 3.5 mm ones which inserts in your 99 Classic, Neo or Noir. Here’s the thing: these are beloved headphones. It is an easy sound, on the warm side, and it matches with pretty much every genre. You want to get the best out of them. Usually, the best thing to achieve this for audio gear is going balanced. Meze already had in their line-up some balanced cables, but they weren’t so attractive. I’m glad that they released this new silver model. You still can get it single-ended, but I don’t think it’s worth it. The 99 series headphones already have two single-ended cables included, so it would be a waste to get a third one. Not only because it’s redundant, but because going balanced with the 99s is a wonderful choice.
Sound
What I’ve used to test: iFi Zen DAC (balanced and unbalanced) and Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 (unbalanced); to adapt the 4.4mm of the cable to the 3.5mm gear I have (TOPPING NX4, too), I’ve used a DDHiFi hammer adapter.
As I’ve said in the Ares Audio Sakeishi review (here), trying cables isn’t easy. There are a lot of false beliefs around cables and I don’t want to feed unscientific claims. I will say this: after trying the 99 Classics with this upgrade cable, I felt I couldn’t listen to them in any other way. I personally attribute this to the fact of going balanced, because I tested the same cable, with the same DAC, by its unbalanced output (by using Meze’s quarter inch to 3.5mm, attached to DDHiFi’s DJ44C 3.5 to 4.4mm) and some advantages disappeared. What am I talking about?
First of all: volume. Going balanced let me have a huge amount of volume more than going unbalanced. Second: eventual static noises are gone due to a better grounding. My gear often suffer of that while powered by my MacBook Pro (my Scarlett 2i2, my XDUOO XP-2, …). This didn’t affect me by using them unbalanced by the Zen DAC (even though the volume was lower) but switching to the Focusrite 2i2 caused me some of these interferences. I feel it’s important to say that the original cables didn’t suffer of microphonics and neither does this. Obviously, with the long provided cable and with this upgrade one, you don’t have the possibility of using the microphone – which is average and its volume is pretty low -; I don’t use these headphones with my phone so that really doesn’t bother me anyway.
Thanks to the combo “balanced + upgrade cable”, the moment I’ve listened to The Weeknd for the first time with this setup has been magical. The 99 punched like never before, with a control I’d thought possible only by changing the pads. I won’t say “the soundstage got wider” or similar things, but believe me: everything has changed for the better. Your 99 are the same 99 as always, after taking magnesium and potassium. More energetic. More vivid. More controlled. If you have a 99 series headphone, going balanced is a must. So, do yourself a favor: if you have a small budget, consider a cheaper 99 earphone (like the Drop Noir) and save for this cable.
Conclusions
I love this upgrade cable. It doesn’t tangle, it feels premium and it lets me take advantage of the full balanced circuitry of my DAC, enhancing the qualities of my Meze 99 Classics. It is not cheap, but I feel it’s worth it. My concern is just one: it would be nice to add a XLR version for higher quality balanced DAC/Amps and maybe even a quarter inch version – just for a complete line-up. I really appreciate this 4.4 mm version, that’s for sure.