Adam A5

In the A5, that same tweeter is teamed with a 5.5-inch woofer, using a cone material that's fabricated from a sandwich of carbon fibre and a specialist material called Rohacell. This produces a rigid, well-damped cone which, suspended in its soft-roll surround, bodes well for low-end clarity. The drivers are mounted in a neat and fairly conventional ported enclosure, with all the connections on the metal rear panel, which also serves as a heat-sink for the electronics. Two small bass ports are located at the lower corners of the front baffle.

Powering the two drivers are two 25W amplifiers, and these are, in turn. driven from an active crossover operating at 2.2kHz. On the rear panel there are controls for adjustment of tweeter level (±4dB continuously variable), and both 6kHz high-shelving and 150Hz low-shelving filters (±6dB), so that the user can compensate for room placement and personal preference. All three controls require a screwdriver (or tough thumbnail!) for adjustment. Power is delivered via a standard IEC socket, and there's a recessed switch used to set the mains voltage to a nominal 230V or 115V.

The line-level inputs are on the rear panel in both balanced XLR and RCA phono (unbalanced) formats, but the level control is on the front panel, alongside the circular power switch and blue power LED, which makes it easy to access. For those with no separate monitor controller, there are two additional stereo-link RCA phono inputs and outputs on each speaker, enabling the user to link them both via an included RCA phono cable — so you only need feed the stereo line signal from your DAW to one speaker. To do this, the slave speaker must have its level control set mid-way, so that you get the correct balance between the two speakers. As soon as the linking cable is connected, a white LED illuminates on the front panel to show the status of the system. You can't use the monitors balanced in linked mode, but that shouldn't cause any practical problems in most cases.

An optional subwoofer is available, either just to add more bass extension or to complete a 5.1 system using five A5s, and this takes the low end right down to 30Hz. Having said that, though, the A5 actually turns in a very respectable low-end performance on its own (±3dB 55Hz-35kHz), and in the smaller studio your mixes are less likely to be misleading if the speakers are used without a sub. In fact, the trade-off of having a smaller bass driver isn't so much less low-end but less overall level. The rating in this respect quotes an SPL of 101dB per pair, using a test sine-wave in the 100Hz to 3kHz range, measured at one metre, and 110dB SPL peak with normal music. Although not as loud as many larger monitors, this is still very loud at nearfield distances — and playback stays clean until well above a level that's comfortable.

A lot of engineers will love the sound just as it comes, but I initially found the overall tonal balance just a hint too sizzly at the top end for my personal taste. A small adjustment to reduce the tweeter level by around 1dB and to pull down the 6kHz filter by a notch brought the sound neatly into my comfort zone, after which I set about auditioning some test material.

It didn't take long for me to confirm that the A5s really are just slightly scaled-down A7s: they have the same clarity and definition, as well as excellent stereo imaging; and given that some of Adam's speaker models are voiced differently, this is an important point to make. The A5s really are quite revealing, largely due to that unique tweeter — so if anything in the mix sounds a bit off-colour, they'll tell you, as good monitors should. By the same token, good mixes really shine, and given their size and price, there's nothing much not to like. Because the woofer is relatively small, the range of the two drivers meets nicely at the crossover point, delivering a confident and comfortable mid range, which is something that can't always be said of larger two-way monitors, where the woofer is sometimes asked to reproduce frequencies higher than is ideal.

In my own studio, which measures 16 by 11 feet, the A7s are probably a better choice than the A5s and obviously have a touch more bass extension, but I'd certainly be able to work on the A5s without any problem. Where the A5s score higher, of course — other than being lower in price — is that they can sit on a desktop and won't provoke too many low-frequency problems in smaller rooms.