It’s light and fits snuggly without feeling tight. It includes all the latest fancy BT specs and ran on LDAC off my Galaxy Note 8 smartphone without issue.
The Panda is a Bluetooth headset with built-in THX amplification. Readers should keep these hearing quirks and preferences in mind as they read my descriptions of sound. There is a balance here, though, because detail retrieval can get too relaxed and that can sound unnatural, as well, or simply leave out important aspects of the recording. To my ear, more subtle detail-retrieval sounds more realistic and natural than aggressive, detail-forwardness.
I like good detail retrieval and hearing what a recording has to offer, but I prefer what many would consider relaxed and subtle rather than aggressive or detail-forward. Finally, I’m discovering that I have a preference for more subtle detail. It’s distracting because it’s annoying and unnatural. Sibilance does not physically hurt my ears nearly as quickly as shout, though. I also get distracted by sibilance, or sharp ‘s’ and ‘t’ sounds that can make ssssingers sssssound like they’re forssssssing esssss ssssssounds aggresssssssively. I describe “shoutiness” as an emphasis on the ‘ou’ sound of ‘shout.’ It’s a forwardness in the neighborhood of 1KHz and/or on the first one or two harmonics above it (when I make the sound ‘oooooIt can also give instruments like piano, but especially brass instruments, an added ‘honk’ to their sound. My ears are thus quick to perceive “shoutiness” in headphones in particular. My hearing quirks include a high sensitivity to midrange frequencies from just under 1KHz to around 3Khz, give or take. I’m getting to know jazz more and enjoying quite a bit. My preferred genres are rock/metal and classical/orchestral music. The Panda still suffers from some of the same limitations of being a wireless headphone, though, and arguably its sonic performance isn’t a big enough improvement over some other Bluetooth cans that also have active noise cancelling and other convenience features to justify its cost. Using the SoundID app improves some aspects of the sonic performance at the expense of some others.once I got it to work, that is. For a Bluetooth headphone it brings reasonably good detail and timbre while breaking from other products in this category by providing a more audiophile targeted neutral sound signature.
The Panda is good for what it is, a wireless, full sized headphone. But, hopefully I’ve earned a modicum of credibility in sound descriptions. I don’t feel very qualified to comment on those aspects, anyway. I’m not going to go into detail about the ergonomics of the buttons, or the phone call quality, etc. I’m going to focus a lot on the sound in this review. Now that I’m more settled, I have some time to sit down and write up some thoughts.
I moved recently and they got some listening time in as I was packing and unpacking boxes or just sitting down to rest with all my main gear packed away. I’ve had the opportunity to take the Drop Panda Bluetooth wireless headphone for a test run these past few weeks. NOTE: This review was originally published on HiFiGuides forum on.