Drop Launches OAE1 Headphones as Non-Signature Edition

Drop, the vibrant community-driven e-commerce brand that is now owned by Corsair, announced a reset on its latest Grell headphone collaboration, with the announcement of the Drop + Grell OAE1 Non-Signature Edition. Following the extremely negative reviews that the original Drop + Grell OAE1 headphones received when they launched earlier in 2024 (fortunately, only 1,000 units had been made anyway), the new “non-signature”edition takes the original engineering concept and resets the design at a more accessible price.

Nearly three years after debuting the Drop + Grell TWS1X IEM earphones, Drop has teamed up again with renowned headphone designer Axel Grell for his newest project, the Drop + Grell OAE1 Signature Headphones. The new open, circumaural headphones are a perfectly symmetric design that somehow is described as inspired by “the natural structure of the human ear”, and intended to reproduce a “realistic sound field that closely resembles a speaker listening experience.”

Grell Audio, the company founded by German headphone engineer Axel Grell, announced its first product. The Grell TWS/1 (199.99 USD/EUR) is an understated design using dynamic drivers, implemented over a Qualcomm Bluetooth 5.2 platform. In terms of unique features, the TWS/1 offers a frequency-selective ANC function, filtered by a patent-pending Noise Annoyance Reduction (NAR) psycho-acoustic model, bundled with Sonarworks' SoundID for calibration and personalization.