I got to listen to these for a couple weeks as part of the USA tour, with the requirement that I write a review and pay to ship them to the next participant. I am not affiliated with, and was not compensated by Meze in any other way.
 

Design

The physical design is probably the best part about these headphones. Not to say that the sound is bad (we'll get to that later, but in short, it isn't), but the design and build quality is the standout feature of these. Everything is put together very well, the real wood looks quite classy, nothing creaks, and it's all very pleasant to the touch. The auto-adjusting mechanism works well, and I had no real difficulty in getting a good, comfortable fit.
 
While the overall physical design is excellent, there are a few things I feel are worth talking about. First is that the cloth-covered cables (two are included, one with and one without inline controls), while very nice and durable seeming, are fairly microphonic.
 
The second point may just be me, but as far as I was able to tell, there are no Left / Right markings on the headphones themselves. The ends of the detachable cable are clearly marked L and R, but the cans themselves are not. I suppose that means that they are symmetrical front-to-back and it doesn't matter which direction you have them facing, but it still seems like an odd omission.
 
Third, and probably most important, is the size of the earcups, which are fairly small. They do go around my ears, but my ears are then touching the inside of the cups. One thing I was surprised about was how comfortable they are even with the smaller cups. Having my ears touch would typically bother me, but I found that I was able to wear these all day at work with little discomfort. I'm actually not entirely sure why, as the earpads are not super thick or anything, but they are nicely padded. So, in short, the earcups and pads are fairly small, but I found it bothered me a lot less than it usually does, and I actually found them surprisingly comfortable.
 

Sound

I am not a basshead, but to me these sound like what I would want a bass-heavy set of cans to sound like. If you're a hardcore basshead I can't make any guarantees that these will satisfy your craving for bass, but for me they had a tastefully-elevated amount of bass and impact that made these quite fun to listen to without completely drowning out the other frequencies. Vocals are a little overshadowed by the bass, but overall the 99 Classics still have a good amount of clarity and I don't feel like I'm sacrificing any real amount of detail to get the enhanced bass. If anything it's just fairly obvious that vocals are at a lower level than the bass that precedes them.
 
When listening to some piano recordings, I do think that this (and acoustic music in general) are a slight weakness. I do want to emphasize slight though, as if I hadn't been switching between my various headphones at the time I doubt I would have had any real issue with the 99 Classics and piano. But compared to my other cans, piano sounds a bit boxed in and artificial, as in it's easier to tell that you're listening to a recording of a piano on closed cans, and it'd be unlikely to fool you into thinking that you were in a room with a piano. The 99 Classics seem to be missing the very leading edge of notes; I wouldn't necessarily call it slow-sounding, but the very leading percussive edge of piano notes or percussion just isn't as sharp and immediate as I've heard on other cans.
 
Soundstage is also a relative weakness, they certainly sound like closed cans.
 

Comparison

I primarily listen to open cans, and have for the most part managed to keep myself to a single pair of closed cans at any one time. My current preferred reasonably-priced set of closed cans is the Shure SRH-840, which I've owned for years at this point. Certainly not the best I've heard, but with how infrequently I listen to closed cans, they've been a good price/performance tradeoff.
 
Compared to the 99 Classics, the Shures have clearer and better highs, resulting in them sounding more open than the Meze cans. The 99 Classics, however, do low bass much better, and are what I'd consider a more "fun" set of cans. The Classics are also much better built, and are the obvious choice if you're looking for something portable. Since I personally only use my closed cans at home if I need sound isolation (rare), the Shures still make the most sense for my use case.
 

Conclusion

The Meze 99 Classics are a very well-built handsome set of cans that delivery a very pleasant, bass-elevated sound that is easy to listen to and non-fatiguing. It comes with a nice hard case and multiple cables, and would make an excellent portable headphone for anyone looking for their sound signature. They are also very sensitive, working well out of cell phones and portable players.
 
Soundstage and treble are both (minor) weaknesses, but for on-the-go listening, I believe they have clearly focused on what matters the most for their intended audience.

Introduction

I got to try the Nighthawk headphones as part of TTVJ's preview tour, thanks Todd! While I haven't been actively looking for new cans for a while, I like to (fairly casually) try to keep up with any new and interesting cans, on the off chance that someone finally bests the HD600s for a reasonable price.
 

Build Quality

Build quality of the headphones is very nice. They are quite solid, with hinges and such appearing to be metal, and the liquid wood appears to be quite nice and solid as well. I also like the suspension and swivel system, which makes it quite easy to find a good fit. The earpads also easily snap on and off, which will be nice if they offer other options in the future.
 
I also want to mention the carrying case, which is quite nice.
 

Comfort

The drawback to the build quality is that these seem surprisingly heavy for a set of non-planar cans. I didn't have any real comfort concerns (as someone who finds the LCD-2s reasonably comfortable as well), but they are on the heavy side.
 
The suspension and swivel system made it quite easy to find a good fit as well. My only actual comfort concern is that, due to the pads and effectively closed nature of these cans, I found my ears heating up much faster than with most of my other cans.
 

Cables

Unfortunately, on the pair I got to demo, the main cable was defective (depending on how I wiggled the connector I could get one or the other side of the headphones to work, but never both at once). I also thought that aesthetically the main cable was pretty bad, as it looks like it's permanently twisted.
 
Fortunately, the Nighthawks also come with a portable cable, so at least I still got to try them out. The bad news is, the portable cable is fairly microphonic, so it wasn't an ideal situation.
 

Sound

As a preface, my normal cans are HD600s, and while I recognize that they aren't perfectly neutral, I feel that their overall tonal balance is quite close to what I'd consider neutral.
 
So with that as my baseline, to me the Nighthawks have quite a shelved treble and significant bass to mid emphasis. They also sound quite closed in general; I'm not sure if they are marketed as semi-open, but they definitely sound closed in to me, and the bass emphasis seems to further emphasize this.
 
The bass and mids sound pretty good and clean to me, just a bit louder than the treble. The treble sounds okay in isolation, but when switching between the HD600s you quickly realize how much more subdued most percussion and other treble details sound on the Nighthawk. The positive is that I had no listening fatigue even after hours of listening to the Nighthawk, and sibilance is greatly reduced. Unfortunately, that also means you lose out on a lot of nice percussion detail and general air and sense of space. I also did a quick comparison with the MA900, which I also find has a bit of mid emphasis, but found that even the MA900 sounds much more balanced than the Nighthawk.
 
With that said, I do think the Nighthawk are pretty fun as a different sound signature, but feel that they're much more of a specialized tool than a great all-rounder.
 

Value

And that's where my greatest issue with the Nighthawk lies. To me, it falls in the same general group as something like the Oppo PM1, a very nicely built and pleasant sounding can that strays a bit too far into "polite" territory, and thus ends up being something that I wouldn't recommend as a good general-purpose or first expensive set of cans. I also feel that, while the build quality is quite nice, they still feel quite overpriced to me based off of sound quality. As a personal valuation, with sound quality being my primary interest, I feel like these should be about $300.

 
Listened to these for a few hours yesterday straight out of the box, these are my current thoughts:
 
Straight out of a Clip+, my phone, and a Kindle Fire these sound quite good. Not as good as my other cans, but good enough that I wouldn't immediately start missing my other cans if I just brought them as a portable solution while on a vacation or something.
 
Now with the Bifrost + Asgard they actually have a bit of an odd low whine, not sure if it's my 1/8 to 1/4 adapter or what, but it's low enough that I don't think it had any real effect on my listening impressions. Honestly with these I don't think there's any need for anything beyond a Clip+ or smartphone, but to simplify testing conditions I used Bifrost + Asgard for all the cans.
 
I directly compared the Downtowns with Grado SR80i (quarter modded and back mesh removed), Shure SRH840 and LCD-2s (just because).
 
Before going into specifics, I'd say the biggest surprise was that listening to them on their own nothing really stood out as 'wrong' in their sound. Going back and forth between the Downtowns and other cans made it clear that they aren't necessarily as good, but taken on their own they sound quite good.
 
Bass:
 
The Downtowns have remarkably good bass, a bit exaggerated but not to the point of being disruptive.  It has good impact and is fairly well-controlled. I actually think the Downtowns get this more correct than the Fidelio L1s that I owned for about a week, whose midbass was much too accentuated for me.
 
The Downtowns' bass does feel a little disjoint from the rest, but this isn't very noticeable unless you directly compare it to something with noticeably better bass like the LCD-2s (which I fully agree isn't a fair comparison).
 
Mids:
 
The Downtowns have weird mids, unfortunately. It's rather hard to describe, but the mids just sound slightly wrong on the Downtowns compared to all my other cans, almost as if there's a slightly out-of-tune extra harmonic frequency being added. The mids can also seem nasal at some points and are more piercing at higher volumes.
 
Unfortunately, I think the mids are the Downtowns' greatest weakness, but as with everything else, this is all relative to my other cans. It's just that all my other cans seem to have at least a similar tonal consistency in the mids that the Downtowns lack. With that said, even with this 'biggest weakness' it's not something that jumped out at me on first listen, but only in direct comparison to my other cans.
 
Highs:
 
First a brief note about me and treble; I strongly dislike sibilance and exaggerated spiky treble. However, I do like top-end extension if it's done smoothly and well-integrated into the rest of the spectrum.
 
With that said, highs are a noticeably shelved when compared to my other cans. The Downtowns don't sound all muffled like some bass-heavy cans, but some of the top-end detail is obviously missing. As stated before, when listening to them on their own you won't necessarily notice this but in comparison it's obvious. I'd say overall this is probably the most noticeable difference between the various cans, but to my preference isn't actually that big of a deal.
 
Other Thoughts:
 
Sound isolation is good, seems easily on par with the SRH840s and obviously better than the others.
 
Soundstage is small; this doesn't surprise me considering they're closed on-ear portables, but it is something to consider.
 
They seem to be a little slow compared to my other cans, just a bit muddy and congested at times (gah, now I'm even using vague audiophile buzzwords). But seriously, in complex passages details do tend to get a little blurred together and it can be hard to pick out individual instruments.
 
Comfort seems pretty poor right now, although I suspect after a bit of break-in it will likely get significantly better. I am slightly concerned that a reduction in clamping will mess up the isolation and bass though.
 
The flat cable seems pretty nice, rather short for home listening but seems about ideal for portable use.
 
Build quality appears to be quite good.
 
Compared To:
 
Grado SR80i - At full price if you don't need a closed headphone I would take the Grados, they have much better highs, are clearer and have a better soundstage (take this with a grain of salt, as this wasn't something I was paying that much attention to in this specific comparison). Both are about evenly easy to drive. With my added headband padding and washed earpads I also find the Grados more comfortable, although I would anticipate the Downtowns being as comfortable after a bit of break-in.
 
The Downtowns seem significantly better for portable use, with a much more flexible (and shorter) cable, angled plug, obviously better noise isolation and (imo) quite good looks.
 
Shure SRH840 - In my opinion the SRH840s are some of the best sound-quality-per-dollar you can get, and so it comes as no surprise to me that they handily beat the Downtowns in all aspects of sound. What really jumps out is the difference in treble energy and soundstage along with a more 'correct' midrange. However, the Downtowns hold their own quite well on bass and actually appear to be better built than the significantly more expensive Shures. Also do keep in mind that the Shures are more than 5x the price that I paid for the Downtowns.
 
Audez'e LCD-2 - Since I had my main rig home for the long weekend these ended up in the comparison as well, even though they're over 30x the price 

 While it was sort of interesting to go back and forth between them, the differences are the obvious things that you'd expect. LCD-2s sound better, Downtowns are lighter, easier to drive and isolate better. The LCD-2s are easily the most natural sounding cans I've ever heard for any real length of time, so switching back and forth emphasized the disjointed-ness of the Downtowns much more than you would likely typically notice.
 
 
Conclusion:
 
For $100 these are a good set of portable closed cans. While they have some noticeable sonic faults compared to higher-end cans, I found nothing so glaring that I would notice it on its own without AB-ing it against my other cans. With that said, there have been a number of deals on these (I got mine for $30) and at that price these are amazing. For $30 I've got a pair of headphones that I can use on trips without missing my main rig (for a couple days at least), works well with my mp3 player and phone, and if my four year old somehow breaks them I'm only out $30.