Meze Audio 105 Silva overview: bucolic listening headphones that provide the Romanian reply to ‘hygge’

Meze Audio 105 Silva: Two-minute overview

The Meze Audio 105 Silva are open-back headphones that don’t act like open-back headphones – and I feel I’m a fan. The place open-backs normally commerce bassy fullness for construction and measure, the 105 Silva do a bang-up job of reinforcing low-end for a gratifyingly pillowy consequence; this pillow lies beneath a few of the greatest treble efficiency I’ve heard in a mid-range pair of headphones, too, with beautifully-balanced air and a keen-yet-forgiving transient response.

These headphones excel as at-home headphones, and particularly so when you’ve a tranche of remastered jazz information to pay attention by means of. The extra brick-wall restricted a tune is, although, the much less enjoyable you’re more likely to have with these, dynamics-hungry as they’re.

The 105 Silva are additionally as gratifyingly snug as any of one of the best wired headphones, with a well-designed self-adjusting headband and a few decadent velour-enrobed ear-cushions to slide your self between. I feel Meze Audio have achieved nearly exactly that which they aimed to attain with this mid-range set, however that the slim soundstage and fluffy low finish might flip some fundamentalist open-back adherents away. Extra for me, possibly!

Meze Audio 105 Silva overview: Value and launch date

Launched July 23, 2025$499 / £469 / AU$999Meze Audio 105 Silva (Black) at Walmart for $499

Meze Audio has been mucking up the hi-fi trade since 2010, and, in my view, has performed for headphones what Professional-Ject did for turntables again within the 00s – simply see the much-pricier Meze Audio Poet for reference, at a cool $2,000 / £1,899 / AU$3,550.

And the 105 Silva are less expensive than their glorious siblings – assume high-quality European design, assembled in Europe and offered at a worth that makes you go “wait what? OK!”.

I make no try to cover my love for Meze headphones previous, be they the 99 Classics that also get use in my studio, or the ultra-high-end Poet that blew me away not too way back. The Silva sits between these two, being a mid-range pair of open-back headphones designed completely for the cosy, immersive pay attention.

The Meze Audio 105 Silva are the second pair of headphones within the 105 collection, and a transparent growth on the 105 AER that got here earlier than. Gone are the artwork deco PC-ABS earcups, changed with a fetching mid-century walnut-heavy design; gone is the shut, luxurious tuning of the 50mm dynamic drivers, changed with a brighter, broader and altogether extra ‘fidelitous’ method (if I’ll neologise).

Silva is a Romanian phrase, which means ‘forest’. Meze Audio desires you to have a look at these luxurious walnut ear cups and envision nature; to slide between these outrageously-comfortable ear pads and really feel security; to expertise the softness of its sound profile and really feel nurtured. Can such bucolic Transylvanian headphones promise such bucolic Transylvanian serenity?

Meze Audio 105 Silva overview: Options

5Hz – 30kHz frequency response42 ohms impedanceUSB-C DAC adapter

Meze Audio’s 105 Silva headphones are passive, open-back listening headphones – the perfect platform for at-home enjoyment of your eclectic report assortment, your esoteric FLAC library or your immersive audiovisual storytelling expertise. No schmancy tech gimmicks right here; simply nice sound and also you.

The 105 Silva ship that nice sound by means of some prodigiously-engineered 50mm drivers. A carbon fibre-reinforced cellulose composite dome combines sturdiness with a lightness of weight, making for a thought-about replica of high-end data and a intelligent attenuation of undesirable resonances; the dome is encircled by a semicrystalline polymer torus, titanium-coated for quick assault and exactly grooved for extra resonance management.

The result’s a pair of headphones that exists in two states concurrently: stress and leisure, taut transients and thrumming bass. However extra on this shortly. For specs, you’ll discover a powerful frequency vary of 5Hz – 30kHz and a 42-ohm impedance; the latter’s a tiny bit disappointing, if just for the truth that these aren’t smartphone fare. There’s extra potential posed by driving these drivers just a little tougher out of your hi-fi than there may be comfort for conserving the impedance low, in my humble and utterly subjective opinion.

Being passive headphones, the 105 Silva are in fact wired for sound, and use dual-twisted, Kevlar-wrapped OFC cable to produce stated wiring. Every ear cup hosts a mono TS port, so you possibly can connect and detach with ease for transport; you may also make sure that every channel of audio is robustly linked. It’s bare, minimal and minimises factors of failure all-round – all of which quantity to high marks from me.

For these of that use smartphones for all issues audio, you possibly can nonetheless benefit from the 105 Silva out of the field, too; Meze Audio has lovingly included a customized 3.5mm TRS to USB-C adapter, which incorporates its personal DAC. That is the techiest factor you’ll discover within the field, and a very good factor too.

Meze Audio 105 Silva overview: Sound high quality

Excessive-end response is peerless for the priceNice, ethereal mid-rangeBass surprisingly fulsome

As you’ll count on from most open-back headphones above a sure budget-price threshold, the Meze Audio 105 Silva are a pair dead-set on tactility. Between some measured soundstaging and pleasant transient management, these cans ship one thing comfortingly immersive above all else.

World Mind’s Minute papillon is a lassez-faire melange of syncopated synths, je-ne-cest-quoi ambiance and different such French-transplant turns of Romantic phrase; the 105 Silva resolve its light-stab electrical pianos and dead-straight drums with a playful air. Excessive-end data is delivered with house and beauty, sharp sufficient to carve out its personal place in your ears however tender sufficient to not insist upon itself within the course of.

Andy Shauf’s debut assortment of small-folk heartbreakers The Bearer Of Dangerous Information, in the meantime, is an efficient service for each the dynamic potential of the 105 Silva and their unbelievable stereo imaging; I’m Not Falling Asleep is all slurred clarinets and ever-resonating piano earlier than an enormous, sparse beat and Shauf’s plaintive tone.

Separation between parts is spectacular, too. The top part of I’m Not Falling Asleep is simply voices and clarinets in stereo-spread choral concord, and Shauf’s stacked voices appear as if to coast above the woodwinds like an air-hockey puck would on one of many good machines.

A bit later within the report, Wendell Walker brings some glorious decision of distance; close-strummed guitars and distant piano bass, diametrically opposed however united with a gloriously-staged, wrap-around drumkit that spikes up by means of the heat with polish, presence and energy. Even with essentially the most maximalist, blown-out feats of electro-pop heft in my library – significantly, Normalize by Gelli Haha – there’s a palpable sense of house behind the sausaged synth-basses and punching-bag-to-the-face kicks.

Nicely-spaced as these parts are, there’s a surprisingly shut restrict to their unfold. These aren’t the widest headphones I’ve tried, certain, however the shock is that I’ve heard wider closed-backs. Certainly, the 105 Silva, to me, exhibit some behaviours extra redolent of closed-back designs than others.

That is bolstered by the general bass response of these carefully-tuned 50mm drivers. Although brighter and airier than 105 drivers prior, right here the low finish continues to be suitably springy, and enjoys an uncommon bloomy fullness. Open-backs sometimes don’t possess this fulsomeness, as they permit that placeless subby vitality to dissipate outwards; right here, although, there’s a way of constructive interference normally reserved for closed-back programs. And it’s form of superb.

The 105 Silva do appear to reply higher to some sounds than others. The aforementioned Normalize suffers for its brick-walled, low-dynamic clown-pop maximalism, the place the Silva appears not fairly certain on easy methods to deal with the dearth of actual motion. Listening to high-dynamic live-instrument preparations, like Billy Valentine And The Common Fact’s jazzy re-imagining of We Individuals Who Are Darker Than Blue, appears like lastly unlocking the Common Fact of those headphones; the factor they have been designed for.

The 50mm drivers deal with bloomy double-bass with lively measure, as if an occult hand have been manually pushing the fader up for moments of “a-ha!” crescendo. The transient response is eager however not sharp, and the breath behind every saxophonic missive a textural delight. ‘Cosiness’ appears the final word state these headphones try for.

Sound high quality rating: 4.5 / 5

Meze Audio 105 Silva overview: Design

Beautiful-looking thingsGratifyingly easy sensible designAnd deeply snug, too

These headphones are an apparent winner within the aesthetics camp; have you ever seen them?! Every part concerning the design is tasteful, from the supplies and proportionality of the earcups to the highly-satisfying minimalism of the metallic bands that join them. Walnut, pleather and velour current a united entrance of understatedly decadent luxurious – an attractive put on if ever you noticed them.

Talking of carrying them, the 105 Silva’s headband is a light-weight and lightly-cushioned self-adjusting affair. I’m extraordinarily impressed, once more, by the coincident simplicity and practicality on show right here. There’s no aggressive ratcheting or re-adjustment; the 105 Silva merely rests precisely the place it must, with a softness of contact a far cry from the intrusive clamp different such headphones deign to go to upon your potentially-sensitive bonce.

Talking of sensitivity, I’ve identified no headphone extra snug than a Meze Audio headphone – particularly with the plush, velour-enrobed ear-cushions offered on the 105 Silva. Related consolation has been skilled on Sennheiser ‘telephones previous, however none so gratifyingly clean concerning the concha.

The 105 Silva are available in a sturdy contoured material hardcase, with a reassuring firmness and much more reassuringly weatherproof zip; when you did fancy taking these out and about, this proper here’s a reliable receptacle for such adventures. There’s additionally a neatly-designed cylindrical tender case inside, in your cables and adapters and whatnot – so designed to nestle inside the Silva’s headband, and to not danger any jostle-related injury in transit. It’s a easy gesture, however one which sparks a not-inconsiderable quantity of pleasure in me.

In all, there’s nothing actually to fault the 105 Silva on design-wise. There’s consolation by the spade, eye-candy by the trowel and ease on the core of all of it. A serene pair.

Meze Audio 105 Silva overview: Worth

Unbelievable consolation within the listening expertise…however one you pay a worth forSound profile might be divisive, too