Berlin, November 19, 2010

Hifistatement.net wrote a very thorough review of our Compact Mk3 in its passive version.

"If a pro-audio manufacturer starts to meddle in home-audio, you either get a disguised pro-speaker with all of its pros and cons for home-audio, or you end up with something like ADAM Audio's Compact Mk3."

"And how does it sound? Not much. Thankfully! ADAM avoided raising or lowering any frequencies to gain attention in the consumer market. This is a plus especially for the use of the X-ART tweeter, which was not used to generate any effects or exaggerate details or phrases. If you just let them play without any modification they sound really impressive."

"The high-frequencies of the Compact are very open, transparent and highly detailed. Thankfully there is no extra "zing" added, which adds extra clarity in the shop but gets on your nerves at home after listening to them for three days. [...] U listened to a variety of recordings to decipher any type of impreciseness in the highs but gave up in the end. The multitude of information displayed by the tweeter was presented with a natural ease."

"The designers avoided any type of modification of the sound or placing one certain aspect into the lime-light. [...] The sound capacity is often reduced in favor of faking precision. The ADAM's have such a precision that there is no need for this. Voices are clearly defined but at the same time offer the right capacity. How the designers were able to add so much color and definition at the same time, remains their secret."

"Pressure and volume are paired with precision and clarity. Generally speaking the Classic Mk3 is all in all very clean. [...] The mids profit from this cleanness and perfectly fit into the overall soundscape. These frequencies offer a big repertoire of detail and color. The lows are natural and powerful and have no problem in playing in a medium sized room. Especially noted should be their stability that doesn’t weaken by reduced input power. Overall they are well balanced and not too dry, for all the way down to the very low frequencies realistic size and power reign."

"...The acoustical capacities are what I am used to from studio-monitors: Always perfect [...] since their makers stem from the pro-audio market. Resulting from this some recordings appear frightfully realistic: [...] Pop fills the room and entices one to reach out and touch the musician. [...] The acoustic localization is perfect, generally said their acoustical staging is very stable."

"No one needs more speaker than this. [...] The ADAM's feel so much like a big speaker and get so much right as I have very seldom seen."

Summary

"ADAM, with their Classic Compact Mk3 created an impressive Hifi-speaker in all means. They are as neutral as a monitor without wanting to seem too academically. Yet with all their clarity, they stay precise, soft and agile but at the same time powerful and strong. For music-lovers [...] this might be their last speaker ever."