This is a review, listening tests and detail measurements of the Drop+Grell OAE1 headphone review. It was kindly drop shipped to me by a member. He tells me you can pick it up for $100 now.
The OAE1 is an attractive headphone. It is quite light and comfortable to wear. The lightness does make it feel cheap when you first pick it up though.
Drop+Grell OAE1 headphone Measurements
As usual, we start with our frequency response measurements:
Starting from the top, no matter what I did, the one channel had 1 dB or so less output than the other. Past that, I was surprised by this unique response. We do have good bit of bass which is nice. But what is with the sharp shortfall above 5 kHz? We also have too much energy in upper bass and too little in lower treble. If we look at the impedance measurement we can see something going on above 5 kHz, indicating some kind of passive filtering:
So that chunk is taken out on purpose. Combine with extra bass, this headphone is going to sound pretty "wooly."
Back to frequency response, this is what you are facing if you want to EQ it:
These are broad, low Q regions so very audible colorations.
What was a shocker was the level of distortion:
Not only is the bass is out of control at higher volumes but so is anything above 500 Hz. Even at 94 dBSPL, we have 0.5% distortion. Company advertises a very low distortion of 0.05% at 1 kHz. I measured 0.1% which is not far off from what they spec. If they measured though, why didn't they take a look at the rest of the spectrum?
Group delay is a bit messy but not much as many other headphones:
Sensitivity is on the low side:
Drop+Grell OAE1 headphone Listening Tests
First impression I got was that of bass. I ran my sub-bass track through it and it reproduced that region very nicely. Encouraged, I went to the next track, only to be overwhelmed by dominance of upper bass. So dialed in some EQ for that which provided some relief.
I then queued up one of my key female test tracks, London Grammar Hey Now and I was shocked by the warbling in her voice. It was nominally audible at standard listening level. Crank it up and it proportionally got worse and worse. At high volumes, the warbling was just incredible -- in a bad way. I have, never, ever heard this kind of distortion in a headphone. Bass distortion, yes. But not in vocals. Of course we have indication of this in the measurements in the distortion hump starting from 400 Hz.
Just to be sure, I went back to my everyday headphone (Dan Clark) and same track and setup sounded clean as a whistle. Back to Drop+Grell and same problem. At this point, I saw no point in finishing the EQ assignment and called it done.
Conclusions
We have decent looks here especially for $100. And comfort to go with it. But what the heck is going on technically? How could the legendary Axel Grell be involved in a headphone with such poor performance, objectively and subjectively? Maybe some part substitution by the Drop contract manufacturer? But then what is the explanation for that big treble notch? Wrong value used for the filtering???
Needless to say, I cannot recommend the Drop+Grell OAE1 headphone at any price. I guess we shouldn't shed much tear for Drop shutting down its doors....
----------
As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.
Any donations are much appreciated using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/
The OAE1 is an attractive headphone. It is quite light and comfortable to wear. The lightness does make it feel cheap when you first pick it up though.
Drop+Grell OAE1 headphone Measurements
As usual, we start with our frequency response measurements:
Starting from the top, no matter what I did, the one channel had 1 dB or so less output than the other. Past that, I was surprised by this unique response. We do have good bit of bass which is nice. But what is with the sharp shortfall above 5 kHz? We also have too much energy in upper bass and too little in lower treble. If we look at the impedance measurement we can see something going on above 5 kHz, indicating some kind of passive filtering:
So that chunk is taken out on purpose. Combine with extra bass, this headphone is going to sound pretty "wooly."
Back to frequency response, this is what you are facing if you want to EQ it:
These are broad, low Q regions so very audible colorations.
What was a shocker was the level of distortion:
Not only is the bass is out of control at higher volumes but so is anything above 500 Hz. Even at 94 dBSPL, we have 0.5% distortion. Company advertises a very low distortion of 0.05% at 1 kHz. I measured 0.1% which is not far off from what they spec. If they measured though, why didn't they take a look at the rest of the spectrum?
Group delay is a bit messy but not much as many other headphones:
Sensitivity is on the low side:
Drop+Grell OAE1 headphone Listening Tests
First impression I got was that of bass. I ran my sub-bass track through it and it reproduced that region very nicely. Encouraged, I went to the next track, only to be overwhelmed by dominance of upper bass. So dialed in some EQ for that which provided some relief.
I then queued up one of my key female test tracks, London Grammar Hey Now and I was shocked by the warbling in her voice. It was nominally audible at standard listening level. Crank it up and it proportionally got worse and worse. At high volumes, the warbling was just incredible -- in a bad way. I have, never, ever heard this kind of distortion in a headphone. Bass distortion, yes. But not in vocals. Of course we have indication of this in the measurements in the distortion hump starting from 400 Hz.
Just to be sure, I went back to my everyday headphone (Dan Clark) and same track and setup sounded clean as a whistle. Back to Drop+Grell and same problem. At this point, I saw no point in finishing the EQ assignment and called it done.
Conclusions
We have decent looks here especially for $100. And comfort to go with it. But what the heck is going on technically? How could the legendary Axel Grell be involved in a headphone with such poor performance, objectively and subjectively? Maybe some part substitution by the Drop contract manufacturer? But then what is the explanation for that big treble notch? Wrong value used for the filtering???
Needless to say, I cannot recommend the Drop+Grell OAE1 headphone at any price. I guess we shouldn't shed much tear for Drop shutting down its doors....
----------
As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.
Any donations are much appreciated using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/
