Adam T8V Studio Monitor Review

[Pietrek]

I've bought two adams T7V 25% cheaper from big chain of pawnshops which has 100+ of them and I'm thinking that maybe that was not smart, well it probably wasn't. I already exchanged one which was broken from the start, so since it's basically has no warranty apart from their 1 year complaint I would like to ask how reliable are Adams budget T series?

I already thought that one of u-art tweeters broke since it was doing wiwiwiwi(sorry didn't think of recording it then) noise even with no source(but in movies it was hearable too) so I turned both monitors off and then I turned on second first and it started doing this wiwiwiwi noise from second. I turned both again and there is no noise. I'm using rca cable since I topping e30.

How much of time they need to burn in for you to hear a better sound from them? Adam says it is 8h, someone said about to me about 50+ hours.

I'm using EQ OTT setting from here if that matter:
https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/adam-t7v-spinorama-and-eq-inside.17283/

 

[richard12511]

Sorry, I didn't mean to hijack this T8V thread with yet more Dirac talk, but I'll carry on as it's partially T8V relevant



Generally I'd agree with that. So, I decided to re-run it. Turns out the USB extender I was using in the UMIK mic wasn't do the business. It's a 12m cable run to the machine room. I was just unlucky that in the three attempts I made, it messed up on the T8V every time and not the BM....! Different extender in place, but same procedure; results are much more similar. [I remember this happened to me years ago when I first played with Dirac. I recorded the mic's output and could clearly hear it glitching. Weird it doesn't throw errors in the OS/DAW but there you go. I probably picked up the same extender that's been on the shelf since then. And I'll probably fail to throw it out and do the same again in another 5 years time ]

For what it's worth, the main 7.1.4 monitoring chain in that room does include Dirac in the form of 2x MiniDSP DDRC88s and I'm happy with it. It took me a few goes to begin, through both trial and error of mic positioning and target curve refinement. I also tried Dirac and Trinnov when the room had 5.1 only. Trinnov was kinda the same deal. I do have a "No Dirac, Manual PEQ-only below 200Hz" preset, but I think while it's a more fun listening experience, I'm confident the filters the Dirac's made are a better reference point for mix translation.

Oh and yeah, I have no idea about Dirac's predicted response either. It looks bonkers. Whether it's the case or not, it makes me *think* it doesn't "understand" what's way outside of minimum phase and just tries to flatten the whole lot. Then when you measure the results, you still see the same nulls because, well, they're basically unfixable of course. I guess you could prove this by measuring electronically before and after without a room in the system. Amir says it does try to fill in response and I'm inclined to agree.

Anyway, back to the T8V. The BM15 and T8V, while spectrally "the same" post-Dirac, the BM still sounds more "open". This is now going a bit beyond what I set out to test now, the answers to which are: (1) The T8Vs sound great for this price point (2) They handle low frequency "abuse" (In my case, "use") better than I expected given the relatively low power amp ratings, but they'd really need another 6dB of go on them [in that room] to reproduce full dynamic, full-band at theatrical reference level, at 3m. [That's not a criticism, this is nearfield speaker...] In reality, even at that distance they'd probably be passable for most programme material at "85dB" ref but you could certainly saturate them doing bass drops and so on. There's not really a fixed reference level for Home Entertainment any more, but since it's typically it's mixed between 3 and 10dB down on theatrical, they'd definitely cope with that in real world use.

But.... One observation of the very limited measurements I have here are that the phase measurement for the BM is smoother against the T8V, which is stepped. Dirac makes those steps wider and hence deeper. I wonder if this difference is an audible thing?

Here's a bit of an unwrapped graph (T8V in green, BM in blue). It's more obvious across the whole range but you'll get the idea... Side note, both speakers are just off-centre (one left, one right) and now behind an acoustically transparent screen as I wanted to see if that interacted with the HF in any different way between the waveguided T8V and basic soft domed BM... It didn't. Or rather, it didn't within what I can hear/measure.

View attachment 131752




Thank you!! (So much knowledge here; great forum!)

The predicted response for Dirac is nonsense , and I'm not sure why they show it like that.

As for whether Dirac tries to fill in dips, it depends. It does fill in some dips, while not touching others. I can tell it's actually not even trying to fill in those dips(rather than trying and failing) because I can go in afterwards and apply a manual filter that measurably raises the dip. I really wish I knew Dirac's logic for why it attempts to fix some dips, but not others. It's - unfortunately - a black box. Subjectively, it sounds decent, though, and adding manual filters to fix those dips that it ignores has sounded weird(bloated? resonant?) to my ears.

 

[richard12511]

The predicted response for Dirac is nonsense , and I'm not sure why they show it like that.

As for whether Dirac tries to fill in dips, it depends. It does fill in some dips, while not touching others. I can tell it's actually not even trying to fill in those dips(rather than trying and failing) because I can go in afterwards and apply a manual filter that measurably raises the dip. I really wish I knew Dirac's logic for why it attempts to fix some dips, but not others. It's - unfortunately - a black box. .

As a follow up to this, here's an example of a rather wide (20Hz) dip that Dirac refuses to touch in my right speaker. It doesn't just not touch the dip, it actually worsens it. I expected it to use the excess subwoofer headroom to bring everything down to the level of that dip, but it doesn't do that for some reason.

 

[phoenixsong]

If you guys could get the HS8 at $284 each, would you go for it or the T8V?
YAMAHA HS8 STUDIO MONITOR – Guitar Brothers Online (price here in AUD)

 

[AnalogSteph]

If you guys could get the HS8 at $284 each, would you go for it or the T8V?

What was your listening distance again? Both are good speakers, but the Yamahas should keep woofer / tweeter integration up to a shorter distance. In return, the ADAMs with their Class D amps should be less power hungry, the HS8s are said to run a bit warm. That said, the ADAMs seem to command a substantial price premium (a bit over $500 AUD for the T8V vs. a normal $435-ish AUD for the HS8)... right now you can actually get the ADAMs slightly cheaper here in Germany. If you can get an even better than normal deal on the HS8s that would be tipping the scales for me.

 

[ernestcarl]

I forgot Amir reviewed these.

In the subjective (Amir's) listening test "boominess" was mentioned -- could be that it's not only the modes but also distortion leaking from the cheap and inadequately sealed underlying front MDF baffle.

I wouldn't do this if the speakers were brand new. However, past its warranty, why not? A similar mod may benefit other more "cheaply constructed" studio monitors.

But wait: maybe the coloration in the bass is going to be ultimately preferred by the user -- I dunno -- so do proceed with caution.

I have done something similar with my own monitors using some leftover gallon tub of water based duct sealant I had in storage, but found little to no obvious improvement.

 

[snoopy30]

So I have both T5V and T8V and I think a bit more insight is required.

First of all they are both excellent sounding speakers. The T5V bass is artificial and limited but this has to be expected from a 5" cone and a cabinet half the size of the T8V. On the other hand the T8V gives up a little in the mid-range. As usual you can't beat a 3 way system. Overall if you have to take one then it's the T8V all the way.

I also had the matching sub-woofer which is mostly pointless with the T8V unless you're running LFE on movies. Despite being well made it could not fill in the void of the upper-bass frequencies that the T5V lack and ultimately I can't recommend it either. Skip both and get the T8V.

So internally how does the T8V work, well here is where it's interesting. First the single audio source enters a ADC (PCM1862) which uses digital control to alter gain. This is fed to a combined DAC + AMP (TAS5754M) chip configured with a DSP profile supplied on boot by a small microchip.

Both ADC + DAC/AMP are by Texas Instruments and use Burr Brown tech. They are low cost selections both with only a 103db/A rating and the later only has the processing power to manage 16 bit at 48KHz using it's crossover DSP profile. Finally, the power rating quoted by Adam Audio is a lie, the chip can manage 40W in stereo hence the speaker runs out of headroom pretty quickly.

As an electronic engineer I'm also critical of the PCB, there's nothing wrong with it per-say but it's been created quickly to get the job done. I doubt the design was produced in Germany as they suggest but in China.

They do sound fantastic but one should bare in mind that feeding that high-end DAC into these speakers is pointless. Stick your head near the speakers on mute and you'll hear the noise from these cheap chips. Adam Audio can do better.

 

[dasdoing]

I forgot Amir reviewed these.

In the subjective (Amir's) listening test "boominess" was mentioned -- could be that it's not only the modes but also distortion leaking from the cheap and inadequately sealed underlying front MDF baffle.

I wouldn't do this if the speakers were brand new. However, past its warranty, why not? A similar mod may benefit other more "cheaply constructed" studio monitors.

But wait: maybe the coloration in the bass is going to be ultimately preferred by the user -- I dunno -- so do proceed with caution.

I have done something similar with my own monitors using some leftover gallon tub of water based duct sealant I had in storage, but found little to no obvious improvement.

wtf? why does the woofer resonate like this? here you see that waterfalls are usefull for speakers, too

 

[ernestcarl]

wtf? why does the woofer resonate like this? here you see that waterfalls are usefull for speakers, too

Adam just didn't bother to completely seal the front of the cabinet.

I opened my old Mackie MR8 monitors which were cheaper to purchase (at the time) than this one, and the front behind the plastic fascia is fully sealed with the tweeter housed in another box layer of MDF.

 

[dasdoing]

Adam just didn't bother to completely seal the front of the cabinet.

I opened my old Mackie MR8 monitors which were cheaper to purchase (at the time) than this one, and the front behind the plastic fascia is fully sealed with the tweeter housed in another box layer of MDF.

but look at JBL for example. the woofer is mounted to the plastic, too

 

[ernestcarl]

but look at JBL for example. the woofer is mounted to the plastic, too

Well, the T8V plays louder and has even more bass extension so one should expect the necessity for better a cabinet design.

I haven't heard the mkII, but I own the original 305 and... I have to say, the cabinet, plastic fascia, external woofer trim, and super thin metal back plate are some of its weaker points. tap the sides and you can hear a metallic clang resonating from the inside even after adding extra damping and closing the port. Play burst tones at around 315Hz and you can hear a very long lingering metallic resonance... pink noise also sounds kinda "dirty" to me with these monitors more than any other I have on hand.

 

[snoopy30]

I have nothing but high praise for the driver units and construction of the T8V. The only area where they obviously skimped a bit are the ADC+DAC/AMP but for normal volume listening they're fine.

 

[phoenixsong]

Anyone compared the T8V with the Focal Alpha 65 Evo?

 

[Lorenzo74]

So I have both T5V and T8V and I think a bit more insight is required.

The T5V bass is artificial and limited but this has to be expected from a 5" cone ...

On the other hand the T8V gives up a little in the mid-range. As usual you can't beat a 3 way system. Overall if you have to take one then it's the T8V all the way.

I also had the matching sub-woofer which is mostly pointless with the T8V unless you're running LFE on movies. Despite being well made it could not fill in the void of the upper-bass frequencies that the T5V lack and ultimately I can't recommend it either.

...that's why I'm happy with ma ADAM T7V

 

[dasdoing]

the bigger ones have more resonances though, as their own graphs show. best option is t5v + subwoofer I guess

 

[Ultrasonic]

The predicted response for Dirac is nonsense

Just browsing an old thread but I will responsd to this. I think the Dirac prediction is actually very accurate but what most seem to miss is that it's a prediction of a response averaged across multiple postions rather than at the central location. It is possible to create a Dirac filter based on solely a single measurement at the central location, and when I've done so the prediction is basicaly what you'll measure. Nobody with two ears listens at just a single point though, no matter how still they keep their head!

 

[companyja]

I forgot Amir reviewed these.

In the subjective (Amir's) listening test "boominess" was mentioned -- could be that it's not only the modes but also distortion leaking from the cheap and inadequately sealed underlying front MDF baffle.

I wouldn't do this if the speakers were brand new. However, past its warranty, why not? A similar mod may benefit other more "cheaply constructed" studio monitors.

But wait: maybe the coloration in the bass is going to be ultimately preferred by the user -- I dunno -- so do proceed with caution.

I have done something similar with my own monitors using some leftover gallon tub of water based duct sealant I had in storage, but found little to no obvious improvement.

In response to this, aside from any comments I want to make about the T8V monitors which I don't want to make before I treat my room acoustically (but at the moment I am properly impressed as-is), when talking about the resonance, he talks about tapping the woofer and it making a ring, audible in the video (around 1:35).

I tried this on each of my new T8V speakers and from whichever distance and angle I tried, all I could hear was a very dampened thud, closest to the sound of the ATC in the example right after. I did this a fair few times, smudging up the woofers in the process sadly, but oh well, I wanted to make sure.

Now obviously I haven't opened up my brand new under warranty speakers I intend to use daily, but perhaps it's possible Adam has changed the internal structure of the baffle or the cabinet to reduce this resonance. I don't have another means of testing whether it resonates or not since I have some resonance issues from the room and my desk as-is so I can't be sure until I treat the worst offenders, but I'm not hearing the "boxiness" described in the video.

Later on when he taps the baffle near 5:00, I tried tapping it myself and it sounds pretty much like the untreated one on the left, so I doubt Adam has filled in the baffle with any sort of dampening material, nor did the weight of the speaker in the specifications change as far as I'm aware. I don't know if it's possible that they're getting some weird resonance in their studio, but it would be neat if some other T8V owners checked to see whether their pair has that weird twomp when touching the woofer or if it sounds dampened. I reckon it sounds the same as tapping the woofer on an old pair of Sansui ES-207 my dad bought decades ago, and that speaker has quite a bit of internal damping (I know, I've opened it up for repairs multiple times).

As an aside, one other thing that I've found is different from Amir's review is that the tweeters hiss quite a lot - I've had them set up with RCA to a Topping L30 but I had ground loop issues so I bought balanced cables and hooked it up to my Scarlett Solo (hey it has internal ADC>DSP>DAC anyway, I'm not really concerned with feeding it primo quality signal to abuse anyway), and the hiss is about the same (but hey, no more ground loops!). I've got them about 120cm away from my listening position (still very much in the nearfield, I plan to maybe put them further away when I treat the room some), and the hiss is still audible for me. Might be different unit to unit, but both my speakers hiss about the same (they're two serial numbers apart).

Cheers!

 

[ernestcarl]

In response to this, aside from any comments I want to make about the T8V monitors which I don't want to make before I treat my room acoustically (but at the moment I am properly impressed as-is), when talking about the resonance, he talks about tapping the woofer and it making a ring, audible in the video (around 1:35).

I tried this on each of my new T8V speakers and from whichever distance and angle I tried, all I could hear was a very dampened thud, closest to the sound of the ATC in the example right after. I did this a fair few times, smudging up the woofers in the process sadly, but oh well, I wanted to make sure.

Now obviously I haven't opened up my brand new under warranty speakers I intend to use daily, but perhaps it's possible Adam has changed the internal structure of the baffle or the cabinet to reduce this resonance. I don't have another means of testing whether it resonates or not since I have some resonance issues from the room and my desk as-is so I can't be sure until I treat the worst offenders, but I'm not hearing the "boxiness" described in the video.

Later on when he taps the baffle near 5:00, I tried tapping it myself and it sounds pretty much like the untreated one on the left, so I doubt Adam has filled in the baffle with any sort of dampening material, nor did the weight of the speaker in the specifications change as far as I'm aware. I don't know if it's possible that they're getting some weird resonance in their studio, but it would be neat if some other T8V owners checked to see whether their pair has that weird twomp when touching the woofer or if it sounds dampened. I reckon it sounds the same as tapping the woofer on an old pair of Sansui ES-207 my dad bought decades ago, and that speaker has quite a bit of internal damping (I know, I've opened it up for repairs multiple times).

As an aside, one other thing that I've found is different from Amir's review is that the tweeters hiss quite a lot - I've had them set up with RCA to a Topping L30 but I had ground loop issues so I bought balanced cables and hooked it up to my Scarlett Solo (hey it has internal ADC>DSP>DAC anyway, I'm not really concerned with feeding it primo quality signal to abuse anyway), and the hiss is about the same (but hey, no more ground loops!). I've got them about 120cm away from my listening position (still very much in the nearfield, I plan to maybe put them further away when I treat the room some), and the hiss is still audible for me. Might be different unit to unit, but both my speakers hiss about the same (they're two serial numbers apart).

Cheers!

You probably need a very quiet room with low noise floor for this, and another very well damped speaker for direct comparison. Better yet would be to take measurements outside or gated and windowed indoors in the middle of the room away from all boundaries, perhaps even in the very near-field of the woofer and examine the spectrograms — e.g. burst decay and wavelet. The resonance(s) may not be obvious or significant enough to bother you. But at this price-point, there’s always going to be some compromise.

I wouldn’t really know if changes were made to the construction — sorry, don’t own these speakers myself — but, to me, Adam just suddenly changing the cabinet construction method seems unlikely.

… To know where the hiss is mostly coming from, I would disconnect the audio cable and re-check with just the power on while also adjusting the internal amp gain.

 

[companyja]

You probably need a very quiet room with low noise floor for this, and another very well damped speaker for direct comparison. Better yet would be to take measurements outside or gated and windowed indoors in the middle of the room away from all boundaries, perhaps even in the very near-field of the woofer and examine the spectrograms — e.g. burst decay and wavelet. The resonance(s) may not be obvious or significant enough to bother you. But at this price-point, there’s always going to be some compromise.

I wouldn’t really know if changes were made to the construction — sorry, don’t own these speakers myself — but, to me, Adam just suddenly changing the cabinet construction method seems unlikely.

… To know where the hiss is mostly coming from, I would disconnect the audio cable and re-check with just the power on while also adjusting the internal amp gain.

I am lucky to have a very quiet room to work with at least, and I've always liked a slient PC with all noctua fans so I'm okay there. I was mostly comparing the sound in the video to the sound of the actual speaker, but comparing it to a pretty okay constructed vintage Sansui, it sounds about the same to tap the woofer (the Sansui also has a passive radiator instead of venting which I imagine further eliminates resonances).

The hiss is coming from it being an active monitor and active monitor tweeters hiss as a general rule - the hiss isn't related to the signal as it hisses with the signal cable disconnected and it doesn't respond to the volume level on the back of the speaker since it's just a by-product of the poor amplifiers they use in these "budget" boxes (maybe not in terms of sound but definitely using the cheapest parts they can get away with - as someone else mentioned, if you put your ear against the box, you can hear the electronics inside buzzing when the speaker is on).

 

[Vinbeeh]

I had also tested the t8v and was not convinced overall. Especially the lower mids were missing for me. Furthermore, the imaging was clearly missing. The sound was very clear in the presence range, but the connection to the midrange was missing.
I'm from Germany and spoke to an Adam technician who said to wait a few more months. Then comes a new series that is cheaper alternative to the ax series but is supposed to be better than the t series.