This is a review and detailed measurements of the electrostatic Nectar Hive headphone. It is on kind loan from a member and costs US $600 (seems to be replaced with HiveX).
The headphone as tested came with the upgraded sheepskin pads. I am told the company has moved away from the stock pad that is supplied with these anyway. Four small Velcros hold the pad which I found insufficient as it was easy to pull the pad off. The build feels somewhat plasticky and creeks a bit. Fit is very different than my Stax headphones and is tight around my ears.
Electrostatic headphones require special amplifier with high voltage bias feed. I went into my bin of Stax headphone amps I have and selected the SRM-313 which is transistor based (to avoid issues with aging tubes in my other ones). The testing you see is the combination of these two working together.
Note: The measurements you are about to see are made using a standardized Gras 45C. Headphone measurements by definition are approximate and variable so don't be surprised if other measurements even if performed with the same fixtures as mine, differ in end results. Protocols vary such as headband pressure and averaging (which I don't do). As you will see, I confirm the approximate accuracy of the measurements using Equalization and listening tests. Ultimately headphone measurements are less exact than speakers mostly in bass and above a few kilohertz so keep that in mind as you read these tests. If you think you have an exact idea of a headphone performance, you are likely wrong!
Fitment on the fixture was challenging with respect to bass. After much playing I think I got it close but likely you can do a hair better with more effort.
Nectar Sound Hive Measurements
As usual we start with our frequency response measurement:
Very strange pattern of peaks which I am guessing are resonances caused in the panel. The peaks are well above our target so likely the sound will be bright especially when combined with flat bass response. Here is the relative frequency response for EQ development:
I was stunned how low the distortion was at 94 and 104 dBSPL:
I performed an FFT and could not find any harmonic distortion that rose above the noise floor of my room:
So likely SINAD is higher still. Here is the absolute value:
You might have noticed that I am missing the 114 dBSPL in the above graph. The combination of headphone and amplifier could not go above 106 dBSPL. Anything above that produced horrid distortion that was off the charts. So there is a massive cliff here.
Group delay is messy:
No sensitivity or impedance measurements since I can't probe the headphone by itself.
Nectar Hive Listening Tests
Out of box tonality is good but I quickly ran into some high frequency notes all of a sudden jumping out at me. And overall impression being somewhat closed. I went ahead and programmed a bunch of filters to boost the bass and smooth out the repeating ringing:
The sound was now much more open and triggered brightness was gone. Alas, as soon as I moved on from my female vocal tracks, the bass became extremely distorted with my first filter in place. I played around with it and no filter would allow me to have the combination of good bass and no distortion. Distortion was so bad that I finally turned the filter off.
Even without the filter, the ability to play loud is simply not there. Go past slight above average listening level and the sound starts to get dirty and congested. Keep turning up the volume and you now start to get mild static to go with that. Crank it up more and hell breaks loose at 3:00 o'clock.
I say this headphone is only useful for mild to average listening levels -- with the amplifier I have at least.
Conclusions
While there are some merits here such as ultra low distortion at low playback levels, frequency response and myriad of resonances are a serious flaw. Fortunately their effect is not large unless a tone hits on them and you hear the sharp zing. For some music this may be fine and indeed at very low volumes this was an enjoyable headphone to listen to. Then again, you could pick up a planar magnetic headphone and have most if not all of that sound plus tons more dynamics.
Overall, I can't recommend the Nectar Sound Hive.
------------
As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.
Any donations are much appreciated using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/
The headphone as tested came with the upgraded sheepskin pads. I am told the company has moved away from the stock pad that is supplied with these anyway. Four small Velcros hold the pad which I found insufficient as it was easy to pull the pad off. The build feels somewhat plasticky and creeks a bit. Fit is very different than my Stax headphones and is tight around my ears.
Electrostatic headphones require special amplifier with high voltage bias feed. I went into my bin of Stax headphone amps I have and selected the SRM-313 which is transistor based (to avoid issues with aging tubes in my other ones). The testing you see is the combination of these two working together.
Note: The measurements you are about to see are made using a standardized Gras 45C. Headphone measurements by definition are approximate and variable so don't be surprised if other measurements even if performed with the same fixtures as mine, differ in end results. Protocols vary such as headband pressure and averaging (which I don't do). As you will see, I confirm the approximate accuracy of the measurements using Equalization and listening tests. Ultimately headphone measurements are less exact than speakers mostly in bass and above a few kilohertz so keep that in mind as you read these tests. If you think you have an exact idea of a headphone performance, you are likely wrong!
Fitment on the fixture was challenging with respect to bass. After much playing I think I got it close but likely you can do a hair better with more effort.
Nectar Sound Hive Measurements
As usual we start with our frequency response measurement:
Very strange pattern of peaks which I am guessing are resonances caused in the panel. The peaks are well above our target so likely the sound will be bright especially when combined with flat bass response. Here is the relative frequency response for EQ development:
I was stunned how low the distortion was at 94 and 104 dBSPL:
I performed an FFT and could not find any harmonic distortion that rose above the noise floor of my room:
So likely SINAD is higher still. Here is the absolute value:
You might have noticed that I am missing the 114 dBSPL in the above graph. The combination of headphone and amplifier could not go above 106 dBSPL. Anything above that produced horrid distortion that was off the charts. So there is a massive cliff here.
Group delay is messy:
No sensitivity or impedance measurements since I can't probe the headphone by itself.
Nectar Hive Listening Tests
Out of box tonality is good but I quickly ran into some high frequency notes all of a sudden jumping out at me. And overall impression being somewhat closed. I went ahead and programmed a bunch of filters to boost the bass and smooth out the repeating ringing:
The sound was now much more open and triggered brightness was gone. Alas, as soon as I moved on from my female vocal tracks, the bass became extremely distorted with my first filter in place. I played around with it and no filter would allow me to have the combination of good bass and no distortion. Distortion was so bad that I finally turned the filter off.
Even without the filter, the ability to play loud is simply not there. Go past slight above average listening level and the sound starts to get dirty and congested. Keep turning up the volume and you now start to get mild static to go with that. Crank it up more and hell breaks loose at 3:00 o'clock.
I say this headphone is only useful for mild to average listening levels -- with the amplifier I have at least.
Conclusions
While there are some merits here such as ultra low distortion at low playback levels, frequency response and myriad of resonances are a serious flaw. Fortunately their effect is not large unless a tone hits on them and you hear the sharp zing. For some music this may be fine and indeed at very low volumes this was an enjoyable headphone to listen to. Then again, you could pick up a planar magnetic headphone and have most if not all of that sound plus tons more dynamics.
Overall, I can't recommend the Nectar Sound Hive.
------------
As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.
Any donations are much appreciated using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/