I’ve owned my pair of Adam A7X’s for around a year now, and whilst it has taken me about this time to truly learn to mix well on them, I appreciated the upgrade they provided as soon as I had them set up.

Starting off with Tannoy Reveal 5a’s and a Presonus Firebox, I upgraded the Firebox to a MOTU 828 Mk2, the Tannoys to my Adams, and the MOTU to an RME FireFace UC. Each time the swap has been an upgrade, but the Adams were the only unnecessary one – The interfaces keeled over, and I had to replace them, whereas upon hearing the Adams in store I actively wanted to upgrade to them.

I tried out the Yamaha HS80s, KRK Rokit RP8s and the Adam A7Xs before coming to the conclusion that the Adams represented the audio coming through them in a way that I wanted to hear it. Deep, rich and detailed. I pulled out my card and didn’t feel burnt doing so, which is a pretty good test for me as to whether I’m following my gut or my brain.

I lugged the Adams home and boxed up the Tannoys, never to be seen again, and marvelled at the extra frequencies the Adams could provide listening to a few tracks. They helped me realise the attention that goes into a great sounding mix. For example, I’d not even noticed the start of BT’s “The Antikythera Mechanism” sounds all broken, small and distant initially, and simply glides out of the speakers when the piano rolls in. Lovely, and just what I’d bought the Adams for. Front to back, and side to side definition. Nice crisp highs and... what’s that? Bass! Something i’d been guessing at with the Tannoys was now apparent and mixable. Whilst they could maybe do with a little more (I suppose that’s what the A8X’s are for, amongst other things) Turning them up a little brings it out further, and I’m sure appropriate bass traps would help too. Regardless, I’m pleased with how my mixes sound, even on club systems where the bass is much more obvious.

That said, therein lay a problem, whilst wombling about below 100hz the Adams would emit a resonant tone around G0. Ugh..! After tinkering about I’d realised that the sound was coming from the two bass ports. Good thing was, Adam had realised this too, and instantaneously offered to collect and correct the speakers with a new curved port once I’d contacted them. I believe it was about a week before a brand new pair arrived, (out come the Tannoys! One last hurrah) all paid for via 24hr courier. The team at Adam were very courteous along the way. I’ve come to believe customer service is a pretty important part of an item’s value, as unfortunately things do go wrong, and speaking to a bunch of incompetents to fix them isn’t fun. This makes me glad I spent my money with them.

Returned and within my setup, I’d say the FireFace UC and Adams do each other justice – the Adams represent the UC’s sonic abilities well, and vice versa. Importantly, I think they’ll both do me justice for a good while. Rather than secretly yearning for upgrades, the two have instead made me look at room treatment to further improve things, and enabled me to improve my technique and mixes.

Whilst I appreciate there are probably even better monitors out there, I feel the Adams will last me a long time, for my budget they were the best of the bunch and music coming from them sounded as I’d like for it to sound.

Monitors are subjective.Don’t let the internet be the deciding factor in your choice, so go and try a pair for yourself and see what your ears have to say.

things i dont like:
the green led its pale, "ugly green" its depressing to look at.
the jbl eon 15g2 also has a green led, but its greener, alive & a bit brighter. its addictive to look.

i know the blablabla, but some speakers led auto-turn off.
my camera does not capture that difference.

mosquitoes love to sleep & die in the ribbon.
easy to fix, with a resistor.

Tweeter cannot be rotated.
unless heavy modification.

things i like:
it has "secret" calibration on the back, no need to open.
separated LF&HF amplifier gains can be tweaked to taste.

at first seems it does not have bass, because default factory calibration.
but it can give a nice bass.

the LF shelf is nice, deep bass, punchy.
the HF shelf its a bit harsh sounding. "too clean for my taste" too much dynamic.
strange. must be the Q, easy to fix if i find the capacitor or the resistor.

tweaking the lows its very easy.
the highs are more delicated to tweak, because it has 3 settings:
amplifier gain, HF Shelf EQ & a second +/-4dB stepped tweeter setting.

just play music & tweak.
or buy calibration mic, and use a signal generator...


the sound?
transparent & accurate.
that means most MP3 sound boring as hell, like a veil .

analog sounds nice 3d.
too clean mic-pres sound too clean.

it does not make digital music sound good.
like some vintage amplifiers: McIntosh, Scott & others.

but these are the real Truth.
some times i wonder if i want to hear the Truth.

i feel they lack something... noise? THD? cant tell

inside?
magnets & PSU transformer are big = good,
circuits have a clever 2 levels,.

Had these for 3 years now and I don't think I'll ever need to upgrade. I have been bringing mixes to highly regarded mastering engineers in Chicago for the past few years and my mixes seem to translate better and better with each record. The last pass the engineer noted that he needed to do very little to the original mixes.

Limitations: The A7's don't provide a ton of sub bass and I do roll off a bit of highs because the ribbon tweeters can be bright.

Strenghts: They have a large sweet spot, excellent depth of field, and are EXTREMELY detailed. I noticed a substantial difference when upgrading from Diamond Wharfedale 8.2 actives and now that I know these speakers my hunt for a great set of monitors is over. If you can't mix well on these you can't mix well. Period.

These come highly reccomended and I think are about as good as you can do for around $900.

The adam a7x are my first real studio monitors. I was using a home stereo"aiwa" for monitoring before...blew up one of the mid speakers.
I don't live in a place where you can audition different monitors. So, I had to go from reviews and I find these monitors are very revealing especially in the higher frequencies. To me the bass is good not overwhelming and especially tight.
I did have one woofer amp blow on me. Adam was great about giving me new speakers, and I say speakers because I did have port noise, when soloed with heavy bass which is all good now with new ports(really it wasn't much of a problem unless you hit the right frequency soloed). One thing to note about that is I never heard the port noise with commercial material, Although playing a bass line with the default bass software instruments in logic 9 would bring it out on about 3 or 4 keys.
It does take time to get used too these monitors. To me they are like a magnifying glass into the mids to treble range. If you have a hiss somewhere in your chain these will let you know and like mentioned above forget about enjoying low bit rate mp3's as these will expose their flaws.
Alas,Their 5 year warranty is a good piece of mind.

The box and general packing is very good , nice big box for each speaker with strong foam that protects all angles of each speaker, you just need to pull them out from the bottom a bit as the fit is quite tight.

Upon first use without any burn in time, the sound is not a true reflection of how the A7X will be once they have burned in and are at optimal performance. The first thing I noticed was the tweeter being a bit harsh in this burn in process, which made me put the hi shelf filter on -2. After a good number of hours (And over a week) the sound across the spectrum was getting to how it should be, and the harshness from the tweeter was gone, so I could put the hi self back to its default setting at 0. In general even after a couple of weeks the general sound was still improving so the burn in time can take a little while.

After the burn in process the overall sound is very balanced, yet open and very clear. The detail in the top end is the best I've heard in this category of monitors below £1500. You can hear all the fine details and fix things very easily due to the immense detail and presentation that comes from the X-ART tweeter. There is no harshness (once burned in) and the sound is very clean, and not over hyped at all. The mid and low end is of very good detail also, you can pin point all the fine details and fix things with ease across the spectrum. The overall level to detail and accuracy is second to none, and the stereo imaging excellent.

Of course the low sub frequencies below 40Hz are hard to hear and fix giving the price of the monitors, but testing test tones I can hear down to 38Hz at a reasonable output volume.

The A7X have a massive amount of output, I've not pushed them near their max yet but have them at quite high output levels often, but even when I've got them going very loud there is still quite a bit of headroom. The output is similar to some midfield's I've heard, that's how good the output is, which is impressive for nearfields. (They have the best output compared to it's rival's from my experience)

I've had the A7X in four different rooms, two treated. What I've experienced is that the overall balance can change allot from each room. The current room I am in is quite well treated and the overall sound is not aggressive at all, it's more laid back, open and very clean, while in the none treated rooms I found the low end to be lost somewhere and the overall sound being very aggressive and not balanced, and in one room the top end sounding a little harsh due to no control of it in the room. I feel testing these in bad rooms can give a bad presentation of their true sound and detail as they are sensitive to room treatment (More so than say the 120A or CMS 50 / 65)

I'd also like to add that I picked the A7X because for me they presented all the details the best and made things much easier to fix / work with, I do not get monitors which just sound the best, it's all about the translation, imaging, general detail, balance and output for me.

I've tested the old A7 at a friends and I can say the A7X are a big step up in every possible area, which is a big thing considering how good the A7 are, but there is no harshness from the tweeter, and the low end , stereo image, detail and output are all a big step up from the A7, and for me personally the best in its class.

So far everything translates wonderful and I'm improving my personal abilities each time I use the A7X.

Overall the build quality is very good, the only downside is the front material marks very easy, such as finger prints etc, which are hard to get off, other than that the build quality is very solid and the old port noise issue was fixed ages ago so you would have to be very unlucky to get port noise issues, or get sold very old stock.

I work with more bass heavy electronic music and some acoustic stuff and for me these work perfect for this, the A7X rival's I've tested I found I had to work harder to get the same results and they don't present all the details as good. (Only ones not tested are Dynaudio etc)

I am rating the A7X based on their competition area, thus the high scores, I won't compare them to higher end / more expensive monitors but only to their rivals.

The 5 year warranty also helped pick these over others with less warranty.

I won't say get any monitors based on hear say, I've just noted down all my personal experience with the A7X and hope it can help some of you. Nothing beats testing monitors in your own space so if you're in the shop for some make sure you test a few monitors in your space and don't get on hearsay.

Used some A7s last year as a second monitoring system and found them to be quite nice. They're not hyped, not shrill, actually a very good option for those of you who do not like NS-10s! Sometimes it takes time to get used to new speakers but I found myself transitioning very quickly to using these. Also very good for the price range!

If you're looking for a not good but great mid range near field monitor you will probably have looked at your standard KRK offerings, perhaps Dynaudio BM5aMKII's and many others as I did. I then come to the realization that for a few more bucks I got a lot more bang. The ADAM A7X has improved outta site. I recently spent three & a half hours in the 'sweetspot' monitor room at Soundcorp and played a range of music and styles and the ADAM's where the only one that delivered the deep full bottom end bass for the likes of a darbuca drum. At$1500AU a pair it is great value for a small studio near-field arrangement and If you're into new or different technologies then the 'advanced ribbon technology' used is just that and it provides a fantastic frequency response. Also 7" cool Kevlar cones that help deliver that bottom end distortion free with 100w PWM ( that's Pulse Width Modulation) amp (this is supposed to provide better efficiency & heat dissipation). It's obviously subjective when it comes to monitors and also what style of music you're into but I found these a good all rounder as I did the Dyna's though they didn't deliver that bass I love All up if your looking in this range or class of monitor be sure to check the these out and correct me if i'm wrong but you wont be dissappointed

These rather small speakers were my first pair of monitors for mixing. Before them I had B&W DM610, which sounded nice but, had too much scoop in the midrange.

These speakers are quite accurate and can produce lots of bass in spite of the small speakers. On the back panel there are 3 knobs (Low shelf, High shelf, Tweeter Lvl.), so you can tweak the speakers to your liking. This easy access is very important, when most of owners - I assume - are on a budget, and therefore may not have the best sounding room.

The only thing I miss about these speakers are a bit more range in the low end. It's hard to make an accurate mix in the low end, when the speakers only go down to 50Hz. That's what you get with an 7".

I've heard other speakers in the same price range, and these speakers are definitely one of the most accurate sounding!

Having owned and worked with the originals for years I worked with these recently a bit.

I do think they sound different extended lows yes.

Sme have buzzed about the port noise which I did not notice on my original a7s though I have heard they also suffered form this but perhaps less.

I did not really encounter this too much but could see how it could become a consuming glitch

If you like the originals are these better? Too personal to say
I did not like them better as I had grown accustomed to the mid and highs on the a7 and I still feel low mids are very difficult to do well on two way speakers, in this range.

If you hear the two side by side you might give preference to the deeper bass on the a7x but it is the total speaker balance that is the real issue by which we judge a monitors ability.

I feel the a7 is still every bit as good as the x version but in your room you might prefer the a7x

To be fair the a7x still is bass shy for full range , but near fields were never supposed to be full range but rather to get the engineer close with minimal reflections and give you the idea of performance on smaller speakers.

I do like the Adam tweeter the ribbon tweeter sound and if you have not worked with them they are worth hearing.

In some sense I think it would make more sense to upgrade to a8x as they are a larger speaker but then you are entering a whole other set of options for speakers in that range.

So if the a7x is an improvement perhaps not as big as I would have guessed.
But a good speaker none the less

I've had these monitors now for over a year now to replace my 15 year old Event 20/20Bas. At first I was concerned with the 7" speaker to replace Events 8" speaker. But once I tweaked settings I was all set. There are dials where you can adjust the ribbon tweeters, I initially had these turned down before my room was treated and the below, now they are almost flat.
I initially had some issues with the port noise problem that was shown here on the GS forums. A bit of hassle from my local store, but an Adam rep came right on the forum and expedited the return and replacement. With the new port fix, there was an instant satisfaction with the replacements. While surfing I also picked up a used Adam Sub7. I found that I had to better treat my room with the Sub 7, but after treating my room better, I found I didn't need the Sub7 at all. My mixes are getting better and better. I can hear things the 15 year old 20/20Bas didn't show. The don't get hot, I can pump them all day long, I really enjoy these things more and more everyday. I added the Primacoustic pads as well which added some clarity. One funny thing people say when they enter my room, why are your monitors upside down? Again, I can't explain why, but I can hear everything clear as day with them upside down. Am I imagining? maybe. Out the door I was in the $1500 range, but well worth the $$. I listened to what other monitors were available, nothing in this price range had that clarity. That ribbon tweeter adds something I can't explain, but mojo, magic maybe. They get used everyday, I am not worried they will crap out on me, they have been 100% reliable after the port noise fix. Once in a while when I want that boom sound, I enable the Sub7 just to get the room rattling, but again they are not needed for mixing, I can hear way down there while mixing. They look great in my room, the black finish is haunting, they look killer!
Of course now there are the new F series coming out!
Sigh, the typical GAS has hit again.
No regrets, I hope you take time to give them a listen.
Thanks for reading
Brian

Simply put, I was blown away. Of course, I was upgrading from KRK Rokit 6's and that's what my comparison is based upon.
It was as big a change in price as it was in sound. It was like getting a brand new pair of ears. The highs in the Adams are more present than in the KRK's, so my mixes don't translate too bright to other systems anymore . The mids are much more defined and clear, the bottom is sooo much better. I was using the sub I had with my computer speakers almost all the time with my Rokit 6's to better gauge the bottom end, but no more! I have not had to adjust any of the controls in the A7X's since getting them.
Another thing I noticed was a huge difference in the stereo image. It felt like it was suddenly spread out in front of me, whereas the RP6's sounded more focused. This spread revealed a lot more detail than I could ever get with the KRK's, so I believe the price difference is well justified by the performace.

Im not happy.
Got two of these - one of them is buzzing (its like a muddy with dominant timbre around +/-700 hz buzz but not sharp one, rich in high harmonics)

And the other one has low volume level, high frequency hiss (acceptable in this price range)

Not recommend those.

Sound Quality:
Sounds good if you want your material to sound like its played on an audiophile soundsystem. Honestly I don't consider these to be studio monitors, Great as speakers for general listening yes, studio monitors for any accurate sound representation --no thanks (IMO)

Highs- sound amazing but very fatiguing. very crisp and in your face.
Mids-serious dip in the mids IMO.
Bass/Low end- forget about it- these speakers STILL suffer from port noise. if your using these for EDM forget about it. Maybe for rock these would be okay.
Reverb tails-THE BEST!!! but accurate--not so sure..These speakers sound really wide in my opinion
Surgical EQ tasks---ummm nope.

LISTEN- if its between a set of KRK rockits and these its a no brainer.These are WAY freaking better. Also better than Genelecs.I sold mine for $100 less than I paid for them after 3yrs of owning them, so I'm happy with the purchase however I'm using Neumann KH-310a's now and those are whole new ballgame in the sense that I'm sure PMC's or ATC's are to my Neumanns.

Ease of use:ummmm they're speakers

features: the rubber on the front is a feature but its also a fingerprint magnet

Bang For Buck: for the price these are great speakers.if they are within your budget go for it.for the price really you aren't going to do much better.If you produce EDM I would say no unless a sub is in your budget also.However Bonobo is a great EDM producer and he uses these speakers, so go figure.still the port noise on mine was devastating.(A7X)

One Last thing---they are a beautiful looking speaker as well

hello people!

time has passed since my acquisition of Adam a7x in 2011 and I thought I'd give them an in depth review, now that i really got to know them.

At the time of buying these, in 2011, I was just getting started into music production and audio work. I went from just scratching the surface to doing it professionally and making money out of it with this pair of speakers.

Before starting to review the A7x, I want to say a few words about how important the room you are working in is. Throughout the years I worked in 4 different rooms. Only the last one in which I work now is decent for audio work. The others were kind of bad, and it made my life harder than it should have been, feeling progress was slow...

If you want to make music and work audio on a professional level, do not ignore the room you are working in. It will impact what you are hearing more than you can realize. Working in a good room with some decent acoustic treatment will go a long way into obtaining good results out of your work. 10k speakers into a ****ty room will do no good. I wish I had the possibility to work in a decent room right from the start.

And now, to the A7x

my chain is macbook pro -> apogee duet > adam a7x

In one sentence, I'd say the A7x are good speakers.
Can you work music and audio on them on a professional level? YES

Some specifics:

- stereo imaging is great / so is depth
- mids / higher mids are great - kind of piercing - that;s because of the unique twitter. Once you'll get used to them, you'll get the feeling that other speakers aren;t revealing enough in the high mids region
- highs are not so "airy" as others speakers like Genelec or Neumann
- bass is good, but I could use a bit more definition in the low freqs. It keeps you guessing sometimes so you have to turn it louder to really understand what's goin on in the lows but then everything becomes louder which gets me to:
- they are kind of tiring on the ear. From all the speakers I've worked and listened to, I found out that my ears fatigue faster on the Adams - i guess it is because of the ribbon twitter.
- they are rather dynamic, more so than most of the speakers I;ve heard:
- that can be good - it really reveals the dynamics of sound
- that can be bad - I find myself over compressing and over processing tracks thinking they need to be tamed but they are fine as they are
- They become more and more dynamic as you turn them up and they start to break

They have this particular boomy / woody sound to them - you are hearing the wooden box. There's a certain presence of the low mids (150-500hz) that brings more of a analogue retro sound to them.

They do have a footprint. Is it good? not especially. Is it bad? Not especially. It;s just a matter of taste and getting used to it. These speakers take the time to get used to them. Once you do that it will be fun to work on them. They are pleasant to hear them.

These are very revealing speakers. I've found myself fixing issues in the mix that weren't even audible or as audible with other more expensive speakers.

I think they are great for any kind of music. I;m doing mostly electronic techno / minimal

Getting the low end in place can be tricky on these speakers, especially with electronic music, more so than with other speakers that are more capable in revealing low freqs. But you'll get there eventually.

I'm thinking of getting the Adam sub 8 to go with these. It will take out the low freqs from the speakers allowing them to perform better.

The bass ports were making a noise with each bass hit when turned really loud. It was a design fault Adam acknowledged. i sent them back and they put in new bass ports that don;t make that sound anymore.

They are kind of fragile. Button broke once, Tweeter was making a hiss sound once. They got replaced. Customer service is good.

Am I satisfied with them? YES
Do I want better speakers? YES (but it's like asking if you want more money or not...
I will get better speakers when I will afford them
For 1000 eur these speakers are good. You can make music on them on a professional level. If you think you can't you need to improve your hustle. For many years I thought these speakers just weren't getting me there... They were.. It was the room, my skill and other factors that were the weakest link in the chain.

Would I buy them again If I had 1000 eur budget?
Probably not
Probably yes
Haven;t auditioned too many speakers in this price range
Most i;ve worked on were more expensive (genelecs, adam s3x, dynaudio BM series)

But intuitively I;d say it;s not easy to beat such quality within 1000 EUR budget

I think with the adam sub8 it will upgrade to a really great sound.

this is it from me

tunnelvision your hustle
keep makin the good sounds

I've had them for more than 10 years, mixed hundreds, thousands jobs on them. I suppose I've known them quite well.

What I liked about them:

- full of details in the mids, reacting to EQ-ing very precisely, making mixing process easier,
- always reliable, never broke, no hassle at all,
- look/design fitting every of my studio rooms, but it is a minor thing.

What I had doubts about:

- highs - exposed, but somehow hissing, quantized, too contour,
- mids - frequency graphs, room measurements, tweaks at the rear panel, room tuning/eq-ing were all fine on paper, but the mids were always, just always a little bit hidden, especially for dialogues/vocals; it was actually helpful when mixing for TV/cinema (your dialogues were never ever lost/inaudible, as you were exposing them a bit to hear them well in the mix), for music mixing purposes - well, not a great feature at all,
- bass ports - did they really have to be that noisy?

What I didn't like:

- bass - I never really made friends with lower range of Adams. It never reached too deep, it never felt too precise or tight; film/tv work - jut fine and credible, music mixing - no way, just a no-go for me,
- the most narrow sweet spot ever - don't move your head, dude, this is the Adam's law,
- translation - I experienced serious trouble getting my music mixed done on these, I thought I might be too little experienced, switched to a pair of APS Klasiks - things improved immediately!
- rear panel screwdriver controls - never got that idea, would have been so much easier with simple knobs.

And that's it. I was about to sell them, but I thought they are still to good just to get rid of them. Placed them in the second studio instead of a pair of JBL LSR305.

Maybe some other people were lucky enough to get more out of them, but I'm actually happy to have switched to something else. These still are great monitors, though!