Adam T8V monitors

[rob aylestone]

The speakers in my audio studio are really old but still good Celestion DL8's - I was working in a hifi store in the 80/90s and tried loads and bought them. I know them well. In my other studio, I've got RCF 5" ones - which are great for speech upwards but have nothing much below 60Hz - I've also got a spare pair of 12/1" more PA than recording. They're bassy but sound naff. A friend has some T8V Adams, and another friend has Adams (the twin bass driver versions) in his studio. I've taken their recommendations and found a pair of T8Vs in a sale so ordered them. I'm wondering about what will happen when they arrive. Will they actually replace the 30+ year old Celestions I know so well, or will they just upgrade the other studio so I can use it for proper audio rather than just video?
I suppose I'll wait till I'm home in mid January but the date for returning will have expired.

Will these brand new Adams sound better/more accurate/truthful than the old ones? Have they really become tired but my ears have too?

I'm looking forward to the surprise. Reviews seem pretty good, with useful bass down to 33Hz.

Anyone care to predict, then we can compare in the new year?

 

[Papanate]

The speakers in my audio studio are really old but still good Celestion DL8's - I was working in a hifi store in the 80/90s and tried loads and bought them. I know them well. In my other studio, I've got RCF 5" ones - which are great for speech upwards but have nothing much below 60Hz - I've also got a spare pair of 12/1" more PA than recording. They're bassy but sound naff. A friend has some T8V Adams, and another friend has Adams (the twin bass driver versions) in his studio. I've taken their recommendations and found a pair of T8Vs in a sale so ordered them. I'm wondering about what will happen when they arrive. Will they actually replace the 30+ year old Celestions I know so well, or will they just upgrade the other studio so I can use it for proper audio rather than just video?
I suppose I'll wait till I'm home in mid January but the date for returning will have expired.

Will these brand new Adams sound better/more accurate/truthful than the old ones? Have they really become tired but my ears have too?

I'm looking forward to the surprise. Reviews seem pretty good, with useful bass down to 33Hz.

Anyone care to predict, then we can compare in the new year?

Use both - and see what you notice when ABing between the two sets.

 

[rob aylestone]

Trouble will be if my old monitors are so tired that I hear things I really don't like - and I kick myself for not updating more recently. I thought about doing a video - but reviewing speakers is so difficult to 'capture' in anything other than words. Pointing a mic at a speaker isn't helpful- after all we do that for effect on guitars!

 

[rob aylestone]

I've been home a few days and have split my time trying to get the video studio space working again - everything ripped out, moved around and reinstalled - I've moved everything through 90 degrees to make better use of the space.
Got the home audio studio up and running, and managed to thread two cables through the cable duct under the floor so I could feed the new monitors. Once the wiring was in - I used Spotify using a playlist of my own and other pro recordings I know well and are pretty detailed. I listened to the playlist - six tracks on my elderly monitors. Then I quickly swapped and pressed play. A very obvious difference - but good and bad.

The bass response surprised me - not a volume thing, just the tracks revealing stuff I did not know was there. Not as much difference in top end - but on my own and on many pro recordings instruments and female voices were a bit 'nasal' sounding. I noticed this straight away and I do not hear it on my old speakers or any of my headphones. Not a level thing that you can adjust on the rear - bottom and top nicely balanced and a very revealing sound. I heard a bum double bass note that I cannot hear on my old speakers. On the Adams, I can also detect a little out of tuneless too, that I did not when playing and mixing - so they are probably very good for being honest - but after only about an hour, the nasalness started to annoy. I decided to put the Celestions back, and immediately was happier, so I took the Adams to the video studio. There I have a large PA style pair with 12" and 1" drivers - boomy and the HF like all these kinds of speakers is a bit cutting, but they're used alongside some 5" RCF speakers. I tend to use those most of the time, just using the boomers when the content is bassy and I need to check what's going on.

I stuck the Adams there and they're better than both the others, so they've now found a home in that studio. Bringing up Spotify, I tried the same playlist - thinking that the quite dead acoustics there might change things. They didn't. That strange nasal quality was absolutely the same. I could learn to live with it, but to replace the tried, tested and really comfy Celestions with them is not going to happen. They'll work well in the video studio, where I do do music stuff, just normally music AND video. I'm not regretting the purchase - but had hoped they'd make my old ones - which must now be 40 years old, ready for retirement. The detail is amazing - and revealed all sorts on some live orchestral recordings. I could hear the soloist breathing - I'd never noticed that on the old speakers. I guess that's the ribbon tweeter working really well. On the Celestions there is a noise, but the Adams revealed clearly what it was - I didn't expect that.