This is a review and detailed measurements of the Adam A5X powered speaker. It was kindly sent to me by a member for review and costs US $499 each.
Despite its small size, the A5X is quite heavy:
The back of it got warm so I am assuming it uses class AB amplification or at least a linear power supply.
Nice to have volume control in the front. This in addition to gain control and typical shelving filters on the back:
"Stereo Link" allows one unit to control the volume of the other. All testing was performed with the switches in the default position as you see. The front input control though was set lower so that 0 dBu input produced 86 dBSPL @ 1 meter.
Measurements that you are about to see were performed using the Klippel Near-field Scanner (NFS). This is a robotic measurement system that analyzes the speaker all around and is able (using advanced mathematics and dual scan) to subtract room reflections (so where I measure it doesn't matter). It also measures the speaker at close distance ("near-field") which sharply reduces the impact of room noise. Both of these factors enable testing in ordinary rooms yet results that can be more accurate than an anechoic chamber. In a nutshell, the measurements show the actual sound coming out of the speaker independent of the room.
I performed over 1000 measurement which resulted in error rate of around 1%.
Testing temperature was around 65 degrees F.
Reference axis for measurements was the center of the tweeter (by eye).
Measurements are compliant with latest speaker research into what can predict the speaker preference and is standardized in CEA/CTA-2034 ANSI specifications. Likewise listening tests are performed per research that shows mono listening is much more revealing of differences between speakers than stereo or multichannel.
Adam A5X Measurements
Acoustic measurements can be grouped in a way that can be perceptually analyzed to determine how good a speaker is and how it can be used in a room. This so called spinorama shows us just about everything we need to know about the speaker with respect to tonality and some flaws:
The eye ignores all the good and instantly jumps to the sharp dip at 1.1 kHz. What is the cause? Front port cancellation:
The port resonance stands out so clearly in the waterfall/CSD plot:
The rest of the response looks good though including early window and predicted in-room (far field) response:
Distortion is kept very much under control at 86 dBSPL, likely due to high pass filter to keep it from playing lower than it should:
There is decent directivity control:
Vertically you have a bit more breathing room than typical two-way non-coaxial designs:
Adam A5X Listening Tests
I plugged them into my workstation system and with them pointed to my ear on a 5 inch high stand the sound was excellent. I felt no need for any EQ. I cranked up the volume as high as I could and the sound stayed completely clean. I could feel the breath from the ports on my cheek including the smell of the electronics inside!
There is no deep bass there so my tracks with such played very faintly in that department. I rather have it this way than have the speaker get massively distorted. A subwoofer is mandatory then if you desire anything that would give physical sensation.
I put my ear next to the tweeter but could not hear any hiss. This is well above average.
Conclusions
The Adam A5X is competently designed. Objective measurements show only one flaw caused by the front port resonating out of phase and causing a cancellation. This is narrow though so unlikely to get hit with a lot of music. I certainly did not feel it as an issue in the selection of tracks I played.
Overall, the Adam A5X is a very good speaker and I am going to put it on my recommendation list. $1000 is a lot of money though for a speaker that doesn't handle deep bass so think about that relative to its competitors.
Edit: video review just posted:
------------
As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.
Any donations are much appreciated using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150
Despite its small size, the A5X is quite heavy:
The back of it got warm so I am assuming it uses class AB amplification or at least a linear power supply.
Nice to have volume control in the front. This in addition to gain control and typical shelving filters on the back:
"Stereo Link" allows one unit to control the volume of the other. All testing was performed with the switches in the default position as you see. The front input control though was set lower so that 0 dBu input produced 86 dBSPL @ 1 meter.
Measurements that you are about to see were performed using the Klippel Near-field Scanner (NFS). This is a robotic measurement system that analyzes the speaker all around and is able (using advanced mathematics and dual scan) to subtract room reflections (so where I measure it doesn't matter). It also measures the speaker at close distance ("near-field") which sharply reduces the impact of room noise. Both of these factors enable testing in ordinary rooms yet results that can be more accurate than an anechoic chamber. In a nutshell, the measurements show the actual sound coming out of the speaker independent of the room.
I performed over 1000 measurement which resulted in error rate of around 1%.
Testing temperature was around 65 degrees F.
Reference axis for measurements was the center of the tweeter (by eye).
Measurements are compliant with latest speaker research into what can predict the speaker preference and is standardized in CEA/CTA-2034 ANSI specifications. Likewise listening tests are performed per research that shows mono listening is much more revealing of differences between speakers than stereo or multichannel.
Adam A5X Measurements
Acoustic measurements can be grouped in a way that can be perceptually analyzed to determine how good a speaker is and how it can be used in a room. This so called spinorama shows us just about everything we need to know about the speaker with respect to tonality and some flaws:
The eye ignores all the good and instantly jumps to the sharp dip at 1.1 kHz. What is the cause? Front port cancellation:
The port resonance stands out so clearly in the waterfall/CSD plot:
The rest of the response looks good though including early window and predicted in-room (far field) response:
Distortion is kept very much under control at 86 dBSPL, likely due to high pass filter to keep it from playing lower than it should:
There is decent directivity control:
Vertically you have a bit more breathing room than typical two-way non-coaxial designs:
Adam A5X Listening Tests
I plugged them into my workstation system and with them pointed to my ear on a 5 inch high stand the sound was excellent. I felt no need for any EQ. I cranked up the volume as high as I could and the sound stayed completely clean. I could feel the breath from the ports on my cheek including the smell of the electronics inside!
There is no deep bass there so my tracks with such played very faintly in that department. I rather have it this way than have the speaker get massively distorted. A subwoofer is mandatory then if you desire anything that would give physical sensation.I put my ear next to the tweeter but could not hear any hiss. This is well above average.
Conclusions
The Adam A5X is competently designed. Objective measurements show only one flaw caused by the front port resonating out of phase and causing a cancellation. This is narrow though so unlikely to get hit with a lot of music. I certainly did not feel it as an issue in the selection of tracks I played.
Overall, the Adam A5X is a very good speaker and I am going to put it on my recommendation list. $1000 is a lot of money though for a speaker that doesn't handle deep bass so think about that relative to its competitors.
Edit: video review just posted:
------------
As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.
Any donations are much appreciated using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150
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