Unique Melody MEST Fortune

Both, with the mid-bass leading. The Unique Melody MEST Fortune has the hardest-hitting mid-bass I rate, on top of weighty sub-bass, and three bone-conduction drivers mean you feel low notes as much as hear them. You don't notice the bone conduction as a separate effect. It's warm and generous, where the Unique Melody MEST Jet Black is tight and strictly correct.

Laid-back. The Unique Melody MEST Fortune sets voices a step back inside a very large space, with warmth around them, so you listen to the whole performance more than to the singer alone. It flatters a rough master. If you want vocals close and every detail of them exposed, the Unique Melody MEST Jet Black or the Letshuoer Mystic 8 are better choices.

Crisp in level, smooth in texture. Two electrostatic tweeters give the Unique Melody MEST Fortune air and extension, so the treble is clearly present, but the warm tuning underneath means nothing bites. It's less bright than the Unique Melody MEST Jet Black. If you know you're treble-sensitive and you're shopping at this level, this is the MEST I'd have you hear first.

No. The Unique Melody MEST Fortune is tuned to be generous more than strictly honest, and that makes it the Unique Melody flagship for listening to relax. The resin shells are lighter than the ceramic and titanium models and isolate unusually well for a vented design, so you can keep the volume lower. Only 200 pairs exist worldwide.

Wide and spacious, as much as anything I stock. The bone-conduction drivers in the Unique Melody MEST Fortune aren't something you hear as an effect. What you get is a deeper sense of space around the music, filled with warmth instead of left empty. The Unique Melody MEST Jet Black is equally wide but leaner and more precise, so choose between them by tone.

Better than the ceramic MEST Jet Black does. The Unique Melody MEST Fortune uses lighter resin shells with short nozzles, so it doesn't have to go deep into the ear canal and there's less weight pulling on it. It still houses ten drivers, so it isn't a small shell. With smaller ears, a listening session in Utrecht is the sensible first step at this price.