So I recently bit the bullet after seeing a deal on Nectar Pollenator headphones that I could not resist. The current price for regular Pollenators is $350 - but a special "brighter" pair was offered on EBAY for $215 shipped. After discussing with the creator, Sajeev - I found that these were either accidentally or experimentally tensioned differently so that the bass rolls off a bit more, but they also have more treble energy as well. Below is the chart I was given for my pair. Keep in mind that my review will be based on the "bright" Pollenator, and the regular one might sound a bit different. Mine prior to modifications (see below) roll off at 60 hz, where the regular ones on the Nectar site stay flat down to 20 Hz.
I knew before I received my pair - that my big head and ears could be a problem with Pollenators. My wife has frequently complained that my big head prevents her from buying me fun hats. That said, with the stock headband and pads - I could comfortably listen at the biggest extension setting. That said the stock pads are TERRIBLE. They can't seal because the surface they sit on is uneven, and they connect with 3 pieces of velcro. The stock pads are "snake skin" similar to the Stock Sony MDR V6 pads, and worse than the stock Koss ESP950. They don't seal on the outer diameter either because the fit is not snug enough. The sound was not pleasant in my opinion - it was not clear, and with strong bass I got weird vibrations which I believe came from the surrounding housing?
What makes pad rolling with these a little difficult is that pads sit in a recess maybe 0.375 inch deep as shown below. So pads larger then 95 mm will only fit by forcing them. I also don't think that sitting pads directly on the stators is a good idea - so I used 3mm craft foam as shown to make a consistent rim around the edge. On other stats, I've created noise when my ears touch the stators through the pad mesh. This ring of foam prevents that. I found pads I already owned that were slightly oval - that I could force in, and the sound immediately improved - but between the now high clamp force and a hot spot on the top of my head I couldn't listen for more than a half hour due to discomfort. At that point, I thought I may have wasted my money. Thankfully I decided to try two other sets of pads which worked.
From Amazon, for $16 dollars I found 95mm pads with a 47mm Opening, cheap pleather but soft memory foam and soft velour interior. I normally don't like velour pads - but these were comfortable - I don't mind my ears touching the edge on the inside. These are 30mm thick versus the 20mm stock pads. Because of the softness, clamp is totally tolerable - I've listened for up to 3 hours at a time. The fit against the sides is snug even without adhesive, and the bass is MUCH stronger than with the original pads, which I believe were used for the measurements above.
Then through shear luck - I noticed that the pads of my Plantronics Backbeat Pro Gen 1's are the same diameter at 95mm. They're solid pleather, and 20mm thick so that the inner opening is 55mm - less contact for my big ears. I pulled them off and used the plastic ring to press into the Pollenators with a tight fit. To be honest, it's TOO tight so I'm going to use laser cut circles and speaker cloth to replace the rings long term, the outer diameter will be a couple mm's smaller than on the Backbeat Pro. The picture of this setup is below, and these are the pads I used for the comparative reviews with my Koss ESP95X and Kaldas RR1 Conquest.
The overall build quality is not great - they're obviously 3D printed and there's occasional imperfections visible in terms of surface texture and paint coverage. I don't mind that when I consider the great, and for stats, somewhat unique sound quality. That said - what bugs me is the complete lack of dust protection. Both my Koss ESP95X and Kaldas RR1's used to whine due to dust before I repaired them. I've found that speaker cloth on rings works well to provide decent dust protection, so I'm waiting for 3D printed rings to arrive so that I can put dust protection over the outside stators. Nectar provides foam plugs to protect the drivers when you're not listening, but if like me you're listening for hours at a time, that's not a reasonable protection strategy in my opinion. If it happens, the electrostatic whine is intolerable. I'll report back if my dust protection works - and if it's sonically transparent.
I'll provide a more detailed comparison to my other stats in a follow up post, but my initial review will be that these are the first Stats I've heard that sound like Planars. The notes are THICK and FULL, and my initial listening had me reminded of my Monoprice M1060C's. But with excellent stat speed, and no distortion. I sold my Stax L300's and kept my Koss ESP95X because the Koss had thicker notes - these are thicker yet. I was worried that it may mean a loss of microdetail but my eventual comparisons would prove that is not the case.
These stats are very mid forward, and have a very small soundstage. Earlier in my audiophile journey that would have been ideal for me, I only wanted to hear from the front row if not closer. Ever wanted to hear the voices of Brandi Carlile or Florence of Florence and the Machine more clearly? Then these are for you. My listening volume was limited by how much mids my ears could take. That said - the bass extends deep. I use an admittedly inaccurate tone test to figure out how deep my headphones go. I listen for a couple hours to make sure I'm listening at a reasonable volume. Then I pull up a tone generator at that volume to see how deep and high I can hear. I still hear reasonable bass at 20Hz, practically identical to my Kaldas RR1's. On the Koss ESP95X that reasonable value is 30Hz regardless of pads. The high end for the Pollenators maxes out my 42 year old ears at about 15.5 Khz.
