ADAM Audio T7V Powered Monitor Speaker Review

In the world of studio gear, ADAM Audio is chiefly known for the ‘folded ribbon’ AMT tweeter studio monitors. They were founded in 1999 and gained popularity fast; I remember salivating over their monitors in a Guitar Center in the USA in the very early 2000s. Their speakers were always a bit more costly than entry-level monitors from other well-known manufacturers like Yamaha, JBL, and Mackie. Years ago before I knew more about speaker design and technology, I assumed that since they were more expensive they must be better. I have since learned over the years and in my time as a loudspeaker reviewer that price doesn’t always correlate to sound quality. Even so, after all these years, I am still a bit excited to finally have an ADAM Audio monitor pair in my hands for review. The irony is that the pair I have in for review comes from a recent budget series that was launched in early 2018 called the T series, and what interests me about them is not that they are expensive but that they are very affordable. Times change, people change...

In for review today, we have the T7V, a two-way near-field monitor with a 7” woofer and 1.9" AMT waveguide tweeter that retails for $500/pair. What separates these from ADAM’s higher-end models is fewer features and less powerful amplification. However, the fundamental sound quality should be largely intact, minus some dynamic range. Now, let’s dive in to see what ADAM has brought into this price range.

Appearance

One paradox about ADAM Audio’s budget T series is that they look quite a bit nicer than ADAM’s more expensive speakers. In removing some of the features of the higher-priced series, ADAM has simplified the industrial design which has cleaned up their appearance. While monitors are supposed to be just a tool for accurate sound reproduction and aesthetics should take a distant back seat in favor of sound quality, this series of reviews of monitors for Audioholics are also looking at their potential for home audio application, so looks matter for our purposes. As a speaker for home use, the T7V looks nice.

The T7V uses a molded plastic front baffle with a smooth exterior that could pass for a satin black finish. There is an increase in upwards beveling that lends the cabinets some style while ostensibly reducing baffle diffraction. A shiny, black polypropylene woofer with a flat black dustcap blends in with the satin black baffle, while a gold-colored AMT tweeter mounted in a shallow waveguide breaks the monotony of black with a touch of class. A small ‘ADAM AUDIO’ logo adorns the bottom of the front baffle. A textured vinyl wrap is used on the side panels. Overall these look nicer than most studio monitors and could pass for home audio speakers if one were to use them in that application.   

Adam Audio T7V Design Analysis

As was mentioned before, ADAM Audio’s chief feature has always been the use of AMT tweeters. Back when ADAM Audio first launched, AMTs were not widely used, but nowadays they are fairly common. AMT stands for “Air Motion Transformer.” As opposed to a conventional dome tweeter that pistonically oscillates a little dome, AMT tweeters contract and expand the folds of a pleated membrane to produce sound. To explain using an example, imagine the folded surface of a half-closed curtain- then line the interior folds of the curtain with conductive rods on adjacent sides of the folds, and set two powerful magnets on the sides of the curtain. Run some alternating current through the conducting rods and their newfound electromagnetic field will rapidly collapse and expand the folds of the curtain, and, in doing so, squeeze air in and out of the folds, thereby creating pressure waves that we experience as sound.

 A major advantage of AMT tweeters is that since the folds of the diaphragm are much deeper than they are wide, the air is ejected out at a much faster speed than the vibration of the diaphragm itself- as much as five times faster. Another advantage is the very light mass of the diaphragm, which makes it very easy to move and to change direction since it does not have the momentum of the weight of a typical dome tweeter. These elements give AMT tweeters an extended response well into ultrasonic frequency ranges. Also, since AMT tweeters can have a relatively large surface coupled with the air, they can have a very wide dynamic range.

The tweeter is mounted in a waveguide that ADAM Audio calls the ‘HPS Waveguide.’ It was designed with computer modeling to have a wide, even horizontal dispersion with a narrow vertical dispersion. The tweeter is crossed over to a 7” polypropylene woofer at 2.6kHz. ADAM Audio claims a 39Hz low-frequency extension, but they do not give a tolerance to that number. I would guess it is a -10dB figure, but we shall see in the measurements.

The T7V is a self-powered speaker that has a class-D amp for each driver. The woofer uses a 50-watt RMS amplifier while the tweeter uses a 20-watt RMS amplifier. ADAM’s literature says that a pair of these things can hit 110dB at 1 meter. That is quite loud to be sure, but they don’t mention any distortion figures in that specification, which is needed to make it more meaningful. The T7V’s can accommodate an unbalanced RCA input or a balanced XLR input. I would like to have seen a TRS input, but its omission is not a big deal. The output can be controlled by a gain knob along with a high-frequency shelf filter and low-frequency shelf filter. Each filter can adjust the response by +/-2dB.

The cabinet uses ½” MDF side-panels with a 1 ½” thick front baffle. The interior is lined with a thick layer of polyfill damping. The T7V is a rear port-ported speaker that uses a 2” diameter port that has a constant curvature with flaring on both sides.

Overall, the T7V looks sensibly designed with attention to detail along with some promising design decisions. Let’s now see how it sounds in practice.

Listening Sessions

I used the T7V monitors in two different rooms under different conditions to see how they would cope with different environments. I set them up on my PC desk, which is essentially a quarter space, or a space enclosed by two boundaries. This desktop environment puts the listening distance at about 2.5 feet. I also set them up in my home theater room, which gave them lots of breathing room and a nearly free-space environment. This is a far more acoustically friendly environment for sound quality. The processor used was a MOTU 828x and MOTU M2 on PCs with Qobuz as the source for music. No subwoofers were used. I used these monitors to listen to completed recordings rather than content creation since this is a home audio publication, and we are more interested in seeing how these fare in a home audio application.

Music Listening

It is only in recent decades that Danish composer Carl Nielsen has become a known-name outside of his home country. Many of his compositions were regarded as unusual during his own lifetime, and it was only after World War 2 that he started to gain some international recognition for his music. A new release from the internationally acclaimed Seattle Symphony led by conductor and fellow Dane Thomas Dausgaard endeavors to promote Nielsen’s status in a recent release entitled ‘Symphonies 1 & 2 (Live).’ These sensational works are immaculately recorded at the Benaroya Hall in Seattle in a 96kHz/24bit resolution. This music is on the more energetic side of classical, and if you like your orchestral music with some bombast instead of serene pastorals, ‘Symphonies 1 & 2 (Live)’ certainly merits your attention. 

Even though this was a recording of an orchestra in a concert hall, the soundstage was considerably more distinct than most orchestral recordings of this type. Many orchestral recordings place the mic at a distance where some imaging of instrument sections can be distinguished, but there is not usually a lot of precise imaging, especially where concert all reverb can make a further blend of the sound. While this detailed soundstage is most assuredly a quality of the recording, the T7V speakers were instrumental in creating such a vivid picture of the orchestra. Brass, strings, and woodwinds all had well-defined positions. What is more, I didn’t notice any tonal aberration, and the T7Vs seemed to give the recording a balanced presentation. Of course, that is what one would expect in a studio monitor, but it is definitely a positive attribute for home audio speakers as well. The dynamic range exhibited by these monitors was surprisingly good as well. ADAM Audio classifies these as ‘near-field monitors,’ and recommends a three-foot listening distance, but even in my theater room with an eight-foot distance, they were still able to project a powerful sound. Seeing as how most speakers strive for a point source of emission, it is perfectly fine to use near-field monitors at further distances so long as they are able to achieve your desired loudness levels. The T7Vs had sufficient dynamic range for me in a normal home audio listening environment and likely would suffice for most other users as well.

For something with an emphasis on human vocals, I selected jazz vocalist Melody Gardot’s ‘Currency of Man.’ This well-reviewed album takes a turn from her previously jazzy inclination toward a sound more infused with funk and groove, although some tracks are still quite jazzy. Grammy-award nominee Gardot’s albums are always recorded with a very high standard of quality, and ‘Currency of Man’ is no exception. This album is a bit angrier and rowdier than Gardot’s previous albums, and as such the compositions are more complex and incorporate more instruments than her usual outings.

Listening to ‘Currency of Man’ on the T7Vs, the aspect of the recording that I noticed in the first couple tracks was Melody’s dead center vocal imaging against the orchestral accompaniment which spread out all around her. On the third track, ‘It Gonna Come,’ the bass guitar is prominently featured, and the T7Vs gave the bass some real heft even though they aren’t gigantic speakers. The quantity of bass that the T7Vs could belt out was surprising, and it didn’t sound exaggerated or hotter than the rest of the range. Melody’s voice was fastidiously rendered, and one could hear every minor inflection and modulation of her singing. Her vocal control is tremendous (listen to the track ‘No Man’s Prize’ for an example), and the T7V provided a finely-detailed reproduction of her performance. The T7V’s overall presentation of this album was excellent, especially for a loudspeaker of this cost and size. 

Trawling through the soundtracks section on Qobuz, one that I ended up enjoying quite a bit more than I anticipated was David Julyan’s score for the 2005 horror film ‘The Descent.’ It is mostly orchestral but with some synthesizer support for atmospherics. And speaking of atmosphere, this atmosphere created by this album is so thick you could cut it with a knife. The orchestral elements and synthesizer ambiance occasionally lull the listener into a trance but are then startled by moments of percussive fury that no doubt accompanied the more tense passages of the movie. Great movie scores are always enjoyable independent of the movies that they were created for, and ‘The Descent’s original soundtrack is among these greats. This score is more than just a tense mood; it also chronicles the emotional journey of the film’s protagonist so well that hearing this album alone is enough to outline her task of overcoming past tragedy in the quest for survival in the face of the grotesque horror of the movie’s plight.

On the T7Vs, one part of the recording that is nicely recreated is the layers of sound used to build up the atmosphere and multiple emotional elements within the early scenes. The build-up to the central crisis is established with orchestral strains and synthesizer drones which create an unnerving tension in the music alone. The bass ability of the T7Vs and their elocution of these disparate sonic elements add up to a vivid narrative. The music, and its reproduction by the T7Vs, is so evocative that I have to wonder how effective the movie would be without the score. As a film score, the music inhabits the available width of the soundstage, so precise imaging isn’t really a thing here except for occasional percussive sounds, and the speakers give this sound mix the intended panoramic presentation. Most of the music relies on bowed strings and so is sweeping in nature, but the sudden bouts of percussion could be startling, thanks in part to the dynamic range of the T7Vs. The music for ‘The Descent’ is unsettling, and it isn’t for everyone, but for those to whom it appeals, they ought to hear this score on a set of speakers on par with the T7Vs.

To see how loudspeakers deal with high drive levels, I usually resort to high energy electronic music, since it typically has a lot of deep bass and it doesn’t leave a lot of room left in the dynamic range of whatever media it is delivered in. Low frequencies are where a speaker is most likely to run into trouble at loud levels. Another reason I like to use electronic music is that I can always hear something new with enough searching, and an album like this that I listened to on the T7Vs is ‘Mutant’ by Arca. I don’t know anything about Arca, and that doesn’t matter. The music  on this album is aggressively loud and unlike anything else I have heard. The arrangements are very melodic, but the sounds used to construct those arrangements can often be quite bizarre and unique. I don’t even know what subgenre this music might be classified within if it is indeed classifiable (not that classifications matter). The results are an album that is both engaging but also challenging to the listener, but not so challenging that it isn’t a lot of fun to hear.

‘Mutant’ is not short on bass, and the T7Vs were able to supply much of the low-frequency content in this album, even at louder listening levels. The low-frequency ability of these speakers again surprised me for their size and the fact that they are intended for near-field monitoring. A dedicated subwoofer might have been able to offer a bit more deep frequency prowess, but the T7Vs certainly caught most of what was there. The strange soundscape contained in ‘Mutant’ was sharply realized by the T7Vs. Odd sounds could emanate from anywhere, but wherever they came from, the T7V speakers imaged those sounds with pinpoint precision. I listened to this album at a relatively loud level, but I didn’t notice anything like compression or distortion, although if there was distortion, I don’t know that I could tell given how strange the sound of this music was for much of its duration. Overall, this album was given a terrific reproduction on the T7V monitors. Those looking for a strange new sound should give ‘Mutant’ a try, and capable speakers like the T7Vs are a great way to hear such an eccentric and surreal album.   

Movie Watching

I’m not really a big fan of the “Mission: Impossible” movies because they were a bit formulaic for my tastes. However, I was looking for a conventional action movie to hear what the T7V’s could do for an effects-driven film, and I saw that ‘Mission: Impossible - Fallout’ was available on a streaming service. It seemed like a good candidate for something with lots of action set-piece sounds, so I gave it a spin. As most readers will know, the “Mission: Impossible” is all about globe-trotting spy missions with lots of chases, double-crosses, and subterfuge. These movies are as big-budget Hollywood as it gets, and the sound production gets the best possible treatment. With the sound cranked up, I watched ‘Mission: Impossible - Fallout,’ and the T7V speakers acquitted themselves nicely. This movie had lots of crashing things such as in an extended car chase in Paris featuring loads of crashing vehicles, and the T7Vs gave all the crashes a satisfying crunch of bending metal and broken glass. Aside from that, the most memorable part of the sound mix is Larne Balfe’s exuberant orchestral score. There was plenty of high-tempo percussion accompanying the many chase scenes, and they were all well rendered by the T7Vs where one could take their attention away from the on-screen action to give the sound some consideration. A climactic helicopter chase also sounded lively with lots of swooping engine noises and doppler effects of the choppers passing back and forth. The T7V’s bass ability gave the helicopter engines and various explosions some real weight, and while a good subwoofer would have been able to add more oomph, the T7Vs did a very respectable job with the low-frequencies on their own. Dialogue intelligibility was very good, and the voices imaged from character positions on-screen even though no center was used. This has as much to do with the sound mix as it does the speakers and their placement, but the T7Vs did play an important role in bringing about that kind of soundstage. ‘Mission: Impossible - Fallout’ was a fun action movie, and the T7Vs did a good job in reproducing such a large-scale sound mix.

One movie that I watched with the T7Vs was the Netflix comedy ‘Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga’ starring Will Farrel. Will Ferrel’s comedies aren’t normally the kind of thing I would watch for evaluating a speaker, but ‘Eurovision’ has a heavy emphasis on musical performances, so this looked to be the exception. ‘Eurovision’ concerns the dreams of an amateurish Icelandic duo to win the Eurovision Song Contest, so there are lots of spectacular Eurovision type musical numbers, and with Netflix producing it, the production quality is top-notch. The music here was very bombastic, but the T7V speakers were able to reproduce the high energy of the sound mix with vigor. Many of the songs feature strong bass, and the T7V’s were able to recreate the low-frequencies so well that I don’t even know what a subwoofer could have added to this experience. The dialogue was always clear even though most of the cast sported either fake or real accents. Just a pair of these ‘near-field monitors’ managed a full presentation of this blaring movie even at exuberant volume levels. I am sure these speakers have their limits given their design, but I think that most people would never run into them in normal use. To be sure they are not party speakers or head-banging speakers, nor would I recommend their use for a dedicated home theater unless it was in a small room, but for typical movie or music playback in a family room, they have more-than-adequate dynamic range along with far-more-than-adequate sound quality.

ADAM Audio T7V Monitor Measurements & Conclusion

The ADAM Audio T7V speaker was measured in free-air at a height of 7.5 feet at a 1-meter distance from the microphone, and the measurements were gated at an 11-millisecond delay. In this time window, some resolution is lost below 250 Hz and accuracy is completely lost below 110 Hz. Measurements have been smoothed at a 1/12 octave resolution.

The above graph shows the direct-axis frequency response and other curves that describe the speaker’s amplitude response in a number of ways. For more information about the meaning of these curves, please refer to our article Understanding Loudspeaker Measurements Part 1. The response here isn’t perfect but it isn’t bad either. The chief problem is that there is a slight imbalance in the overall response that occurs in the upper midrange, at around 1.5kHz. It is as if there is a slight shelf filter that bumps up the response from that point upwards by about 2dB on average. The T7V would have a relatively flat on-axis were it not for that discontinuity. I didn’t notice this imbalance in my listening, although I did feel that the speaker did have a crisp and detailed quality. A response like this accentuates the upper harmonics of voices and instruments but doesn’t put emphasis on any single narrow range since it is all elevated. The problem is that a studio monitor should not be accentuating anything. The good news is that there is good correlation between the on-axis response and off-axis responses which we can see in the smooth directivity indexes, so there doesn’t seem to be any directivity errors, and this speaker could be reliably equalized since its reflected sound should be a good match for its direct sound.  

The above graphs depict the speaker’s lateral responses out to 90 degrees in five-degree increments. More information about how to interpret these graphs can be read in this article: Understanding Loudspeaker Review Measurements Part II. If one takes the time to look closely, one thing that can be seen on the above graphs is that the elevated upper ranges do get flattened out with respect to the lower range at off-axis angles. In fact, the responses from twenty to thirty degrees fall within a relatively tight window. The thirty-degree angle holds the response tight within about a +/-1.5dB window from 200Hz to 18kHz. The most accurate response occurs within this angle range, and those who want the least coloration in the sound should have the speaker angled so they are listening to the speakers at a twenty to thirty-degree angle. The waveguide looks to be doing a good job of maintaining uniform directivity over the tweeter’s bandwidth.  

The above polar map graphs show the same information that the preceding graphs do but depict it in a way that can offer new insight regarding these speakers’ behavior. Instead of using individual raised lines to illustrate amplitude, these polar maps use color to portray amplitude, and this allows the use of a purely angle/frequency axis perspective. The advantage of these graphs is they can let us see broader trends of the speaker’s behavior more easily. For more information about the meaning of these graphs, we again refer the reader to Understanding Loudspeaker Review Measurements Part II.

As we have seen before, the directivity is pretty well controlled for the most part. The tweeter does begin to beam a bit, but that doesn’t occur until around 10kHz so isn’t likely to be of much audible consequence. If we track the horizontal traces at twenty degrees and thirty degrees, we see pretty much just a solid hue of red indicating a response without much deviation. Again, that seems to be the most neutral angle of this speaker’s output. That kind of listening angle can typically be achieved by having the speakers facing straight ahead in parallel rather than having them face the listener directly. Perhaps ADAM Audio assumed that the user would give them that kind of placement and designed them accordingly? The only problem with that theory is that ADAM clearly states in the user manual that the speakers should be aimed directly at the listener.   

The above graph shows the T7V’s response behavior along its vertical axis where zero degrees is directly in front of the tweeter, negative degree values are below the tweeter, and positive degree values are above the tweeter. In this graph, we can see that the best responses occur on-axis and ten degrees below. Above and below that range, crossover cancellation starts putting holes in the response, which is typical of two-way designs like this. Still, that is a relatively narrow vertical angle to be listening in. These speakers sound best where the tweeter is level with your ears or slightly above your ears.

The above graphs show the T7V’s low-frequency responses that I captured using groundplane measurements (where the speaker and microphone are on the ground in a wide-open area). This graph depicts the low-frequency responses of each of the ‘LF’ switch positions, with the purple curve representing the ‘+2dB’ position, the blue curve representing the ‘0dB’ position, and the yellow curve representing the ‘-2dB’ position. One thing that we see here is that the lower bass does get a bit of a bump even in the ‘0dB’ position. The most neutral setting seems to be the ‘-2dB’ position. I did most of my listening with the speaker set at ‘0dB,’ and now I know why the bass seemed so strong. The T7V’s look to have a solid response down to 50Hz. With boundary loading, these speakers could get a very usable response below that even, well into the 40s. That is a very respectable bass extension given the size of these monitors.  

The above graph exhibits the changes that can be made to the response using the ‘HF’ switch on the amp plate with the blue curve representing the ‘+2dB’ position, the red curve representing the ‘0dB’ position, and the green curve representing the ‘-2dB’ position. The most neutral sound happens with the T7V set to ‘0dB.’ If you want a bit more of an aggressive sound, set it to ‘+2dB,’ but if you want the treble to be a bit more laid back, use the ‘-2dB’ setting.

Conclusion

Before bringing this review to a close, I will briefly go over the strengths and weaknesses of the product under review, and, as usual, I will start with the weaknesses. The only real flaw in the ADAM Audio T7V is that it is not as fully tonally balanced as one would expect in a studio monitor. There is a slight elevation in the response from about 1.5kHz and above, and while that wouldn’t be terribly significant for recreational listening, that response couldn’t help but impact the sound mix for content creation which is what these are made for. Anyone who uses these monitors to create a sound mix may find that their recording will sound slightly recessed on a neutral sound system. One workaround for this is to listen at about a 25-degree angle instead of an on-axis angle. Another slight aberration is that the low-end is not neutral either, and the elevated bass is going to impact the mix as well. The good news is that can be easily alleviated by setting the ‘LF’ switch to ‘-2dB,’ but the problem here is one would naturally assume that the ‘0dB’ setting yields a neutral response, and that is not the case. If you mixed content with the ‘LF’ switch at ‘0dB’ or especially ‘+2dB,’ you may find your mix sounding a bit thin on bass in other sound systems.

I thought the T7V monitors presented a nice sound, but those looking for accuracy above all may want to look elsewhere. That isn’t to say they are wildly inaccurate, which they are not. I think these could be used for production, and that the produced content could sound good, but it would be a somewhat imperfect reproduction of the source signal, especially without careful set up and knowledge of this speaker’s behavior. It’s not easy to make a speaker with an extremely flat response, especially at this price point, but we have seen some similarly priced monitors achieve a more neutral tonal balance than what the T7Vs managed, at least on-axis.

For those who don’t need absolute accuracy, there is a lot in the T7V’s favor. As I mentioned, they do sound very good, and their imaging abilities are superb. The sound that they produce is detailed without being harsh. Their bass abilities constantly surprised me given their size. They do have a slight background noise from the amplifier, but I have heard worse in many other active monitors. The T7V monitors have a nicely controlled off-axis response that has good correlation to their on-axis response, so acoustic reflections will not be problematic with this speaker, and they don’t require anything special in terms of acoustic treatments for an optimal sound. Their directivity also allows them to be predictably equalized.

Aside from their sound, the T7Vs look very nice as far as studio monitors go, and I think they could easily be used in a living room or some other domestic setting where there is some aesthetic bar that must be cleared. Another advantage they have is that their Class-D amps ensure that the vast majority of the electricity going to them gets turned into sound and is quite a bit more efficient than Class-AB amps.

In the end, I liked the T7V speakers. Anyone looking for powered speakers that look nice and don’t cost a fortune should give them a try. A simple stereo pair of T7Vs in a room where space is at a premium would far outperform any soundbar or Bluetooth speaker. They would work great on a desktop PC system where there is no room for a subwoofer on account of their substantial bass performance. The T7Vs can give you a good, detailed sound with plenty of bass from a nice-looking cabinet and do not cost a fortune.  

The Score Card

The scoring below is based on each piece of equipment doing the duty it is designed for. The numbers are weighed heavily with respect to the individual cost of each unit, thus giving a rating roughly equal to:

Performance × Price Factor/Value = Rating

Audioholics.com note: The ratings indicated below are based on subjective listening and objective testing of the product in question. The rating scale is based on performance/value ratio. If you notice better performing products in future reviews that have lower numbers in certain areas, be aware that the value factor is most likely the culprit. Other Audioholics reviewers may rate products solely based on performance, and each reviewer has his/her own system for ratings.

Audioholics Rating Scale

• — Excellent
• — Very Good
• — Good
• — Fair
• — Poor

Metric	Rating
Build Quality
Appearance
Treble Extension
Treble Smoothness
Midrange Accuracy
Bass Extension
Bass Accuracy
Imaging
Dynamic Range
Fit and Finish
Performance
Value