2026 Awards – Personal Audio: Headphones

Meze Audio is not breaking new ground with the POET. Indeed, this is not its first pair of wired, open-backed over-ears that are built around a planar magnetic driver from Ukrainian manufacturer Rinaro Isodynamic. But then, does the ground need to be broken when the one it’s retreading is so lovely and picturesque in the first place? Spend time in the delightful company of the POET and you will most likely agree with reviewer Simon Lucas that it does not.

The MZ6 hybrid driver array – a refinement of the one used in Meze’s Liric 2 and Elite models – is a high-end affair. Its ‘Parus’ diaphragm, customary dual-driven voice-coil system, and carefully placed coils produce a driver assembly capable of an astonishing peak of 96kHz at one end and an equally impressive 4Hz at the other, with THD under 0.05%.

Smooth operators

There’s no doubting the quality of the materials Meze Audio uses here; the titanium alloy headband, predominantly magnesium chassis, intricately patterned steel earcups, and the magnetically attached memory foam and pleather earpads together make for an indulgent and tactile headphone that, importantly, is comfortable to wear for extended periods.

More importantly still is that the POET kick out a balanced, detailed and remarkably articulate sound characterised by a smooth frequency response and a tangible sense of cohesion.

“The Meze Audio has no apparent difficulty identifying and contextualising even the most fleeting, deeply buried events in a recording,” says Simon, who is also charmed by their expansive soundstage: “Even if a recording is filled with individual elements, there is always enough space for each one to stretch its wings.”

Reviewed in Issue 242

Meze Audio • mezeaudio.com

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It’s a relief for reviewer Martin Pipe to hear that these Hadenys share the same penchant for neutral tonality, dynamic punch and detail resolution as his beloved, seven-times-the-price Focal Utopias (even if those luxury flagships naturally pull away from the Hadenys with greater openness, spaciousness and expression). He finds that this £599 model, like the Utopias, does justice to every genre of music, their analytical detail not coming at all at the expense of musicality.

“Throbbing basslines, angular guitars, and the occasional quirky keyboard jostle for position against a furious rhythmic backdrop,” he notes while listening to The Fall’s A-Sides 1978-2016. “The Hadenys can deliver an ‘attack’ that deftly accommodates music ranging from the urgent dynamic swings of [Benjamin Britten’s] War Requiem to the percussion of fast house music,” he adds.

Perfect for long listening sessions

Basslines are deep, tuneful and articulate, and vocals natural and uncolored. Importantly for headphones at this level, their neutrality plays to the strengths of whatever is connected, whether that’s a smartphone, dedicated portable music player or a higher-end DAC/streamer. On that note, the Hadenys’ domed 40mm magnesium-aluminium alloy diaphragms are paired with voice coils that have an impedance of 26 ohms, ensuring compatibility with practically any source device.

It’s a sound you could happily listen to for hours on end, and thankfully the headphones’ comfort levels won’t stop you in that endeavour. The fit of their fabric-covered memory foam earpads is snug yet not tiring, and their modest 294g weight even makes them more comfortable for prolonged wear than the (twice as heavy) Utopias. For their price, the Hadenys chalk up more points than most.

Reviewed in Issue 240

Focal • focal.com

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The SRS-X1000 headphone (or ‘earspeaker’, to use the terminology first adopted by the company in 1960) system embodies everything that is special about Stax.

The SR-X1 ‘earspeakers’ themselves use a ‘medium-sized’ (30mm) push/pull electrostatic circular sounding body with two parallel high-precision fixed electrodes sandwiching a high-polymer film diaphragm, producing a frequency response of 7Hz-41kHz. Meanwhile, the SRM-270S driver unit that supplies the electrical impetus to them employs a low-noise FET in the first-stage amplifier, paired with a refined emitter follower circuit in the output stage.

The design of both is utilitarian and modest, the SR-X1 in particular screaming ‘old-school’ with much of their exterior made from lightweight but otherwise ordinary plastic; the rest is metal (integrated frame) and sheepskin leather and memory foam (earpads). They are one of the lightest designs reviewer Simon Lucas has ever come across.

Painstaking detail

At the rear of the SRM-270S’s aluminium chassis (which mostly acts as a heat sink) are RCA inputs and outputs – there’s no XLR input, sadly – and naturally at the front is a proprietary socket for the SR-X1’s flat, cumbersome 2.5m cable to plug into. Plugged in, with a FiiO music player and Naim streamer supplying the music, the Stax retrieve and contextualise an enormous amount of detail. “Even if you’re listening to music you know very well… the Stax system will detect some small transient event or harmonic irregularity that you weren’t previously aware of,” Simon notes.

That this level of frequency-spanning insight is presented on a neutral sonic palette that excels in rhythmic expression and organisation makes the whole listening experience thrillingly enjoyable.

Reviewed in Issue 246

Stax • staxheadphones.com

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