Mackie HR824 vs. Adam P11A...

[garyzab]

About 6 months ago I picked up a set of 5 Mackie HR824s and am using them exclusively for hometheater. I love them. Today I received the new SweetWater catalog and I noticed that they are carrying a speaker I had never heard of, Adam. I've always loved ribbon tweeters so they of course peaked my interest. If any of you have had the chance to compare these to speakers, could you please provide me with some insight as to which you prefer? I never thought I would have Mackie regret, but it is creeping in. Thank You.

[Scott Gould]

I was using Mackie HR824s until I heard some ADAMs. I got the S2As, not the P11As. I haven't even plugged in the Mackies since. There are a lot of us out here who think the ADAMs kick some serious booty - in fact people over at the Music Player/EQ/Guitar etc. etc. forums are getting sick of hearing about how good the ADAMs are. Those aren't just ribbon tweeters, they are folded-ribbon drivers (don't ask me about the technical details) developed by the same labs where the Heil Air Motion Transducers came from. Those are the ADAM people (nice pedigree - though Dr. Heil is no longer alive). Get a pair in your studio and put 'em through their paces. I don't think you'll be disappointed.

Scott

[JeffBarnett]

I heard a demo a few hours ago of the ADAM P11s. I was absolutely blown away by the sound. Never heard anything like it under $2500/pr. The tweeter is based on a folded ribbon design which expands and contracts like the bellows of an accordion, achieving 4X as much air movement as a conventional dynamic tweeter design.

The biggest thing about them, though is the size of the sweet spot! That little tweeter is darn near hemispheric. The sound is natural and full-range even as much as 80 degrees off-axis. VERY impressive.

[Justin]

Yep, after the listening session here all our sales engineers have been raving about them all day long.

[michaelhoddy]

Hey look, an ADAM rave thread!

I'll join in. I love my S2A's, and they're the single best studio purchase I've made in years. Not quite the bottom end I need in some cases, but for a 7" cone, VERY impressive. I haven't found a monitor that helps my mixes translate better. When it sounds good on the ADAMs, it sounds good anywhere.

I'll be getting a sub soon...

[cjguitar]

I think the Mackies are a great speaker, but after working with them for over 3 years, I needed something different (better?) After hearing rave reviews about ADAMs, and then hearing them for myself, and even comparing them with Blue Sky, Dynaudio, Genelec, Mackie, Boston Aucoutics, JBL, I ended up getting the ADAM P22A. I think all the speakers I listened to were great speakers and all would be good choices, but the ADAM stood out as being very detailed and brutal (they really bring out the flaws in any recording).

[myles]

im in the market for new monitors also, and had heard only good reviews about the ADAM's since early this year -- although i did hear that they had a rather unusual feel/sound to them. is that apparent to any of you who use them? also, has anyone heard the new tannoy ellipse? if so, how do they compare to the ADAM series? opinions...

[sdevino]

If you are looking at the Adams then you have to at least listen to the Earthworks Sigma 6.2 monitors. They are simply stunning!

Everyone I know who has listened to them has bought them (including Nika).

Steve

[cjguitar]

I listened to the Earthworks Sigma 6.2 monitors, and was pretty impressed with the high end and clarity, but they were lacking in the low end, which makes it unusable to me.

[MyFormerSelf]

Sitting here with my Adam Pro. S2.5's... What can I say? Best purchase I ever made! They have much more of that needed bottom end when compairing them to the Adam S2's.

[Ernest828]

The Mackies are great for the price. ADAMS are almost double in price so lets hope they are better.
We do all sorts of mixes here from classical to Rap and I have yet to hear a complaint using the Mackies.

That being said, I would love to get some ADAMS but first a U87.

Peace,
Ernest

[nostatic]

I've got 824s and after hearing the P11s, the 824s are going away. It also doesn't help that I listened to a few mixes I did on the 824s on other systems and was not happy. The Mackies are a great sounding speaker, but imho NOT good as a NFM for mixing. ym (and ears) mv.

The Adams handle transients better than almost anything I've heard. Quite amazing. That folded ribbon tweeter is incredibly quick.

[roger paolo]

I am looking for a new set of monitors, and am concidering the ADAM p11A or the new Mackie HR824 mkII. I make mainly electronic music, combined with bass guitar, acoustic guitar which I play and record myself.

I know the Mackies are used a lot by electronic music producers, and I was wondering how the ADAM's perform with this style of music. Any thoughts?

[Rad]

Back to the original question. Are you looking for something that sounds GOOD or something that sounds ACCURATE? Because these are two different things and from the way the question is being asked, I am not sure it makes this distinction . And it needs to, if you want to get the desired results, because for home theater, you need something that sounds good, and for serious professional studio work you need something that sounds accurate, which is not the same thing at all.

There are many top-notch studio speakers which are not necessarily pleasant to listen to, yet they are still among the very top choice of engineers - take the NS-10 for example. This is not a speaker I'd ever choose for home listening, especially in an untreated room, but it is indispensable for good mix translation in the studio. Or take the HS-80, to that matter, which many also find a bit harsh on the high end. The mixes we've done with these two pairs were better and translated better than those with an alternate pair of more "beautiful"-sounding speakers. The point here is accuracy and the ability to hear in the recording (and correct!) precisely the stuff that the listener at home is going to (and should) miss if listening for pleasure - such as minuscule clicks and pops, bass resonances that normally wouldn't be noticeable, but which you need to remove to ensure the mix translates on every other speaker, and so on. In fact, when I listen at home, I specifically _do not_ want to hear those things and worry about why I hear some mild distortion in the left channel and maybe 2 dB higher noise on the right. I need to know this when listening in the control room, not at home. Someone in this forum had compared this to looking at a great painting under a 3000-watt lightbulb: Sure, even the most minute detail will be noticeable and super bright, but is this enjoyable?

In the case with the Mackie 824's, I think you've been lucky to pick a monitor with slightly accentuated low end (yo, that passive radiator inside!) which happens to be good for urban music, including film music and audio where these things DO sound good. However, a caution is due that these good results will not necessarily translate to every other monitor pair. Just wanted to make that one point.

[DAS]

It's probably worth noting that even though many engineers have found NS10 monitors useful I don't think any of them would characterize them as accurate. They just happen to have a sound that some (many) engineers found translated to the outside world in a predictable way.