The man behind Nectar Sound is as intriguing as the HiveX itself, and the full transparency as well as the 2-way communication that happened throughout the course of this review makes me optimistic about the brand even more. He's clearly someone who likes to build headphones and sources for fun first and to recoup some of the costs second—there doesn't seem to be a strong business plan involved and I can't even tell you what Nectar Sound will look like in five years. Judging by the release of the Nectar Bee planar set recently, clearly there's more going on too. The takeaway here; don't go in expecting to receive a product that's been tested by certification agencies or coming in fancy packaging. It's one guy who not only assembles everything in house but also takes the photos, writes the text, built the website, and does shipping/customer service too. It's as raw as it gets and frankly the e-stat world is the only place I can think of where this would have worked.

Yet I am glad it did because the HiveX is fascinating in so many good ways. I have no doubt that the same design built by a larger company would look more refined and would easily cost north of $1000. At the same time, there's something to be said about the small scale production going on which allows for each unit to be driver-matched on a now-mature production process, with a formula that went through trial and error involving several friends and customers around the world. From the Pollinator to the original Hive to this HiveX, you now have a product at $650 that competes and bests several others at or higher than the price point in terms of comfort, tonality, and even technical performance.

At the end of the day the biggest hurdle to the adoption of the Nectar HiveX is not its smaller production or increased shipping costs outside the USA, but rather the need to get a decent electrostatic headphones amplifier/energizer. I would be remiss to not point out I was testing these on sources that cost 6-12x the cost and even simpler amplifiers will be 2-3x as expensive as the HiveX. It gets harder to convince people to fork out nearly $2000 thus without hearing the set themselves, so on my end I'll take the HiveX around to various UK audio trade shows for people to experience them. I am convinced it's a fantastic set and a worthwhile addition to anyone already invested in the e-stat world. Far too many of those don't get the bass extension that people are looking for from all rounders and the HiveX would be complementary in that regard. If you also found yourself with an e-stat energizer/converter and wanted to simply downsize your collection then the HiveX is also an excellent single choice for the money. Lastly, in case you were curious enough about how electrostats sound and wanted to go with one, then the HiveX is probably the best starting point to break into. There's enough to like here to merit a strong recommendation and I'd urge Nectar Sound to improve the pad securing mechanism to make this even better than it already is.