Andy, I am not at all familiar with the basic sound of the 109s. But. . . I have used ArcticCables for my headphone cable needs, with great success for my ZMF and Sennheiser headphones. They have given me great service and advice and I’m very happy with their cables–perhaps an email inquiry to them would be helpful.
There’s also Dragon cables:
Every cable is the best it seems
I agree that headphone cables can make a material difference, but a lot depends on the quality of the stock cable that comes with the headphones. I do not own any Meze cans, so I am not familiar with their stock cables.
The aftermarket headphone cable industry has gotten too precious and pretentious for my tastes. You can spend many multiples of the cost of headphones on a headphone cable. For example, using the Arctic website, I just customized a TOTL 10-foot Arctic cable (“Ingens” series) for the $799 Meze 109 Pro’s and it priced out at $4,415!
For sanely priced aftermarket headphone cables, I would start by looking at Corpse Cable: https://corpsecable.com/. I have no connection with the company other than that I own a Corpse “GraveDigger” cable for my Audeze’s and it sounds great.
As for headphone amps, I would start with one of the Schiit Audio offerings:
https://www.schiit.com/products
They are all well-regarded at their respective price points. I own the original Schiit Jotunheim, formerly $349, now $399 for the Jotunheim 2, and I had to spend $2K+ on an Auris Audio HA-2SF to meaningfully better it.
Good luck on your headphone journey and, as they say on Head-fi.org, “sorry for your wallet.”
I agree in general about the pricing, though I will note I have bought ArcticCables that are about one third the cost of the headphones that I use them with which are much nicer sounding than the ZMF, Audeze or Sennheiser stock cabling.
No disrespect intended to Arctic, I assume they make fine cables at different price points. I could have picked any number of aftermarket cable companies and built cables on their websites that would result in shock-the-conscience pricing. The biggest offenders may be in the portable audio space, e.g., cables for connecting In-Ear Monitors to a battery-powered Digital Audio Player. Typically, these cables are only 1.0 to 1.25 meters, and yet they can cost several thousand dollars. See, for example, these offerings from PWAudio:
I’m well aware of high dollar cables. I tried Dragon once used and didn’t like them as much as my first pair of ArcticCables and have stuck with their lower priced items and been very satisfied.
I use C3 Audio universal cables.
They may not be everyone’s cup o tea but I like the convenience of being able to use them with different headphones, amps, and DAPs without having to pay for a full cable every time. Chris, the owner, is great to deal with too.
For what reading on forums is worth , Norne and Forza are two headphone cable brands that seem to have some cred on Head-Fi. The person who sold me my recently-acquired Focals suggested those two prospects if I wanted to try aftermarket cables.
+1 on @bootzilla’s suggestion to take a look at the Schiit Jotunheim 2 headphone amp.
I’ve been using WyWires headphone cables for my Audeze cans. Been pretty happy with the product and the service.
Looks like they’re having a 10th Anniversary sale right now, 40% off all personal audio products.