Adam S2V Studio Monitor Review

[Deleted member 65]

Thanks for reviewing this @amirm , a couple of years ago I had saved up for buying this speaker (See picture). Then Adam-Audio decided to scrap their consumer line. Oh well, bought Gauder Akustik instead.

 

[BYRTT]

.....I know, I know. You think that step deep is because the speaker went into compression. Not so. The levels were already lower than what I use with passive speakers. But to stay on the safe side, I ran the entire ~3 hour measurement at less half the level and got the identical outcome. Levels were extremely low in the second try and the shelving behavior was there. The frequency is too low to have anything to do with directivity. I suspect this is a correction curve applied to the speaker on purpose, hoping that the room gain fills in the rest..... .....Interesting enough though, we see a variation in response at the same point I measured a rise in response. I wonder if they used some kind of near-field curve to stitch here and the gain level is wrong there. They do show a tilt up the same way I have it at higher frequencies..... .....I plan to contact Adam and see if they have an explanation. And am open to suggestion and comments you may have on what may be going on.

Thanks be open to suggestion and comments and do all the hard work, in general think you have a very fantastic robot and its probably very close to the acoustic truth whatever we like it or not sometimes, comment is based tendency of how low frequency area in scans so far looks and the published example in NFS-ALMA pdf document that show very little deviation of < 0,5dB below 10kHz and <1dB above using a 8 hrs 2500 points scan verse a neat 20 min 100 points one so in long run down the road its probably not worth run 3 hrs measurements. As you say 500Hz should be too low to have directivity unless can think about if port leaks or some acoustic resistor feature is build in, but mysterious enough DI has a weird vice versa S form there and also that area is not known as a problem for anechoic chambers. Adam maybe can explain if contacted, until that is it possible we can get to see how Fitting error plot looks for this run.

 

[JustIntonation]

The shelve at 520Hz dissapears at an angle so it's either a driver thing which I mentioned before or an edge diffraction/baffle step thing.
Its not a deliberate shelve done by Adam in DSP I'm sure.
Looking at the speaker size and sharpness of the shelve and its frequency the by far most likely explanation is that it's a driver thing where the mass of the cone and surround don't act together. This often produces exactly the type of shelve you're seeing here and around that frequency and with that sharpness.

 

[pozz]

I see your work rig uses 7506's, you find them to be a similar signature as the Adam's? I was thinking they'd be just the opposite from past experience with those cans.

No, the MDR-7506s are completely different. Their main pluses are an excellent midrange and rugged build. I've been using and abusing them for over a decade with no problems.

I'll eventually sell these ADAMs and get new 'phones, but I'm not sure what to go for yet. I'm hoping ASR will fill that gap for me sometime soon.

 

[LDKTA]

Sweet. I love seeing good loudspeaker engineering.

 

[majingotan]

No, the MDR-7506s are completely different. Their main pluses are an excellent midrange and rugged build. I've been using and abusing them for over a decade with no problems.

I'll eventually sell these ADAMs and get new 'phones, but I'm not sure what to go for yet. I'm hoping ASR will fill that gap for me sometime soon.

I was eyeing for Focal Stellia due to how good it sounded with Benchmark DAC 3 HGC/HPA4 combo

 

[Juhazi]

The high-Q 2,5dB step at 500-550Hz in NFS measurements is strange. In factory measurements there is a small successive step-dip like an interference. By baffle diffraction simulation there shouldn't be anything and 6,5" woofers don't have that either, at that freq. Directivity, distortion or CDS don't show anything strange at same freq either.

I started wondering, where is NFS's transition of soundfield separation-direct response? Perhaps the level matching in software just didn't do it right. This step can be seen in many other speakers too, but not so sharp.

 

[Deleted member 65]

The bass driver looks very much like a variant of an Eton hex-core driver. (Basically just an inverted dust cap as customisation.) Eton also make an AMT tweeter, and I bet they custom make both these drivers for ADAM.
....

Since we're a science and fact based forum what would be the facts behind your allegations? As @KSTR wrote, Adam, Hedd & Eve all develops their own propriatery drivers and they're all among the producers I trust.

/Cheers

 

[q3cpma]

Anyone knows the point of ribbons over good metal domes other than marketing/uniqueness? I'm pretty sure the distorsion is very low on both while the dome doesn't have ribbon's bad vertical directivity.

 

[Sancus]

Anyone knows the point of ribbons over good metal domes other than marketing/uniqueness? I'm pretty sure the distorsion is very low on both while the dome doesn't have ribbon's bad vertical directivity.

Ribbons tend to have wider horizontal directivity at the expense of vertical directivity. Given that wider directivity is preferred by many people, it does make sense in some cases.

Although in a studio monitor with desk reflections and the greater listening angle changes of nearfield listening, using a ribbon seems less ideal.

 

[Robbo99999]

At the moment there is a chance to win a pair of these beauties on their website
So it would be great if you could take part in the survey. Among all participants, we are giving away ADAM Audio products worth 4.500 $, including a pair of ADAM Audio S2V and T7V studio monitors as well as SP-5 headphones.

Thanks, I'm not their target market, but I wouldn't mind having a go at those headphones!

 

[q3cpma]

Looks like a good competitor to JBL's LSR 708p or Genelec's S360.

 

[BYRTT]

@ BYRTT
Nice what you do with the data.

In those nice zip folders amirn typical hang on into post one-1-3 there is two txt-files named SPL Horizontal/Vertical that holds all the 72 steps of spin data from NFS, one can read them for example using MS Notepad and you see each per 10deg step is numbers in two colonne's for frequency and amplitude, software used is freeware program VituixCAD (VC) but think its as fantastic as REW and Rephase that those for me has become Donate-once-a-year-ware, quickguide for new VC users to learn load ASR spins is relative simple 2 steps as we talked about over in C52 thread, here is link https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...-speaker-review-and-measurements.10934/page-8 , and here is link for VC possibility of graphical presentation https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...iew-and-measurements.10934/page-7#post-307503 .

Animation made for pozz is because its so fast and easy get graphs out of VC in a rightclick inside the six plots that it inspires me to visualize better to help understanding stuff, well mostly did it on local computer with nice dual panels having say 8-15 times of VC program open to visualize ala the same by hovering mouse over each version, then yesterday came to think about have a good amateur photo program in Photoshop Elements v11 that can do those web animation in few minuttes. VC needs one txt-file per step so amirms two files need splitting that was okay learning and fun enough work for the first few times of ASR reviews, myself used MS Excell to copy two colonnes at a time to MS Notepad and saved with logic filename coding as VC manual suggest, later took me together made a macro in MS Excell for horizontals and one for verticals so it extract all set of step-colonnes plus adds a third colonne per step with phase set to zero and output 36 correct named txt-files in one click, well it not that VC can't live without phase colonne its just then one have to answer okay to 72 seperate dialogs that it tells phase data is not within files but it can live without. Can share those two MS Excell 2010 files with macro run and guide and also can share a zip folder with the 72 txt-files for Adam S2V or any of previus reviews that had their spin data shared, dosn't look we can attach files here so suggest use PM and then via One drive can upload whatever of those files.

 

[tuga]

View attachment 50115

Thanks for posting a CSD plot.

Would it be possible to reduce the time scale to 6 or maybe even 4 ms?
It would also make the graph easier to read if you could use an oblique or dimetric projection instead of a one-point perspective.
Something like this:

 

[stevenswall]

Didn't run out of power means didn't clip right?

Recommended because it doesn't sound small, or because it doesn't sound like a point source monitor? (I'm okay with quieter speakers, but not sounding like a point source having good horizontal and vertical dispersion is something I don't like.)

 

[KSTR]

The bass driver looks very much like a variant of an Eton hex-core driver. (Basically just an inverted dust cap as customisation.) Eton also make an AMT tweeter, and I bet they custom make both these drivers for ADAM.

Sorry, nope.
Today's LF/MF drivers are all custom-specified and custom-made drivers built in asia. This applies as well to EVE and HEDD. No catalog drivers anywhere.

 

[Ron Texas]

This is a very important review. The product is in a category where there is a lot of interest. I would love to see the popular, widely available and much more affordable, at $750 each, A7X tested.

 

[amirm]

Didn't run out of power means didn't clip right?

Correct or even signs of distortion.

 

[Pio2001]

I started wondering, where is NFS's transition of soundfield separation-direct response? Perhaps the level matching in software just didn't do it right. This step can be seen in many other speakers too, but not so sharp.

For the JBL 305P mkII and the Neumann KH-80, it was at 2000 Hz.

 

[Francis Vaughan]

Since we're a science and fact based forum what would be the facts behind your allegations? As @KSTR wrote, Adam, Hedd & Eve all develops their own propriatery drivers and they're all among the producers I trust.

/Cheers

Hardly an "allegation". I'm not suggesting malfeasance. Eton are one: German. Two: produce extremely high quality drivers. Three: have a propriatory cone design using a hex core laminate that is very characteristic in appearance, and apparent on the ADAM bass driver. I would be surprised if a niche manufacturer of high quality speakers in Germany didn't at least consider a relationship with Eton. Such relationships are pretty common.

https://www.eton-gmbh.com/fileadmin...Datenblaetter/SYMPHONY_II_7-212_C8_32_HEX.pdf

Even having drivers custom made in Asia, is usually code for going to one of a number of Taiwanese manufactures who offer a range of customisation options from an existing parts bin of castings, magnets, coils etc. There is nothing wrong with this. The economies of scale and ability to amortise developments costs for creating a full custom design are very hard to achieve. A speaker designer can build up exactly what they want to achieve their design goals.