Meze Audio 105 Silva Review

Design

• Steel and walnut elements
• Self-adjusting ‘comfort’ strap
• Will not suit small-headed listeners

The Meze Audio design vocabulary where its more affordable hard-wired, open-backed, over-ear headphones are concerned was established a while back – and the 105 SILVA adhere to it pretty closely.

So the frame consists of a large, circular band of bifurcated steel with a self-adjusting, judiciously padded ‘comfort’ strap as the contact point. The earpads are rather more generously padded, and covered in a soft, synthetic material that’s much more efficient at keeping your ears cool than the more common pleather alternative.

Those blessed with a smaller-than-average head will find the 105 SILVA rather too large, I think – and those with a head of suitable dimensions will find these headphones make it look larger than it is.

The outside of the earcups features a beautifully applied quantity of walnut around the edge of, and dividing the lower portion of, a plastic covering that features a pleasant ‘radial’ design. I tend to associate Meze Audio design with a ‘more is more’ ethos, and the relative understatement of the 105 SILVA makes them, to my eyes at least, more sophisticated and coherent than is the case with the brand’s other headphones.

The standard of build and finish is very good, and the comfort quotient is high too (provided the headphones fit you in the first place). The 105 SILVA weigh 354g without their cable, but the design ensures they don’t feel like it. And as with other Meze Audio designs, every component of the 105 SILVA can be removed, renewed and/or replaced – but is good news where sustainability and longevity are concerned.

Specification

• 50mm dynamic drivers
• 5Hz – 30kHz frequency response
• Cable with 3.5mm / 6.3mm termination

The 105 SILVA are fitted with what seems very much like the same driver arrangement as their more affordable 105 AER siblings. Specifically, a pair of 50mm dynamic drivers with a cellulose composite dome, titanium-covered surround, titanium-coated semicrystalline polymer torus and copper/zinc stabiliser.

It’s an arrangement, says Meze Audio, that means the driver offers outstanding rigidity and strength – which in turn leads to vivid transient response, super-low distortion and an overall frequency response of 5Hz – 30kHz.

The company wants to combine the genre-agnostic character of the 105 AER with the attention to detail of the pricier 109 PRO, while giving the 105 SILVA a slightly more midrange-centric character that can quite often come along with the judicious use of wood in the construction.  

Each earcup must be wired, and Meze Audio supplies the appropriate cable in the nice zip-fastening case the 105 SILVA travel in – there’s a 6.3mm adapter in there too. Hands up who thinks spending this sort of money should guarantee the supply of a balanced cable too? Yes, me too – but it’s a cost option.

Sound Quality

• Spacious, organised presentation
• Sound is detailed and dynamic in fairly equal measure
• Lovely tonal balance

Your expensive headphones deserve to be attached to an expensive source of music playing some expensive content, right? So I spend the majority of my time with the 105 SILVA listening to hi-res digital audio files via a FiiO M15S digital audio player. And it turns out to be no kind of hardship whatsoever.

Or, at least, it’s not as long as I sit reasonably still. The cable Meze Audio supplies to connect the headphones to a source of music is quite willing to transmit noise – if it bumps against you, or you tap against it, you can be sure this noise will travel to the headphones. A nice, restful posture and no fidgeting would seem to be in order.

After this, there’s really nothing of any note to complain about. Whether playing a DSD64 file of Michael Jackson’s Off the Wall or a 24-bit/48kHz FLAC file of Cate Le Bon’s Mug Museum, the 105 SILVA prove insightful, entertaining company that can turn their hand, sonically speaking, to pretty much anything.

Their tonal balance is quite carefully neutral, so it’s the flavour of the recording, rather than of the headphones, that comes through. Their frequency response, from the top of the range to the bottom, is even and consistent. And the soundstage they can create is wide-open, rigorously controlled and defined, and absolutely convincing.

They can open up a recording without making it sound remote or dislocated, and they pay as much attention to the absences and spaces on the stage as they do the occurrences – and they unify those occurrences into a convincing whole. The sense of togetherness and singularity the 105 SILVA can create is straightforwardly impressive.

At every stage, they retain and reveal a great deal of detail, whether it’s the most minor, fleeting events in the mix or the dynamic fluctuations of harmonics in a voice or an instrument. The broader quiet/LOUD dynamics of volume and intensity are fully represented too – and the Meze Audio can do this without sounding in any way pressured or stressed.

The bottom of the frequency range is deep and textured, with plenty of substance and such straight-edged attack at the onset of bass sounds that rhythmic expression is direct and confident.

The opposite end attacks with similar determination – and the fact that treble sounds are similarly substantial prevents their significant shine and bite from tipping over into hardness or brightness. And in between, the 105 SILVA communicate the midrange with such positivity that the nuance of attitude and emotional state in a voice come across just as readily as the details of tone and technique.

Should you buy it?