Ears for ADAMs - Effanel, XM Sattelite Radio, and Jazz at Lincoln Center Choose ADAM Monitors

Effanel Music, Inc., formed in 1980 by Randy Ezratty, has been providing on site recording equipment and services to many of the world’s most popular artists and the venues they perform in for more than a quarter of a century. From its work with a range of performers stretching from Joan Baez to Babyface, and productions that include the Grammy Awards, MTV, VH1, TNT and numerous others, Effanel has secured a reputation as one of the elite firms in the field.

In January of 2005 Effanel was acquired by XM Satellite Radio, of which Randy Ezratty says was a logical step in the company’s evolution. “XM had quickly become a major producer of live content by 2004, when they approached us,” says Ezratty. “It made sense for us to hitch our wagon to a company that had an established flow of live work.” What’s it like to go from being the major-domo in a small company to an employee? “It’s interesting! I like not having to go to sleep every night worrying about having to keep seven employees active and fed. On the other hand, you get used to operating as an independent, and becoming a member of a corporate structure takes some adjusting. XM has a great bunch of people though, and we’re extremely pleased with the decision we made to fold our operation into theirs.”

When Ezratty and his partner, Joel Singer aren’t plotting production schedules they’re often found looking for ways to upgrade the signal path and audio quality of Effanel’s three mobile trucks and portable systems they ship to venues throughout the world. While walking the floor of the Javits Center in midtown Manhattan during the 2003 AES show Ezratty came across a booth where ADAM Audio was playing back SACD surround mixes. He liked what he heard, and as a result a relationship developed between the two companies that has been firmly cemented over the last three years. “I loved those speakers from the first time I heard them on the floor of the Javits Center - not an ideal environment to make a critical analysis, for sure,” says Ezratty. “Since that time my initial take has been validated over and over by many sets of ears that I greatly respect.”

The first pair of ADAM speakers Ezratty purchased were installed in his home studio. “Some very well regarded engineers, including Kevin Killen, who is Elvis Costello’s engineer (Killen’sclient list also includes Peter Gabriel), and Jay Vicari , who mixes for Saturday Night Live, work at my place in Chelsea. Putting a 5.1 setup of ADAM S2A’s in my room was a way for me to ease into the ADAM line and see how they worked. My clients have gone gaga over them!

“When XM bought the company we decided to install ADAM speakers in all of our fixed installations. What it comes down to is the musicality of the high end and the imaging that every speaker in the ADAM line provides. They’re superlative in these areas, and mixes executed on ADAMs translate extremely well. “The big cherry on top of the cake came when XM, after acquiring Effanel, struck a deal with Jazz At Lincoln Center to equip and operate their studios (note: this fixed installation won the 2005 Mix TEC award for best new studio). John Storyk designed the rooms and they sound fabulous. We put in ADAM speakers exclusively. Obviously, everyone at JALC, from Musical Diretor Wynton Marsalis on down, has a high end jazz sensibility, and everyone is very happy with the ADAMs.”

Joel Singer, who merged his company, Onsite Recording, with Effanel in 2003, concurs. “The ADAM speakers that we installed at JALC (a pair of S6A Mk II’s, five S4As, seven S3As, and 16 Artists) work great in that environment. They’re well tuned and present an extraordinarily accurate representation of anything mixed in the studios.” For Singer, who patterned Onsite Recording after the Effanel Model, working with XM hasn’t changed his day to day work much. “I just spent three days down in Texas, where our lead engineer John Harris and I each mixed 15 bands at the Austin City Limits Festival. We took our small truck OBU and new pelican portable recording system down there. We also recently finished working with the MTV Video Awards show with the big truck, L7, and when that job was completed moved on to Fashion Rocks for CBS at the same venue.

“Our trucks offer the highest end recording and mixing environment in the industry, but there’s no way that they can equal the time and tuning you can spend on a fixed environment. As important as monitors are, the inherent problems of listening to playback in what’s essentially a square box are genuine, and we haven’t found any one speaker that we completely love for use in them. We used the ADAM 2.5’s on the Grammy Awards in 2006 and were happy with their performance. “I’m so happy to be involved with Randy and John. They were the innovators of flight pack recording and everyone modeled their business after what Randy and John were doing. As other companies catch up to what we’ve done we’re constantly innovating. For example, we just built a complete recording system that can be checked in as luggage and sent anywhere in the world. That eliminates huge freight costs and time and the client still gets a full Pro Tools system to work with. ADAM Audio is a great company that builds wonderful speakers.”