Introduction

Meze Audio is a Romanian brand that has arguably gone from strength to strength in the years since we first covered it. It is primarily known for its headphones with a unique balance of design, build quality, comfort-in-use, and tuning. Indeed, you will notice every single Meze review here thus far has been of over-ear headphones, despite the brand also making in-ear monitors. I’ve tried some of their IEMs in the past at audio shows and have been generally impressed with the looks, build quality, and comfort—not necessarily the value proposition and what you get purely from a sound basis. The subject of today’s review aims to change all this, so let’s thank Meze Audio for providing a review sample of the new Alba IEMs to TechPowerUp!

Alba is Romanian for “first light,” with Meze aiming to give you the same warm feeling of the day’s first light and wanting you to use the Alba to get your day going. The color scheme also works in this regard, and we’ll take a close look at the IEMs in due course of time. But first, I need to mention that the Alba was released earlier this year and almost instantly became a big success. If anything, it became a victim of its own success in that demand overtook supply for a while, and Meze also saw some complaints pop up about the shells being perhaps more fragile, with some customers noting chipping and the paint cracking. Meze then rightfully took the time to hold back sales to rectify the situation—which can be a death sentence given most IEMs usually only enjoy the first few months of attention—and has now come back with a slightly revised shell that should last the test of time. I have a set from the original batch, meaning it doesn’t 100% match the aesthetics of the currently sold version, and yet is more than representative of the product to where I can go forward with the review which begins, as always, with a look at the product specifications in the table below.

Specifications

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