The Drop + Grell OAE-1 are dynamic-driver open-back headphones retailing at 299 USD, they can only be ordered via the US DROP Online Store
so for European customers there might be additional import taxes for those who want to acquire these cans.

The OAE-1's are not the regular pair of headphones, usually drivers are "firing" from the side or with a slight forward tilt,
but it isn't the case here, instead the drivers of the OAE-1 are positioned in an extreme forward angle thus to simulate the
feeling to be listening to a pair of loudspeakers, could be a great idea but (maybe) also a quiet challenging task to fulfil.

Unboxing & Build Quality:

The unboxing experience is very basic, the box contains the headphones and a single-sided silver-coated OFC cable.
The cable has a length of 1.8 meters and although it's on the thinner side it feels like high quality.
Since it is single-sided you can plug it to either earcup, left or right doesn't matter.
The headphones are well built too, they feel very robust in the hand, there's a pretty good mixture of metal and plastic
parts used to build these headphones.

Fit & Comfort:

Out of the box, the comfort with these headphones is not that great. I'm not hugh fan of OAE-1 Headband design, it gave
me some hotspots on my head and felt pretty uncomfortable after some time. Also the clamp force was a bit to high for
my taste and felt like having a constant pressure around my head when listening to these headphones for a longer period
of time. However after some weeks/months of usage it seemed that the overall comfort improved a bit and i was less bothered
by it. But it was not all bad either, the velour earpads are great, they are big and very cushiony and improve the overall
comfort of the OAE-1 to an acceptable level.

Power Requirements:

No particular requirements here, these headphones will work on almost any device and scalability seemed to be very limited

Sound Impressions:

My initial thoughts were that this could be a very interesting headphone with those forward angled drivers and i was
quiet curious how they would stack up against the competition in this affordable price bracket, but the desire to listen
to them diminished as time passed by. But let's start with the positive aspects first, the idea to project the soundstage
in front of the listener really worked for me most of the time, so i could hear the difference between the OAE-1
and a "normal" headphone where the sound projection was located in front of me, so closer to an experience
when listening to a pair speakers. Another thing to mention is that on the treble side i never had issues with sibilance
or listening fatigue as these headphones are delivering a sound which is more on the darker side.
But there are two issues with the OAE-1 which could be a possible dealbreaker. The first major problem is the lack of
detail und finesse in the treble region and secondly there is an insane amount of bass delivery, way to much for my taste and the
quality of the bass is not that great, it's muddy & congested to my ears and it's overpowering the rest of the frequency spectrum.
Switching between different source gear and amplification didn't bring any noticeable improvements here, so the only way
to get some relief is to apply EQ and bring down the bass by a few notches to make them more listenable.