ADAM Artits vs EVENT ASP8s

  • Thread starter Thread starter Tweeksound
  • Start date Start date

Best monitors in $1400 price range

  • ADAM Audio Artist

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • EVENT ASP8

    Votes: 4 50.0%

  • OTher (please specify)

    Votes: 4 50.0%
  • Total voters
    8
T

Tweeksound

New member
Hello,
I am in the market for some new decent monitors. I am looking for accuracy more than anything else. I really just want to make masters that transfer well to other systems. There is very little info online about the ADAM Artists.
Any comments and experiences are appreciated.

Thanks
 
Yo Tweaks:

Blue Bear uses Adams and from some tracks I sent him, he can hear lint falling through the air on those monitors--I assume the Adams are awesome gear.

But, you have to consider your recording gear. Good gear will create good sounds for sure.

I almost bought a pair of Adams passives but heard a few negative comments about the passives.

But, since I've not really had a chance to ear-audition them, I can't really say.

A friend of mine once drove a couple of hundred miles to audition gear at Sweetwater. You might consider that before you drop the green.

Green Hornet :D
 
Thank you Tobias. I have seen that field test review. That was one of the things that made me seriously consider the Event. But the fact that ADAM makes only profesional speakers and Event makes pro and budget speakers is one of the things that makes me consider the Artists.

The Adams over anything else including the EVENTs were "STRONGLY" recomended by the Sr. sales rep at Sweetwater.
He explained that the Event ASP8s are at the top of the entry level line and the ADAM Artists are at the bottom of the profesional level line.

At first my mind was: Events, 58% and ADAMs, 38%, 4% other

Then it evened out between the Events and Artists.

Now that I'm thinking about the brand reputation, the fact that the ADAMS have much less power (which isn't what I'm interested in), and they have a frequency response that my small room might like better (Or so I've been told), I'm moving closer to 65% Adams

Unfortunately I don't have a car or any real means of transportation. I would love to audition a bunch of models.

But, you have to consider your recording gear. Good gear will create good sounds for sure.
Click to expand...

Fo sure, I've been trying to get the bast I can afford on all counts.

I have the AKAI DPS24, which I just love the clarity, dynamic range, wide stereo field, compatability, ect, ect.

I have a decent LDC, Rode NT2. Works well for my vocals.

I'm waiting on $3600 in Shure drum and instrument mics, including 2 SM81 and the Beta 52.

And I'm not going to buy a new preamp or compressor till have at least $1100 or so to spend on it. I want to buy my studio once and do it right. That's why I wnat the most accurate monitors I can afford.
Then I'll sound treat my room to make them that much more efficient.

Thanks a ton The Green Hornet and Tobias.
 
If I was about to buy the ADAMs, I'd get a good high-end ADAM model like the P series. Or get another monitors for less and wouldn't have to PAY for the ADAM name (what a silly name anyways...).

In my search for good studio monitors, I have tried the ADAM P11 and P22, along with the Mackies HR824, the Dynaudio BM5 and BM15, the Samson Rubicon 6 and the KRK Rokit 8. All in the same room with same CDs.

The ADAMs were the brightest of the bunch, having too much high-end to accurately monitor on. I agree with the guy that says you can hear lint falling...yeah, that's for sure, but man those highs are shrill! I bet my mixes would come out really dull at first with those. Then I'd learn them but my ears would get shot from all this hot lava treble melt!

Overall, I liked the Dynaudio BM5 and Mackie HR824 the better. Indeed, I was very impressed with the HR824 ability to have full highs without sounding shrill at all. Those HR824 are probably the best nearfields money can buy IMHO. I don't believe one can get closer to "flat" and "accurate" than this. The BM5 and BM15 were more "middy" and sounded more "low-fi" to me. The HR824 are simply, truly flat. I never thought I'd actually NOTICE phase accuracy, but the HR824 exposes it all!

Anyways...whatever your monitor is, once you've learned it..you can mix good on it!
 
Personally, I prefer Dynaudio. I have had two different sets of Dynaudio's now and love them both. As far as the ADAM's go, they are really hit and miss as to what people like. People either love them or hate them, so it reallt does become a personal decision. What all of the people that I know seem to have in common is that they all don't care for the ADAM's much until you get at least up to the S2.5a's, and most just don't think too highly of them until you get to the S3a's. The P series and the Artists and the ANF-10's just don't seem to get much love. I have not personally had much experience at all with the ANF's or the Artists, but what little I heard was not too impressive. They didn't sound bad, but they just sounded more like all of the mid-range Musicians Friend type monitors. Basically that makes them way overpriced for what you get in my opinion.

As far as the Mackie's go, I am certainly not the only person that absouletely can not stand them. Flat is definately not at all how I would describe the Mackie's. They sound like decent home stereo speakers to me with a slightly better HF response, which isn't syaing much. The Mackie's to me have a harsh top end and a very highly exaggerated low mid thing going on. There is a reason why there are a ton of used Mackie 824's out there for sale. For about 2 years they were pretty common for a low budget powered monitor, but there are now a ton of low to mid priced studio monitors to choose from. When the Mackie's came out there was not a lot of options in that area and at the time sounded as good or better than most comparable options. The 824 trend seems to have firmly ended now though.

The Dynaudio's are definately known for having that midrange thing nailed. Some people don't care for that, but most Dynaudio users like them because of that. It makes them easy to listen to, and easy to mix on. PLus, the highs on the Dynaudio's are beautiful and they Dynaudio monitors really don't fatigue you very easily. I can feel the fatigue setting in after just an hour of listening to the Mackie's.

As far as Grammy's go, I don't feel like that is a good reason at all to justify buying Event's. I am sure that many more Grammy's have been cut using Genelec's, but that does not mean you should run out and buy some. It is also important to remember how people advertise. Was that specific Grammy award winning song/album tracked and mixed on Event's? Were the Events the main monitors used? Or were they just a secondary set of monitors used at the studio where just the keyboard tracks were done? My point is that those kinds of claims are often very thin and very hard to substantiate. Otherwise we would all run out and buy Mackie VLZ's and done with it. In fact, even in the live industry I see a lot of really thin endorsements. I have worked with countless bands that have an endorsement for a certain brand of mic. Once you start talking to the engineer you often find out a whole different story. Half the time the endorsement was secured by the singer who thought that "brand x" was what he/she needed and the FOH and monitor engineers actually hate having to use them night after night. Often times they do those things just because they are being paid to or because they were given that whole shmear of gear.

In the end, my real point is that when you have found the right set of monitors for YOU, then you will know it. All these reccomendations don't really amount to much because in the end it is a personal and opinionated decision to be made. I do understand wanting to get advice and reccomendations to assist in your decision making process though. I still do that quite often because most of the time it is logistically difficult if not nearly impossible to be able to spend the proper amount of time with all of the gear in question to make a truly educated decision. For me it is not often that I actually take the advice of most people on forums like this. In the end when I need a reference for something I stick with a select group of individuals whose opinion I know and trust. In general, I have not been unhappy when having to do that. The people that I use for advice are all indutry professionals who have actually used most of the stuff I am trying to choose between and used it on a regular basis. The problem with forum's like this is that often times people reccomend the stuff which they own and use. That should not be a bad thing, but those reccomendations are often based on zero experience with other equipment.

Good luck with your selection. As long as you wait to buy until you know for sure which ones you want, you won't be unhappy:)
 
xstatic said:
As far as Grammy's go, I don't feel like that is a good reason at all to justify buying Event's.
Click to expand...

I agree with this. In fact, I think whether or not they were used on a record that won a Grammy is completely irrelevant. Grammys are "made" (as it was stated before) by musicians, not by a pair of speakers in a control room. Hell, the band Franz Ferdinand was nominated for several Grammy awards for their debut record a couple years ago. That record was mixed from a Mac running Pro Tools through a pair of $200 stereo speakers (evidence - credit: Sound On Sound). I don't think that the speakers are what kept them from winning the Grammy.
 
Some great posts above this one. Good information for all who seek out monitors to read and think about.

I appreciate all of the expertise.


Green Hornet :D
 
Thank you guys,
And thank you xstatic.
great advice. up till now I've been mixing on a pair o radio shacks bookshelves powered by an old Marantz reciever.

By studying how professional CD's sound on them I was able to get decent results even from them.

There really are opinions in all directions on this matter. I hope I can find a way to go test drive some of these out before I buy.

This forum is really quite cool. I've posted this monitor question all around the net in hopes to build a better info base on the matter and the products in question. There really is very little info on the Artists and I was strongly recomended them so I wanted to learn as much about who was using them and what people thought as possible.

Thanks all.
 
Here is an article I read before buying Event ASP8’s. I like ‘em, they make my Motif ES sound amazing.

http://electro-music.com/article.php?t=4614

“The best known product from Event Electronics has for years been the 20/20bas, now updated to 20/20basV2. Event has also a series of less expensive monitors, both passive and active. The new top of the line Studio Precision series is aimed at the upper end of project studios and small to midsized "real" studios. It can be argued that pro studio monitors start at approx $3000 US onwards to like $30,000 US or more. In that respect this is still budget gear like the Mackie 824s and similar Genelec monitors.

How good is it compared to other monitors? Personally I think it is far more analytical and wide than the Mackie products. The Mackie HR824s a have the ports mounted at the back, which makes placement very hard in small studios. Wrong placement actually very often contributes to a wild boomy bass that a lot of people actually will prefer. Compared to a wrongly placed 824, a well placed ASP8 will actually sound bassless. However, the ASP8 shines when it is given signals that are really low and loud. The ASP8 is also not "rockish" sounding in the same way KRK and Mackie monitors are. Another very interesting feature with the ASP8s is the fact that I found a slightly better consistency between loud and low volumes than say with Genelecs and KRK monitors. This might again be caused by the room, but frankly I found several of the Genelecs (models from $1000 US to $2500 US) to be very tiring and blairy when played really loud. I must add that none of the competitors were bad sounding as such, just different and I guess my love for classical music has made me more interested in a slightly different sound than what many of the other vendors are going for these day. Personally I think that monitors that can play classical music and acoustic jazz really well also can deliver great results with electronic music.

Compared to more expensive stuff like the Dynaudio BM15A monitors, the ASP 8 still sounds great. The bass in the Dynaudio BM15A can possibly be described as a bit more detailed. The BM15A also has a soft dome tweeter, and to a certain extent the two monitors sounds a bit the same in the high end, but the BM15A has possible a tad more edge to the upper highs. The stereo imaging of the ASP8 still sounds a bit better to me, but these two monitors will have to be placed slightly different and this will of course make direct comparisons a bit hard to do.”
 
I think I must have reviewed the ASP8s about 30 times across numerous boards so I won't go into the details but....

I placed them against every $2000 and under monitor across 5 rooms and 3 mixes that can be found in walk-in stores here in LA. GC, SamAsh, West LA. The ASP8s beat all brands except one, the JBL LSRP6328s at $2200. (Other brands were Dynaudio, these were closest in sound, Mackie 824s, BlueSky 2.1, Yamaha)

You can pick a pair up on ebay for $800 slightly used which I did. Mine were in pristine condition. Most stores sell them new for $1200.

These have a very large sweetspot but unless you are prepared to buy some bass traps are a little powerful for a 10x12 room. The 8 inch speakers are well defined not only on the low end but midrange too and overall the box is extremely accurate up to 20K. The depth of the cabinet is larger than all but the JBLs which attributes to the excellent reverb image and delay information which was actually better than the JBLs.

The LSRs were just extremely, precisely accurate. No doubt their electronics which help you tune the speakers to the room has a lot to do with it. I could hear very small EQ adjustments revealed on these in the midrange. Not quite as precise were the Events.

I was also attracted to the Dynaudios BMA6 as they had very tight and focused midrange but not the depth and width of the Events. In their focused spot they were perhaps as precise as the JBLs but lacked low end and depth against the Events. Good for rock I would say but I mix jazz, pop and the occassional church performer and clear accuracy outside the Dynaudio spectrum is required.

There, I did it again. I can't stop raving about the Events because other than all this, translation is about 95%. When its mixed on these, you are pretty much done except for boombox refinement.

My experience, my ears, my room. Void where prohibited subject to other opinions.

ADAMs - I don't know the Artist series but if they do not have the ribbons like the more famous part of their line, I'm not sure I would make that purchase.
 
Last edited:
I highly recomend the studio precisions. I didn't compare them to the adams, but they blew away the krk v series. To be honest once I listened to them in my room, I had no desire to audition any more. Not only are they flat and honest, but they are enjoyable to work with (so you forget you are working).

I mix in a fairly small room, so I went with the sp6, and they give me pleanty of bass.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top