Design and Features
The Drop + THX Panda headphones resemble pre-production prototypes – not because they’re rough or unfinished, but because they’re so minimalist. Having said that, they actually are pre-production – the production line hasn’t quite started yet, and deliveries to Indiegogo backers won’t begin until June at the earliest. But that’s irrelevant; the stark, smooth, logo-free design is as intended. It’s easy to miss the singular tiny “Drop” branding on the right side of the headband; otherwise it’s matte black.
Construction is aluminum covered in plastic, and it has a tight, solid feel befitting $400 cans. There’s no question these headphones are heavy, though – weighing in at more than 13 ounces, they feel substantial in your hands and do tend to feel a little heavy on your noggin, especially after a few hours of music or gaming.
That’s why I was a little surprised there wasn’t more padding on the headband. It’s not so much padded as simply made from a rubbery material with the slimmest of cushioning. The earcups are much better, with a generous amount of leather-covered (and easily removable) memory foam. There’s a solid amount of clamping pressure to hold the headphones on your head, but the headband has surprisingly little travel. I count a total of five detents, which extends the cups a total of about .75 inches on each side. That was fine for me, but my Beyerdynamic Amiron headphones extend 1.5 inches, so I wonder if folks with a lot going on up top might find these uncomfortable.
The minimalist aesthetic extends to inputs and controls. Case in point: Drop’s controls are simply genius. There’s a single plus-shaped joystick-style button on the right earcup, and you won’t need a user guide to make sense of it. Left-right controls tracks, up-down controls volume, and push in to turn it on and off (or enter pairing mode). There’s a nearby USB-C port for charging, and the left ear has an AUX input for wired listening.
The earcups lie flat for storage, so the headphones slip into a zippered hardshell case that’s only two inches thick. Also in the case, you’ll find a small cubby for storing the included 2-foot USB-C charging cable and 3.5-foot audio cable. What I didn’t get, at least in this pre-production version: any way to actually charge the headphones if you don’t happen to have a USB-C port on your laptop. USB-C charging sources aren’t that common yet, so hopefully Drop will include a USB-C to USB-A adapter or wall outlet.
The internals are formidable. A Qualcomm chipset handles a slew of formats for consumers and audiophiles alike, including Bluetooth aptX, aptX HD, and aptX adaptive, plus LDAC and AAC. The heart and soul of the headphones is a THX AAA amp – hence the THX partnership. This isn’t the first time Drop has brought a version of the THX AAA to market, and the AAA has a reputation for being clean and precise.
The signal is fed to planar ribbon drivers borrowed, as best I can determine, from the superb Oppo PM3 headphones. Planar ribbon drivers are an alternative to the magnetically driven moving coils found in most headphones. Moving coils are common and inexpensive but tend to generate distortion because they can’t accurately create the exact frequency being asked of it. Planar ribbons are different; they’re based on a thin diaphragm with lots of conductors embedded on each side, suspended between magnets. It’s a dramatically more nuanced and precise solution that’s more complex (and expensive) to implement.
Music and Gaming
But what do they sound like? Aggressively neutral. In my years of testing headphones, there have been few models that appear to try so hard to not bias the bass, mids, or high end in any meaningful way. And that’s not a bad thing – headphones that bass the boost or brighten the high end can wear out their welcome. But with the Panda, playing a song like the Decemberists’ Once in My Life, I was pleasantly surprised by the song’s imaging, with space between the bright and articulate acoustic guitar, solid drums, and the various array of instruments and voices. In a word, it had great musicality.
The battery ran dry somewhere in the neighborhood of the rated 30 hours of battery life. At that point I switched to wired mode, and found that music was indistinguishable whether wireless or wired.
To test the headphones in a gaming environment, I fired up Call of Duty: Modern Warfare and ran through a few missions. And here’s where Panda fell noticeably short. To be clear, the headphones sounded excellent, with superb reproduction of the musical score and great overall sound quality and stereo separation. But the soundstage was very narrow. The stereo separation was obvious, but pressed right up against my ears. The Panda never gave me the impression that the action on screen existed in the world beyond my ears.
Worse, games that require spatial cues and surround experiences – like my old standby Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus – were hobbled by this headphone. There’s no app – either mobile or desktop – and consequently no digital signal processing. You can’t tweak the bass for more resounding explosions, and there’s no SoundBlaster-like Scout mode for emphasizing footsteps of nearby enemies. In other words, the headphones presented the audio accurately, but didn’t accentuate the gaming experience.
Purchasing Guide
The Drop + THX Panda headphones are currently available on Indiegogo for $349 for a limited time, with a regular price of $399. The headphones are expected to ship to backers in August 2020.
