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NOCTIS 01 over-ear reference headphone in anodised black with bronze hardware

Ref. 01 — Planar reference

Reference, without the room.

A studio monitor you wear. Built once, in one finish, at one price. The only thing left to decide is whether you want it.

Buy — $1,290
Ships in 48 hours
60 nights to return it
Stereophile — Class A Head-Fi — Editor’s Pick 2026 Darko.Audio — “Absurdly transparent” The Absolute Sound — Golden Ear Abbey Road Studios — In use, Studio Two Resident Advisor — Gear of the Year

02 — The object

Four parts.
Nothing decorative.

Every component that does not change what you hear was removed. What is left costs more to make and lasts longer.

Exploded view of the NOCTIS 01 earcup showing the aluminium cup, planar driver, acoustic mesh and Alcantara pad
Earcup assembly / exploded
  1. 01

    Machined cup

    One billet of 6061 aluminium, cut over 41 minutes. No cast parts, because cast parts ring.

  2. 02

    Planar array

    A 62 mm beryllium-coated diaphragm under uniform magnetic tension. It moves as one surface, not as a cone.

  3. 03

    Acoustic mesh

    A three-density grille that damps the rear wave without storing it. This is where most headphones smear.

  4. 04

    Alcantara seal

    Memory foam wrapped in Italian Alcantara. It seals against glasses, which is harder than it sounds.

03 — Measured

Numbers we publish
because we can.

Driver
0 mm

Beryllium-coated planar

Distortion
0 %

THD at 94 dB SPL

Frequency floor
0 Hz

Measured, not modelled

Mass
0 g

Magnesium yoke, no steel

The grille is the hard part

Three perforation densities across one surface, chemically etched rather than punched. Punching work-hardens the metal and the metal then colours the treble. You would hear it on a hi-hat before you could name it.

Macro detail of the NOCTIS 01 acoustic mesh grille and bronze accent ring
“I stopped checking mixes in the car. That is the highest compliment I know how to give a pair of headphones.”
Marguerite Okonjo Mix engineer — 3 Grammys, 11 years at Electric Lady

04 — Signature

What it sounds like,
in plain words.

01

Flat, and honest about it

No smile curve, no bass shelf, no "musicality" tax. Within ±1.5 dB from 20 Hz to 10 kHz. If a record is thin, it will sound thin.

±1.5 dB / 20 Hz – 10 kHz
02

Decay you can actually hear

Planar drivers stop when the signal stops. Reverb tails resolve instead of blurring into the next bar, which is what makes editing fast.

0.008% THD @ 94 dB
03

A stage, not a headband

Open-back with a controlled rear chamber. Instruments hold position across the width rather than collapsing into your skull.

Open-back, damped rear
04

Wearable for nine hours

318 grams and even clamp pressure. We tested against the only benchmark that matters: a full session without taking them off.

318 g / 4.1 N clamp

05 — Owners

People who work
on them daily.

0 avg. rating
1,204 verified owners
Caught a 40 ms pre-delay error on a vocal bus that three other pairs missed. Paid for itself on one session.
Tobias Renner
Producer, Berlin
Owned
14 months
I wear glasses. Every open-back I have owned leaked at the temple. These do not, and I stopped noticing them by hour two.
Priya Raghunathan
Post-production sound, Chennai
Owned
8 months
Ordered Tuesday, mixing on them Thursday morning. The unboxing is deliberately boring, which I respect.
Callum Fraser
Mastering engineer, Glasgow
Owned
3 months
Pad replacement took four minutes with no tools. That is the part nobody markets and everybody eventually needs.
Ana Lucía Vidal
Front of house, Madrid
Owned
2 years

06 — Order

One finish.
One price.

There is no better version waiting behind a higher tier. This is the one we make, and it is the one the studios bought.

Buy — $1,290 Still deciding?
Ships in
48 hours

Free, tracked, worldwide

Return within
60 nights

We pay the postage

Warranty
5 years

Parts and labour

Pay
In 4, at 0%

Or card, Apple Pay, PayPal

07 — Before you buy

The honest
answers.

No. At 32 ohms and 104 dB/V they run properly from a laptop or a phone dongle. An amp gives you headroom, not a different tuning.

Send them back within 60 nights. We email you a prepaid label, you get the full amount, and nobody asks you to justify it.

A second model means splitting tooling, testing and warranty stock across two products. We would rather put that into one.

Yes, both, without tools. Pads are $49 a pair, cables $69, and we commit to stocking them for ten years from your purchase date.

Everywhere we can legally ship. Duties and taxes are calculated and paid at checkout, so nothing is owed on delivery.