A7X review by absolutemusic

Berlin, April 4, 2012

Absolutemusic, the UK online store for musical equipment has recently reviewed the A7X. Below you can find some extracts of that review, which you can read at full length on the Absolutemusic website.

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ADAM A7X – IN USE
I carried out a few tests, firstly by connecting up a Roland GAIA, which has a great sonic range. Everything sounded superb, with lots of detail. The A7Xs were very crisp and had clear high frequencies as well as handling whatever sub-frequencies I tried.

The low end sounds very natural and it did not distort at all during my testing, despite some of the strange and extreme editing I was putting the GAIA through. However, I have to say though it was in the mid-range that I thought that the AX7s excelled.

This is just what you want from a nearfield monitor. The mids were very accurate and revealing in my opinion. As I ran an auto-panned arpeggiated sweeping filtered sound, I could clearly hear all the small nuances of the sound, as if they were in a space of their own. Everything in the sound separated, giving you an almost three-dimensional experience.

Vocals seemed a good idea for testing next, so I played some familiar CDs and also some recently recorded vocals on Sonar X1. With the CDs, I really noticed the punch of certain sounds, the crack of the snare beats and warmth of the bass drum. The vocals clearly cut through the mix with a lot of space and I have to admit, on some of my favourite tracks, I started to hear some things that I am sure I had not heard before.

Perhaps it was the fact that there is no colouration from these monitors and they sound very different (as they should) from a hi-fi speaker. I am also sure that the extended frequency range of the X-ART tweeter was really making the difference. Also, the A7Xs made everything seemed wider in my opinion!

The DAW test was certainly the ultimate experiment to find how they would affect what I hear, especially from a mixing point of view, and vocals are always the most important and the most difficult to mix. Although I would really have liked more time to test this, I was still very aware of what I said earlier about how things seemed to be in their own space. Also, the Adam A7X speakers are not very forgiving and highlighted areas in my existing mix that needed work as well as bringing to my attention some vocal performance weaknesses. I also feel sure that they will assist in my decision making of where I place tracks / instruments in the stereo field.

ADAM A7X – SUMMARY
At the end of the day, choosing a set of monitors is a very personal thing. I think that the best environment to test monitors is in your own studio because this is where you do most of your listening. Your ears will instantly know if a familiar track sounds more detailed as a result of the monitors you have just installed. Unfortunately, you cannot easily do this and have, say, five pairs of different monitors on loan to test. Therefore, you have to make do with hearing them in a shop (where you can hear some comparisons), research online and to some extent, trust the professionals with their recommendations. With the Adam A7X monitors, as I said at the start, you do not get SOS awards lightly, so you could go out and buy these with confidence. Whether you would prefer, for example, a pair of Genelic 8030As is simply personal choice.

I personally loved the A7X monitors from the minute I took them out of the box! They are very accurate and have a flat response, a lovely detailed sound and they will not break the bank, but should provide you with an accurate mix. At the end of the day, that is what you want, isn’t it?

Tony Long, Absolutemusic / March 26, 2012