This is the official thread for the Nectar Sound Bee
This thread is for discussion and reviews.
- Type: Over Ear
- Amp needed: Yes
- Open Back Planar
Nectar Sound Link
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I ordered a set tonight and they will ship tomorrow. I will do a write-up as soon as I receive them.
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first I’ve heard of these. how much?
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$500
I’ve had these bookmarked for awhile; will be watching for impressions.
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Well, I got my Bee’s today. Nice looking headphone for a one man operation. I had a few issues at first:
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They will not work my Hart 3.5mm cables. The sound cuts out. I am attaching a pic of both. The Hart cables have two black rings and Bee cables have one. The Bee cable works fine.
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I thought the sound was muffled and had no range. Finally, I realized that I should pull the foam dust covers out.
Now they have better range and that bass is impressive! I started with the iFi Pro iCAN, using mid gain, a touch of bass boost and playing with 3D effects. VERY fun sound and I thought that maybe, like the HE6se V2’s, they would be an iFi headphone. I was incorrect. They are now on the Violectric V220. I put the pre-gain at +6Db’s and can’t go past 9:30 on the volume dial. When I start tomorrow, I will likely set the gain at 0. The bassy headphone, combined with a warm amp is just wonderful for me!
These are sounding better every hour. Might be burn-in but I always bet on brain burn-in.
They started off with two problems and bar was heading pretty low. Now I am really enjoying the sound. These make the V220 sound like it has bass boost.
Very light, very comfortable, pretty damn cheap, nice sliders that clicks into separate settings and not bad looking.
Sound wise, the bass is awesome, the mids are pretty damn good, but the high end is recessed. On some songs it is really bad, like Dorothy - After Midnight. Then I moved on to Larkin Poe, Dave Matthews, Shinedown, ZZ Ward and Bishop Briggs. All sounded good, but I suspected that I was getting short changed on certain female vocals? I decided to dive into my favourite female vocalist, who also happens to travel with a small orchestra, Florence + The Machine. She doesn’t sound her best. To me, she sounds awesome on my Focals, Grado’s and even the HE6se V2’s. To me the high vocals, the horns and even the separation up high are lacking. Of course this is only day one.
By the way, I only have a few Adele songs, but she wails Beautifully though these. 
I think these may exceed my Cascades or SR2’s, but time will tell.
Looking very forward to the next week or so of going through these. I will try some jazz tomorrow. That may be much more revealing.
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Glad to hear some solid first impressions - I heard they were dark and you seem to have confirmed that. Those look like the same connectors the Meze 99 uses, Hart makes those too but they are different from the standard 3.5mm.
Enjoy’em - keep us posted.
Definitely dark! That doesn’t put me off though. It is just whether they can find a niche in my collection.
I will post after a few days with more impressions. It is still shiny new toy phase, but it will depend on how that upper range goes.
I love my SR2’s and Cascades which, to me, are weak up high.
The top of my list are Grado’s, Focal’s and HiFiman HE6se V2’s as they are all pretty full range (Yes, the Grado’s are a bit bass light) headphones.
The Cascades, SR2’s and I think, the Bee’s are on the next level down to me. But under the guise of “Variety is the spice of life”, I will try almost anything once. 
It will interesting to try some horn jazz tomorrow and see how that translates.
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And my final thoughts on the Bee’s:
Well, here it goes. I have had my Bees for two weeks, as of tomorrow. I wasn’t looking to buy anything, but I found these and was intrigued. With the price drop to $499.00, I jumped in and ordered them.
The word was they had great bass, good mids and were recessed in the high end. I had recently bought handphones like that (iBasso SR2’s) and was interested in something similar.
On arrival I immediately plugged them into my iFi Pro iCAN and gave them enough volume to sound good. The sound was HORRIBLE! And then I realized that I needed to remove the foam dustcovers from the cups.
They sounded good and I was adjusting to the sound.
Next up was the Violectric V220 amp. At first this was an awesome combo and the bass was slammin’. But within a day of use I realized that a warm amp and a very dark set of headphones is not a great combo. There was NO high end at all and even the upper mids were drowning. It seemed liked there were freqencies were missing or a thick veil had descended. It was blocking/muting/kiling horns and female singers. Not working at all.
Next was going back to the iFi. I upped the gain to mid-gain and dialed the volume back a bit. Then I upped the 3D sound effect to max and even added a touch of bass boost. Everything sounded Much better and the headphones seemed to have a much wider range. This went on a for a few days and I was adjusting to the sound.
Then I decided to try the RebelAmp. Just not enough juice to run them at their best. And I never thought about adding the Loki.
Last up was my Little Dot MK9 tube amp. I switched to high gain, but still wasn’t expecting much and I was not surprised. Not enough juice. But right beside my MK9 is my Schiit Loki, which I haven’t used in a long time. I switched it on and the gain really helped the amp. And I had all four bands jacked up. The combo really sounded good. Very full and very fun. I was switching back and forth between this and the iFi, enjoying both. The iFi was more clear, but this sounded more full. It “seemed” to have more range, which is what EQ is supposed to do.
By this time I was more than a week into listening to these headphones, every day for several hours. I thought they were a pretty good headphone with some flaws. My brain had adjusted to their unique sound.
Then on Saturday I decided to go back to comparing headphones. Wow! First up was the Hifiman HE6se V2’s. The musical range seemed a mile high and a mile wide, although they seemed a little bass light. The mids and the treble were singing with lots of air around and they sounded SO open. I immediately played some favourites (Miles Davis, Florence and the Machine, etc.) and my music was back. There is a HUGE difference between these headphones.
On Sunday I pulled out the iBasso SR2’s. I had forgotten just how much bass these had and how wonderful the mids are. The highs are a little recessed on these, but I have really grown to like them with my rock and even the jazz. With a lot of horn stuff the highs can get pretty hot. With these headphones the highs never get to screeching or piercing levels like my Focals and especially my Grado’s can. These are two different approached to headphone design: iBasso went BASS, Mids, treble. Whereas the Bee’s went BBBAAASSSS, Mids…
My thoughts on these headphones are that the high end has been sacrificed to concentrate on the bottom end. But I think Sajeev went too far. The upper mids and above sounds range from invisible to altered. And with what I can hear there is not much detail, separation or air. With certain songs I am used to hearing a snare drum in the background or ice clinking in a glass with a live piece. Those are not present with the Bee’s. While the bee’s don’t sound very “open” to me the opposite is actually true. My wife could be 3, 4 and 5 feet away and hear Every bit of the music, including the vocals. These leak as bad as the Sennheiser 6 series. And I don’t listen above 75Db’s.
EQ can change these in a very noticeable way, but I am not an EQ guy. I have actually been thinking about selling my Loki. After several years in the hobby I have decided that if a headphones needs to be EQ’d a lot, it is probably not the headphone for me and I sell them on. It took me eight years years to figure out the sounds I like, but I have a collection now that makes me very happy. Of course we are always looking for that next great thing. 
On the upside, I love the look, they are very light/comfortable, the pads are great and I can (and did) wear them for endless hours in complete comfort.
These will be used in a very limited capacity, much like my CFA Cascades. I might even make a playlist just for them. Some stuff sounds great on them. Two Feet, Beth Hart (Tribute to Led Zeppelin), Crosses, etc. Good for blues and some rock. Might even be great for EDM, hip-hop, etc, but I don’t know as they aren’t my genre’s. Anything bassy or growly comes out very well. Definitely not for jazz, classical or a lot of female vocals.
My music preferences are new rock, classic rock, blues and horn jazz. I am not a loud listener and you know my amps. My headphone collection is Grado GH2’s/Hemp’s, iBasso SR2’s, HiFiman HE6se V2’s, Focal Elex’s/Clear’s/Radiance’s, CFA Cascade’s and the Bee’s.
I think I covered everything, but feel free to ask any questons you might have.
Shane D
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A belated update, two months later. I decided to just set these aside for a few weeks. I held off having a cable made for them as I wasn’t sure if they were a keeper. I then decided to give these guys every chance to survive. I contacted Hart Audio Cables and said that I needed a set of 2 X 3.5mm that were dual mono, as opposed to stereo.
I finally got it in today. I had been planning to run these through a Liquid Platinum amp, but I had a few problems and then they were sold out.
Today I was able to plug them in to my Pro iCAN via the balanced output. At mid-gain, around 10:00 and in tube mode they sound pretty nice. This time I am listening less critically I did initially and they sounded just great. I am also probably going to try the EQ in this chain.
I do want to run with these for a while, but today I also got my new headband from iBasso for my SR2’s. Took a while to change the cups over and put the pads back on. I have been missing these so…
Tried to sell these for a couple of weeks, but there were no takers. Understandable as 99% or more of people have never even heard of them. 
Put them back in today and running them out of my iFi. Most stuff sounds great, but not all. Some stuff (Florence and the Machine for one) sounds muffled and closed in.
But Dave Matthews new album, The Heavy’s new album, Miles Davis, etc. Sounds Awesome!
The weird thing is that I was thinking about picking up another set of planars recently when I had these boxed up in another room.
I think I will be keeping them in spite of the fact that a minority of my music does not sound good, at all, on them. A lot of it sounds Excellent though.
BF2 to iFi Pro iCAN (with some bass boost and Lots of 3D sound effects).
