11/29/07 Audio Ideas Reviews the Compakt
ADAM monitors - at home in the best studios around the world
This is the reason why ADAM monitors have managed to set new benchmarks in many studios worldwide. Their precision and transparency have convinced numerous audio engineers that ADAM's are the best tools available for professional monitoring. They guarantee the finest possible reproduction, and the most authentic sound.
ADAM loudspeakers - studio quality at home
Now, ADAM Audio brings the sonic fidelity of their studio monitors tuned to the home environment. You can hear music on loudspeakers with the same sonic signature as those on which the music was actually produced.
A brief history of ADAM Audio
In only a few short years, ADAM Audio has managed to firmly establish itself as one of the three world-wide leading manufactureres of professional monitors with an impeccable reputaion for precision in sound reproduction. Utilizing their proprietary ART transducer as well as other groundbreaking technology, Advanced Dynamic Audio Monitor products have advanced quickly to become a standard reference monitor in many countries around the world.
ADAM's ART transducer technology
The basis of the unique sound of our loudspeakers is their Accelerated Ribbon Technology (ART) transducer, which has revolutionized the reproduction of high and mid frequencies. Adam Audio's ART tranducer represents innovation at the very heart of the matter... innovation that you not only hear, but one that you can actually experience. As much as the results from the most sophisticated measuring methods flatter us, the final arbiter is the ear. The progress the ART technology represents is perceivable by every listener: peerless clarity, unique precision, unchallenged dynamics.
ADAM Audio's Accelerated Ribbon Technology, a further development of the famous 'Air Motion Transformer' by Dr. Oskar Heil, takes a completely new approach to the kinamtics of moving air to substantially improve music reproduction.
All other conventional loudspeaker drive units act like a piston, oving air in a 1:1 ratio with regard to the motion of the driver. The problem with this is that the specific weight of air is much lower than that of the driving mechanism. As a result, the air does not couple effectively with the transducer. The analogous situation in electrical terms is described as poor impedance matching between source and load. In both cases (acoustical and electrical), the result is less than optimal power transfer: usually, loudspeakers have a degree of efficiency of a mere 1-2%
The ART membrane, on the other hand, consists of a pleated diaphragm in which the folds compress or expand according to the audio signal applied to them. The result is that air is drawn in and squeezed out, like the bellows of an accordion.
The ADAM ART design achieved an improvement in air loading by a factor of four over conventional transducers. To illustrate the basic principle by a comparison: when you breathe, your thorax is moving slowly whereas the air is moving comparably fast. Similarly, the ART diaphragm presses the air faster in or out of its folds than they move themselves.
The vastly superior "motor" is responsible for the unprecedented clarity and transient reproductions that can be heard from the ART drive units. The result is dramatically improved quality of music reproduction.
in addition to the improved air coupling, the ART tweeter's pleated membrane avoids the typical breakup and subsequent dynamic limiting at higher frequencies of stiffer voice coil designs, such as those found in dome and cone tweeters.
Another positive result of the ART design is that the driving "pleats" are in direct contact with the outer air and are cooled immediately. Thermal power handling of the units is increased, surpassing that of 1" domes by a factor of more than 2 to 1.
The ART Tweeter
ART tweeters have a high efficiency (approximately 92 dB/W/m), a perfectly linear impedance (3.2 + or - .03 ohms), an equally perfect phase response (+ or - 1 degree within the utilized bandwidth), excellent directivity characteristics and a power handling capacity two or three times that of 1" domes; plus the neodymium magnets and yoke (ring) utilized in the ART units result in perfect magnetic shielding.
A groundbreaking technological innovation with easily discrnible superior performance and no technical flaws, the ART tweeter is clearly unequalled in the annals of audio history.
More surface area = higher dynamic range
Diaphragm area is antoher improtant factor in determining the dynamic range of a transducer. Basically, what you see is what you get. The cone area that you can see is always the acoustically active area of the loudspaekre - this is true for practically all other drive units. By folding the ART diaphragm into the third dimension a larger foil can be used, thus increasing the acoustically effective area of the diaphragm by a factor of more than 2.5. This results in higher dynamic output with excellent dispersion.
The Hexacone Woofer
The woofers used in ADAM's loudspeaker series monitors are made from a special material called HexaCone. the core is a honeycomb sructure made of Nomex, making them both light and stiff. The front and back of the cone have been coated with Kevlar, the most advanced syntetic material available. Kevlar withstands elongation by a force factor greater than 1000 times that of steel, enabling the cone to resist deformation.
Hexacone woofers are far more rigid than paper, polypropylene or aluminum woofers of similar dimensions. Due to this rigidity, break up resonances in the diaphragm cone are prevented. The effective length and diameter of the boice coils, together with the strength of the magnets and the available cabinet volume are aligned for musically optimum low frequency reproduction.
Another general problem observed frequently in monitors is a disproportionate volume, especially at low frequencies. With massive woofers (and frequently inadequate acoustic pressure levels!), the average listener is supposed to be impressed; however, this approach results in an inaccurate representation of the overall sound quality. ADAM woofers are designed to reproduce the given sound material with the highest possible authenticity.
Active or passive?
ADAM Audio Loudspeakers are available in either a fully biamped active version with digital (PWM) amplification, or passively crossed over versions. The active versions eliminate the lossy characteristics of passive crossovers, and the passive versions allow you to select the amplifier that suits your sonic tastes.
