Adam A7 Review

History

You still here?…OK. Studio monitors are hard to pick apart. Choosing one over the other will normally come down to a few specific requirements that can only be decided upon through months of work. So when I was asked to write up a review of the Adam A7s, I was a little hesitant.

I got the monitors anyway and eventually got down to writing this report, so enjoy.

The A7s are the first budget professional monitors from Adam Audio. They were a welcome surprise for most audio tech enthusiasts, especially considering that Adam Audio has some of the most expensive monitors in the market.

Design

When it comes to the design the A7s are very similar to most near-field studio monitors, with only a few unique attributes that have become signature features for Adam Audio. Their most impressive addition to the monitors would be the Accelerated Ribbon Technology (ART) tweeters, a feature that Adam Audio first introduced to their line in 2002 with the ANF10 monitors (For those of you that don’t know, Accelerated Ribbon Technology is a feature that Adam Audio claims is 4 times more effective at pushing the air around it than your typical dome tweeters.)

This is the kind of technology that allows the A7s to deliver sound at frequencies as high as 35 kHz. On paper, that is higher than most studio monitors and it looks good, but realistically speaking, if you consider that the human ear can only hear between 5Hz-20 kHz, I doubt anyone but our dog will appreciate that sound.

If we ever evolve into higher beings with more acute hearing on the other hand, maybe the Adam A7s will still be useful to us.

Each unit of the pair has an “Input gain” knob that ranges from 0 to +6dB which work fine. The knobs are not very precise and you’ll mostly have to use your own hearing to match them up correctly. Most people won’t realise notice this, so it’s hardly a problem.

The usual XLR and RCA ports are at the back of the monitors, with your standard IEC power cable holder. There are 3 EQ control dials to specifically tune your monitorsand these range from the low 150Hz range to the high shelf 6 kHz dial.

Adam Audio A7 Technical Specs

Dimensions:

Width: 180cm

Length: 330cm

Depth: 280cm

Weight: 8,1kg (17,8lbs)

2-Way Active Bass Reflex Speaker

Accelerated Ribbon Technology (A.R.T.) Tweeters

Woofer

165mm (6,5″)

Rohacell / Carbonfibre sandwich

46Hz – 35 kHz Frequency Response Range

Input/HF gain, Hi/Lo EQ

Power: 50W (sin), 80W (RMS)

Balanced XLR & Unbalanced RCA Input Ports

Conclusion

As I mentioned before, studio monitor preference is very subjective. Who you are, what you are, what you are looking for, how much you have and what you expect to get will all come into effect. So to say Adam’s A7s are the best studio monitors in their price range would be an exaggeration at the very least.

What can be said is, at their price range the Adam Audio A7 monitors deliver a very precise and open sound that could easily be compared to some of the more expensive high end speakers in the market.

The A7 monitors might carry sound at the level of most high end monitors, but they manage to do so at prices that most serious users could afford. If you are on a budget there are only a few studio monitors at this price range that could be considered competition (to really get a clear understanding of what those are, click the link below)

Summary

Pros:

High Quality Sound,

Build quality is outstanding,

Little to No Ear fatigue,

Great Budget Price

The Cons:

At this price, I could not really find any big faults with the monitors.

The Bottom Line: If you are looking for high standard professional studio monitors at a price less than $1000 (£600), then the A7s are still in the top 5, if not the top of the five.

So go buy them now and save yourself the time of reading this review, however, if you are the smart buyer you will want to learn about the other top 5 alternative monitors at this price.