This is undoubtedly the most important announcement for the brand since the announcement of the S Series, which was the first attempt to revive the Berlin studio monitor company after the two original founders and product visionaries left to found rival ventures, Eve Audio and Hedd Audio. In reality, the ambitions for the S Series were short-lived. Since the originally announcement in 2017, with too may models launched at the same time, the S Series monitors were basically "dumped" to retailers with no promotional support, leaving little space to highlight its features and benefits. Not surprisingly, in July 2019, ADAM Audio was sold to British company, The Focusrite Group, injecting new hopes for the many users that remained faithful to the original X-Art tweeter studio monitors.
As the first significant announcement from ADAM Audio since the acquisition, the new ADAM Audio A Series shows that the company understands the complexities and competitiveness of the studio environment, where things have been evolving significantly over the past years. And the five new studio monitors, all offer a combination of technology, features and innovations that make it deserving of some attention.
The A Series HPS (high-frequency propagation system) waveguide is constructed from resin and glass fibers, which are baked together under high temperatures to form a single piece that is specifically designed for the X-ART tweeter dispersion characteristics. The waveguide is not easily excited by unwanted vibrations or resonances, contributing toward internal damping. In the horizontal domain, the waveguide is designed to match the dispersion angle of the X-ART tweeter to the woofers and midrange drivers in the crossover region, and create a larger usable “sweet spot”. In the vertical domain, the waveguide’s design reduces energy arriving on the surfaces of significant studio furniture, such as mixing consoles, desks or even the ceiling.
Launched again as a full line of monitors, all at once - product managers probably thought this a good idea, but clearly they should have asked the marketing managers for advice - comprising five models, the A4V, A7V, A44H, A77H and A8H can be all controlled remotely and in real time. The most significant features in terms of speaker design are the rotatable HPS waveguides, combined with the DSP-based room correction and voicing possibilities, allowing users to tune speakers for their room and ears. That might explain why ADAM Audio claims the new models are suitable for professional and home studios — as well as broadcast, fixed-installation, 3D, immersive, and home audio environments.
The compact but powerful A4V model is described as best suited to smaller studio environments, while the A7V continues the success story of ADAM Audio’s most famous monitor, the A7X. With the other three new monitors, ADAM Audio is breaking new ground in the price range. The A44H offers a low-profile alternative to the A7V while delivering similar performance characteristics. With a 19-inch width, the horizontally oriented A44H can sit in a standard rack shelf or be mounted above or below a screen. An advanced successor to the A77X, and probably the flagship of the series, the true three-way midfield monitor capitalizes on the latest technologies and innovations. Finally, the pinnacle of the A Series is the A8H, also a three-way design with a different form-factor that delivers the extremely accurate and analytical sound required for critical-listening environments.
"Our R&D team has been working behind closed doors for many years to create this 3rd generation A Series line," says Christian Hellinger, CEO of ADAM Audio. "We have employed best engineering practices, modern materials technology and advanced DSP to create the new A Series, a range of studio monitors that offer stunning clarity and low distortion, utilizing new woofers and midrange drivers. And probably most important for our end customers: the A Series speakers are designed to be adaptable to changing requirements, preferences, and environments. Using the A Control software, you can push advanced filters directly to an embedded platform onboard the monitors to help compensate for imperfect room acoustics.
"This embedded platform supports filters from industry leading third-party Sonarworks. Using Sonarworks SoundID Reference and a measurement mic, you can calibrate your speakers for a new room or shifting taste. Upgradable firmware allows these monitors to evolve, so customers can continue to capitalize on future innovations from ADAM Audio. An extended five-year warranty offer plus post-warranty support ensure these monitors will continue to perform at their best for many years to come."
Expanding on the Sonarworks strategy to embed its frequency response correction directly in DSP, ADAM Audio is now the latest studio brand to partner with the Latvian company on an automated room correction solution that runs directly on the DSP of the A Series monitors. This allows the speakers to adjust to multipurpose environments in which people currently create music, such as a bedroom or living room where acoustic treatment is often not an option. Using the A Control software, users can push advanced filters directly to an embedded platform onboard the monitors to help compensate for imperfect room acoustics, and this platform supports filters from Sonarworks. Using Sonarworks SoundID Reference software and a measurement microphone, users can create calibration curves specifically for their room and run them directly on A Series monitors.
ADAM Audio and Sonarworks have worked side-by-side to deliver a pioneering integration that runs directly on A Series monitors. This negates the need for an additional DAW plugin, simplifying workflows and ensuring that the studio monitors are always using a calibrated filter regardless of the audio source or type. It also means that users do not need to worry about their audio source, as the calibration is taking place directly on the monitor’s embedded platform.
The backplate of all A Series monitors offers a variety of equalization and tuning options, but quite often the backplate is not accessible from the listening sweet spot. Using the new remote control software, users can make changes to these settings from the sweet spot. This includes dialing tunings over six bands of parametric equalization and low and high shelf filters. Each filter band can be freely adjusted for gain, frequency and Q value to give the user complete freedom in perfecting the sound of the loudspeaker in the room.
The two-way monitors A4V and A7V will be available from June 2022, while the A44H, A77H and A8H will be available at the end of the summer 2022.
www.sonarworks.com
www.focusriteplc.com
www.adam-audio.com
