expiredphoinix | Staff posted May 14, 2026 04:11 PM
Item 1 of 4
Item 1 of 4
expiredphoinix | Staff posted May 14, 2026 04:11 PM
Woot! App: $39.99 | DROP + Grell OAE1 Wired Open-Back Headphones at Woot!
$40
$68
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The frequency response is bad.
You can give them a try if you are willing to tune them with a Parametric EQ or just use them for your Teams calls (you'll need to bring your own mic, though). 😂 Anything is better than those crappy Plantronics headsets provided by the employers which are priced similarly as these.
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Key takeaway - 100% worth spending $40 to try these out. I've spent 4x more on headphones that weren't nearly as interesting or even as good. At their list price, meh, I can get why people are disappointed. But at this bargain basement price? No brainer, tbh
PROS
Bass - If you listen to like.. I dunno, electronica, pop, or dance- the bass and sub-bass is very present. It's not that detailed, but I was listening to Lorde's first album and some of those songs are kind good to highlight this. The bass is really PRESENT under the vocals, like being in a room listening to speakers + a sub
Build quality - good. Definitely on par with their list price and better than any headphone I've ever bought for 40 bucks.
Sound field - REALLY interesting. This is the deepest sound field I've ever heard from a headphone (but bear in mind I dabble in the hobby, but have never spent more than like $200 on a pair of headphones) All of the headphones I own have decent width of soundstage but front to back it's VERY narrow, like this thin slice of sound through the center of my head (between my ears). These headphones make the soundstage noticeably deeper (although it's not a HUGE difference - but there IS a difference). The soundstage width is ok for open-back- not the best but good. The vocal center channel seems to resolve at the tip of my nose which definitely takes some getting used to.
CONS
Weird midrange and treble. These definitely sound kinda muffled or dark. Male vocals are ok, female vocals... They don't sound BAD, like the headphones WANT to produce the sound correctly, but they can't quite- like the imaging of the instrument or channel is there so it's doing SOMETHING right to resolve but the mic is wrong.
COMPARISIONS
HD560S - I LIKE the HD560S, but I'm old and it could be that their treble suits my ears. They sound really clear to me though - it could be a little "artificial" sounding. Also the soundstage on the 560S might be slightly wider - but the OAEs give more impression of front-to-back imaging.
HD6XX - I dunno- I think the HD6XX are just ok. I don't quite get why people rave about them. They aren't bad at all - I just feel like they're VERY neutral although not completely boring. But they don't do anything remarkable - the soundstage is narrow, everything sounds...fine. But they are also "muffled" to me in comparison to the 560S. They may sound a tad more natural than the 560S. The OEAs have way better bass (if you're into it) and interesting imaging
Caveat - this is before solid break in, I hope the midrange and treble clean up a bit after I run it through some break in.
I think peoples' expectations due to the Grell name + the frankly too high list price + the flaws kinda killed this headphone. If they had listed at like $199 I think people would have almost raved about these and been more complimentary. But at $40? For the price of 2 pizzas these were worth buying.
Few observations
I think these benefit from a good DAC/headphone amp. I have a monolith thx amp that tends to be a little darker/neutral but it sounds pretty good now
Earcup placement is kind of important on these for the imaging.
I don't usually mess w eq too much BUT the Amazon Music app has a dinky eq on it so I gave it a shot. I boosted 4kHz by I think 4db and the sound is now pretty acceptable. But tbh this sounds pretty good with flat eq on my monolith headphone amp.
Literally the best $40 I've ever spent on a toy. I'll break em in some more, but I don't understand all the hate, especially after break in.
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