• WANTED: Happy members who like to discuss audio and other topics related to our interest. Desire to learn and share knowledge of science required. There are many reviews of audio hardware and expert members to help answer your questions. Click here to have your audio equipment measured for free!

Adam A4V Monitor Review

Rate this speaker:

  • 1. Poor (headless panther)

    Votes: 25 9.7%
  • 2. Not terrible (postman panther)

    Votes: 141 54.4%
  • 3. Fine (happy panther)

    Votes: 86 33.2%
  • 4. Great (golfing panther)

    Votes: 7 2.7%

  • Total voters
    259

Digby

Major Contributor
Joined
Mar 12, 2021
Messages
1,632
Likes
1,556
@amirm Just wondering about the grading system. Perhaps 2 should be 'average' and 3 should be 'good'?

Not terrible and fine are a bit loose as terms, essentially all speakers 2 and above could be considered not terrible/fine. I feel like the terms could be a bit better, for clarity.
 

MZKM

Major Contributor
Forum Donor
Joined
Dec 1, 2018
Messages
4,244
Likes
11,487
Location
Land O’ Lakes, FL
Must be 5+ if (almost) inaudible dip is ignored, right?
SM_PIR is also low, do to the constant directivity design most audio monitors have (early reflections & PIR being very flat in the midrange and not sloping down).
Hence the caveat up top I have to add for studio monitors.

The NB scores are Narrow-Band, so out of the 14(?) frequency bands used, only 1 is affected by the dip.
 

pseudoid

Master Contributor
Forum Donor
Joined
Mar 23, 2021
Messages
5,125
Likes
3,439
Location
33.58 -117.88
Thanks for review Amir!
Since you purchased them; can you play one of them 'what-if' games and stuff the port(s) with... ?stuff?... and repeat some of the relevant testing?
If for nothing but some laughs by the devoted commentariat.
 

Brad T

New Member
Joined
Aug 22, 2022
Messages
1
Likes
3
Well it is pretty funny how I made it to this thread. I have been looking for some desktop computer speakers for the past 6 months. First I was checking out BestBuy and thinking $150 Edifier pair looks good, but I wonder if there is something better - then found Vanatoo T0 - which led me to this forum - which got me wondering about studio monitors - which let me to iLoud MTM and was about to buy - but then iLoud raised their price $50 to $399. Well I'm already looking at $399 for MTM - hey what are these new Adam Audio A4V for "only" $100 more but no detailed reviews - and then here is a detailed review! I still haven't purchased anything! HAHA.
 

heflys20

Active Member
Joined
Jul 24, 2021
Messages
115
Likes
98
$1000+ a pair for this level of performance. Lol. Like others have said, now I see why they've delayed releasing measurements. The room correction software has also been delayed, infuriating early adopters too. Just awesome.
 

DanTheMan

Active Member
Joined
Oct 19, 2020
Messages
298
Likes
447
Did Adam not learn their lesson the first time?

Comparison with the now-discontinued A5X:

View attachment 225933


:facepalm:

Disappointing for a studio monitor that will be used for mixing and mastering.
I expected better, so I'm ranking "Not terrible".
If there was no null, I'd rank it "Fine".
Here’s the difference I measured with stuffing the ports of the ADAM A5X and A3X. The ADAM ARTist5 has the ports in the back and no such issue.
 

Attachments

  • E2A33C80-9780-423B-999F-D975E75E68E3.jpeg
    E2A33C80-9780-423B-999F-D975E75E68E3.jpeg
    12.8 KB · Views: 172
  • 43A8C6CF-5FA0-44AF-83A2-5A8FBE131AAE.jpeg
    43A8C6CF-5FA0-44AF-83A2-5A8FBE131AAE.jpeg
    22 KB · Views: 178
  • 4F7133D1-9EB6-4BFE-888D-3210AAB06B6A.jpeg
    4F7133D1-9EB6-4BFE-888D-3210AAB06B6A.jpeg
    19.6 KB · Views: 180
OP
amirm

amirm

Founder/Admin
Staff Member
CFO (Chief Fun Officer)
Joined
Feb 13, 2016
Messages
44,376
Likes
234,550
Location
Seattle Area
I contacted the company and got a nice response back. The dip is indeed due to the port. Good news is that they tell me the rest of the models in the line up do NOT have this issue. The small broad hump in high frequencies is due to difference between reference axis I picked and one that they designed around. The small resonance is something they are going to look at.
 

DanTheMan

Active Member
Joined
Oct 19, 2020
Messages
298
Likes
447
Bass may be omni (actually sub bass are, it's easy to localise a sub if it's crossed over above 80 Hz or so), but in this case, Amir measured a 1kHz peak coming out of the port. There is no reason to think this resonance would not be present on a back port, and that this 1K would not be reflected from hard surfaces behind the speakers and change the In room response. Or what am I missing? I am not a speaker designer myself but generally speaking I think it's a truth that putting a speaker close to a hard surface, back ported or not, change the frequency response, no? How come having higher output directed at a hard surface wouldn't matter? Seriously asking.
See my previous post. Furthermore, my subs are crossed at 180Hz. I guarantee you wouldn’t be able to localize them as no one has over the past 10 years. Maybe if your room is massive or your subs have a lot of distortion and/or very poorly integrated into your system you’d have problems. In any case, just to prove my point with the exact same drivers in the same size cabinet, but rear ported.

you shouldn’t be placing your speakers close to the front wall unless they are intelligently designed for that purpose. If they don’t explicitly say that they are, I would assume that they are not.

just to restate my point: all these small, front ported speakers have had a similar problem. Stuff your ports :)

this paper may help: http://legacy.spa.aalto.fi/research/cat/psychoac/papers/kelloniemiaes118.pdf

Then a look at SBIR and the inverse square law:
 

Attachments

  • BEA5A6A9-3F46-4A93-A09E-0DF987235577.jpeg
    BEA5A6A9-3F46-4A93-A09E-0DF987235577.jpeg
    19.9 KB · Views: 56
Last edited:

PeteL

Major Contributor
Joined
Jun 1, 2020
Messages
3,303
Likes
3,838
See my previous post. Furthermore, my subs are crossed at 180Hz. I guarantee you wouldn’t be able to localize them as no one has over the past 10 years. Maybe if your room is massive or your subs have a lot of distortion and/or very poorly integrated into your system you’d have problems. In any case, just to prove my point with the exact same drivers in the same size cabinet, but rear ported.

you shouldn’t be placing your speakers close to the front wall unless they are intelligently designed for that purpose. If they don’t explicitly say that they are, I would assume that they are not.

just to restate my point: all these small, front ported speakers have had a similar problem. Stuff your ports :)

this paper may help: http://legacy.spa.aalto.fi/research/cat/psychoac/papers/kelloniemiaes118.pdf

Then a look at SBIR and the inverse square law:
subs? so I assume you have two? Of course you won’t be able to localise them if you have one on each side of the stereo image. Try one crossed over at 180 Hz and tell me you can’t know where the bass is coming from?
 

DanTheMan

Active Member
Joined
Oct 19, 2020
Messages
298
Likes
447
Of course I have more than 1 sub. Doesn’t everyone? I actually have 4 in use. That’s part of having them properly integrated. My mains are not sitting on them or anything. They placed strategically around my room. There’s no way to equalize your listening area with just 1. unless you have a tiny listening area. My whole listening area has a smooth and even response.

it’s funny to me that after everything you were wrong about, you are still trying to argue. Wisdom should kick in soon.
 

Chrispy

Master Contributor
Forum Donor
Joined
Feb 7, 2020
Messages
7,757
Likes
5,918
Location
PNW
Interesting to an extent, not sure why I'd want such a limited offering like this for that price.
 

PeteL

Major Contributor
Joined
Jun 1, 2020
Messages
3,303
Likes
3,838
Of course I have more than 1 sub. Doesn’t everyone? I actually have 4 in use. That’s part of having them properly integrated. My mains are not sitting on them or anything. They placed strategically around my room. There’s no way to equalize your listening area with just 1. unless you have a tiny listening area. My whole listening area has a smooth and even response.

it’s funny to me that after everything you were wrong about, you are still trying to argue. Wisdom should kick in soon.
You did not answer the question. If you unplug 3 of them, do you hear where the bass is coming from? I have been working in audio for 25 years, there is not just one way to a great sounding system, and no, not every one needs 4 subs. 180 Hz cross over is high by any standards. You should also know that there are subs in cardioid configurations, by definition, it’s not omni. What was I « wrong » about? I said a 1k coming out of a port can reflect on hard surfaces, And I said bass in the 100 Hz area can be localised where the source is coming from. You decide to derive the subject about system integration. Focus on the statements I made and explain to me how I’m wrong about those to facts.
 

Cars-N-Cans

Addicted to Fun and Learning
Joined
May 19, 2022
Messages
819
Likes
1,009
Location
Dirty Jerzey
Well. Interestingly, I doubt it's a cost cutting measure because of all their speakers, only the T serie which is their Entry level very economical line are rear ported. Interestingly too, the T5V reviewed here triggered an extremely favorable review, making me wonder if Amir was exaggerating a bit with his subjective impressions. Really can a 200$ powered box can be that close to perfection? Amir was literally raving about how good they sounded to him. Even beating the Neumann (to him- no contest remark)) that pops up in this thread as a reference of "if Neuman can do it why can't Adam" sort of thing. By the way Amir also preferred the cheap JBL LSR305P to the 1000$ a pair KH80.
There's obviously a good reason its on the front since every measurement states its a bad idea, otherwise. The two most likely reasons are either its cheaper or that there is insufficient room in the rear plate to accommodate it. Taking one apart would probably help answer the why. If I had to guess here it would be the latter since the back of the speaker is quite busy with the controls for the various filters and what not. The engineers obviously know its bad, so there is likely some design trade-off going on. Interestingly if you look at the back of the speaker its likely the ports extend all the way to the back from the IEC connector having to be offset upwards. I'm sure if they tried they could, but my experience as an engineer is that there is often a reason for doing things that appear less than optimal. It could even be down to aesthetics, but I think they look better sans port in the front.

Edit: The front baffle is actually all one piece, so I would not rule out cost-savings or DFM. If its all plastic, that would make sense to put them up front since you can just mold it all in one go, and then the speaker is only three modules to assemble (case, enclosure, and amp). Oddly on this model vs. the one on their website they are separate inserts, so I wonder if Amir was sent a prototype?
adam-audio-a-series-a4v-studio-monitor-front-side-1.jpg
 
Last edited:

Robbo99999

Master Contributor
Forum Donor
Joined
Jan 23, 2020
Messages
6,878
Likes
6,674
Location
UK
This is why I listen and tune the filters that way. Distortion was also not high there. It was the ratio that made it look that way.
Well, it's 1.3% and 2.2% at 86dB and 96dB respectively, and you did point it out as a problem area on your distortion graphs, but I appreciate that you do you listening test with & without filter. You're boosting it by 5dB there, given that boost then do you think the 86 or 96dB distortion graph is gonna be more relevant for 1kHz when listening to music (as generally music has more energy in the bass), but then that's offset by your boost at 1kHz?
 
Top Bottom