ADAM Audio A8H: best in its league?

It is a huge win to receive such a positive review from an established music tech platform such as Sound On Sound, with not a single con noted in the review.

“Having owned ADAM’s A77X monitors, and having reviewed the A7V a few months ago, I had an idea of what I might expect from the A8H, but its level of performance in my listening room exceeded all my expectations and preconceptions and had me reaching for my credit card.”

ADAM Audio Continue to Impress

When ADAM Audio replaced their AX series of active speakers with the new A Series last year, they included no fewer than three portrait‑format models. The A8H midfield monitor is at the top of the range and, like the others, features onboard DSP‑based voicing, room correction, six‑band parametric equalisation, Sonarworks SoundID Reference integration and LAN‑based remote control.

The A8H’s black enclosure features a deeper version of ADAM’s signature deep‑bevelled baffle, which is designed to reduce cabinet diffraction, and thicker panels to minimise unwanted resonances. The cabinets come in left‑ and right‑handed versions, with the treble and midrange drivers sitting on the inside position, and the 8‑inch bass driver and its large, front‑facing port on the outer. However, there is nothing to prevent you from swapping them over if you prefer. The port and its internal flare are aerodynamically designed to optimise airflow, minimise port noise and produce greater bass extension and higher efficiency from the A8H’s compact enclosure.

The A8H’s bass driver is an all‑new design based around an MLM (Multi‑Layer Mineral) cone made up of layers of mineral fibres baked together to create a lightweight, rigid and very stable composite material. The composition and layering of the MLM and the geometry of the cone are designed to optimise the cone’s stability and frequency response. In combination with a new magnet assembly, this new cone enables the AH8 to put out high levels of low‑frequency output with low distortion. It also looks very attractive.

Frequencies between 400Hz and 3kHz are handled by a new 3.5‑inch driver, which is a derivative of the DCH (Dome Cone Hybrid) midrange driver developed for the ADAM S Series. As its name implies, a DCH driver is a part‑cone, part‑dome hybrid that combines the clean decay characteristic and linear frequency response of a dome driver with the high‑excursion advantages of a cone. It too is constructed from MLM, and its dome form factor makes it very stable. This driver also features an underhung magnet system, in which the entire voice‑coil winding remains inside the magnet’s magnetic field even at extremes of excursion. This achieves linear cone excursion (the entire voice coil is providing motive force all the time) and low inductance modulation, which translates into improved midrange clarity by significantly increasing the ability of the driver to reproduce multiple simultaneous frequencies without distortion. Overall, the A8H’s DCH midrange driver has a frequency response that extends below that of more conventional designs, and also behaves pistonically well beyond its upper crossover frequency, allowing it to deliver clean reproduction across its operational midrange bandwidth.