Review: Adam Audio T5V Active Studio Monitors

This review of the Adam Audio T5V active studio monitors first appeared in?Recording Magazine. I reprint it here with permission, and I encourage you to?subscribe?to that publication, as they are a stand up bunch of folk! PS: you may find affiliate links in this post and I may get a commission if you buy something.

More clarity than expected for such an affordable monitor

Adam Audio’s most affordable monitor to date gives everybody access to Adam’s legendary clarity. Add a sub and these small monitors pack all the punch you’d ever need in a bedroom studio – and they’d be a great near-field addition to a bigger room.

When I was asked to review Adam Audio’s lower-cost monitor offering, I was beyond excited. I spent many an hour in Stanford recording studios mixing on Adam monitors, hoping one day I could afford a pair for my studio. When I found out they were the same price as my trusty Yamaha HS5s, I was blown away – and a little nervous. After all, sometimes high-end brands disappoint when they release more affordable gear.

Spoiler alert in case you’re nervous too: The T5Vs did not disappoint.

The Basics

This shouldn’t matter, but the T5Vs look like Adams, with that distinctive ribbon-like tweeter and a minimalist front panel with shaved-off corners. I wasn’t unhappy about that. They’re a little bulkier than similarly priced monitors (like my HS5s), at 11.7 inches high, 11.7 inches deep, 7 inches wide, and 12.6 lbs. The Yamahas, by contrast, are 11.7 lbs and 8.7 inches deep. Other monitors in this class are usually smaller too – the KRK Rokit G4 is 9.49 inches deep and weighs 10.69 pounds, for example.

The back panel is simple – power switch, balanced XLR input and unbalanced RCA input (with a switch to choose between them), level knob, and LF and HF boost/cut switches, which can either boost or cut by 2 dB. For reference, those are a low shelf at 300 Hz and a high shelf at 5 kHz.

Nitty Gritty Details

Getting into the detailed specs, the T5Vs sport a 5” woofer with a 1” voice coil made of polypropylene, and a 1.9-inch U-ART tweeter with a velocity transform ratio of 4 to 1. The input impedances for the XLR/RCA connectors are 10 kOhm and 20 kOhm, respectively and input sensitivity is -10 to +4 dB. It’s a dual amp system with the woofer driven by a 50W PWF amp and the tweeter driven by a 20W PWF amp.

Perhaps more important for us musician types, the frequency response is around 45 Hz to 25 kHz. The maximum SPL is 106 dB (continuous), and the peak SPL is often listed as 114 dB at 1 meter – that’s way louder than I would ever listen.

Where They’re Placed

My home studio is a humble, one-room space in a normal-sized bedroom (12’x11’x8’), well-treated – not perfect, but well done. I built a shelf to place the T5V tweeters at ear height and spread them 46 inches apart to create an equilateral triangle with my favorite listening position. They sit a little too close to the wall for my taste – inches away, but that’s unavoidable. Normally, I use home-built room correction filters, and with that in place, I trust the room implicitly. However, after making initial measurements (my measurements were similar to reported frequency response), I opted to listen to the T5Vs and compare them to my current monitors without room correction. I did not engage either shelf EQ switch and I calibrated nominal SPL to 75 Hz, mostly listening at a lower level than that to simulate a mix environment.

I also have a small sub, which I calibrated as I normally would and listened with and without it engaged.

The Important Part – How Do They Sound?

The first thing I did (after building a new shelf to accommodate both sets of monitors) was just start listening to music. The first thing I noticed is the T5Vs were cleaner and had a more spacious stereo spread than my Yamahas. It should be noted that the Adams were placed farther apart than the Yamahas so that alone would make the spread feel wider. Still, stereo placement just seemed cleaner and more distinct.

One thing I look for there: are the vocals nice and centered? With the T5Vs, the vocals sounded like they were emanating straight from the computer monitor. Bellissimo! Exactly what I wanted to hear.

Like any small near-field monitor, I liked everything much better when I added the sub. I felt like in the mix it would be useful to turn the sub off to hear what the mons were doing with bass and kick without that under 40 Hz rumble, but overall, I wanted the sub on (makes sense!).

As I listened to a playlist of happy pop – stuff with very clean, spacious mixes and tight bass, I switched back and forth between the two sets and noted a marked clarity improvement whenever I switched to the Adams. I found myself preferring to listen to them. I thought the difference was subtle but noticeable…

Until I switched to some heavy metal. System Of A Down (one of my go-to reference bands) and a newer band called Cancer Rats. Oh boy was the clarity difference apparent then. It was night and day. The T5Vs are so clear and clean when heavy guitars are involved – they just shimmered. It was at this point I started to fanboy out again and get excited.

However, this didn’t make me want to get rid of the slightly duller, darker Yamahas. In fact, it made me want to double down on keeping both sets. After all, the point of a studio monitor is to help you make better mixes, and I could tell that comparing mixes in both sets would help achieve cleaner, more balanced mixes that translate across systems.

The tricky part will be deciding which set to spend more time with while mixing, and which to use as a sanity check toward the end. I definitely want to listen to the Adams more, but that may be a reason to spend more time with the other set.

It hasn’t been long enough to really know which set I’ll use as the mains, but I can say I’ve done a few mix revisions since doing my first listen test, and I have yet to switch to the Yamahas. It’s just too enjoyable working on the T5Vs.

Bottom Line on Adam T5V Monitors

You’ve got a lot of choice when it comes to affordable nearfields these days. The T5Vs are as affordable as anything, so there’s no longer a reason not to have a set of Adam monitors in your space. I can’t imagine needing more oomph in a home studio than the T5Vs bring, and I don’t know that I’ve heard a cleaner, clearer set of monitors in this price range. You won’t get the kind of low-end bump you might want from these or any set of 5” monitors, but that’s par for the course. Pair them with a reasonable sub, though, and you’ve got everything you need to hear what you’re doing no matter what size your studio. Overall, the Adam T5Vs get a big thumbs up from me, and they’re definitely staying right where they are in my space for the foreseeable future.

Price: $149 each

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I’m a singer, songwriter, and producer who has made some songs on some speakers. Talk to me @RecordingLikeMacgyver and while you’re at it, grab your 10x My Tracks eBook to make your tracks better right now!