Avi Hifi ADM9 & Sub

[jack667]

Hi there,

Has anyone had a chance to listen to the new AVI ADM9's yet with 10" sub?

I've read good things in magazines, interested to know if any of you lot had already listened?

http://www.avihifi.co.uk/

Thanks,

Jack

[chris_broadbent]

Adm9

I have not yet heard the sub for the ADM9's, however, I currently have the ADM9's on home dem. I thought you may be interested in the results I have found with my setup. First of all I do not have a cd player and have been listening to vinyl for many years up until about 5 years ago when I moved house and the big black Maudant Shorts were relegated to the garage. I am now looking to get a good but reasonably proced system based around itunes , lossless files and a Mac Mini. So having done a lot of research I decided to trial the ADM9's.

I have linked them direct to my laptop by usb so am using the DAC in the speakers. First of all I can say that these speakers on a sound quality basis are excellent value for money. Although having seen photos of the internals, the value for money feelings are reduced a little. Sound Quality: They are detailed with v. good clarity and go loud, although after 40 minutes at silly rock volumes the back panels are too hot to touch. On listening to voices and simple music such as Eva Cassidy, the clarity is really excellent and on rock and indie such as Rage against the machine, the drums are crisp and sharp. Certainly this makes for a revealing system and a lot of my 80's and early 90's cd's which I have ripped to my laptop HD are shown uo for the bad recordings they are.

So pretty good for £1000. However, there is a downside, when I listen to my old and weary pink triangle through my meagre 25W Exposure amp and Large 70's Black ash MS's, my toes start tapping and I drift off into the music and get seduced by the emotion of the track. This is what is missing from the ADM9's. They are clinical but unfortunatley a little boring. I found myself switching tracks half way through and trying to connect to the next song before the first one had finished.

So not perfect, I am now confused as I love the idea of ripping my 1000 cd's to hard drive on a Mac Mini and linking it to my plasma. But I do want and need to be emotionally connected to my music. Maybe this is just a genereric problem with digital music and I will never find any system through comupter or CD player which will surpass my turntable for musical involvment. I am now considering finding an external DAC such as Russ Andrews DAC1, so I can then buy Mac Mini and use my current amp and speakers for a while.
Any comments and suggestions would be appreciated.

[jack667]

Hi Chris,

Thanks so much for your in depth views.

It's really interesting that you said you don't connect with the music, as I have felt this in the past, and rather than the actual components being the problem, I have found this is more of a subliminal problem, due to the fact that you have x amount of tunes available to you, all at the click of a button. It's much easier to flick between tracks than it is, spending time choosing a CD/Vinyl, putting it on, and sitting back!

Of course, I understand that digital music isn't going to have the same warmth of your Pink Triangle.

That's really interesting about the ADM9s. I am still yet to hear them, but was thinking for ages about possibly trading up and making the switch. What I own now hifi wise, is worth about 4 times the price of ADM9s.. so perhaps not!

The claims I have heard are, it would take £5000 of Hifi to better them. I'm not sure if I truly believe that!

Here's a much better idea than the DAC1 - as Russ Andrews is a company that deals in 90% toot IMO. I am now thinking about adding a Cambridge Audio 840C to my system after reading the mind blowing reviews! This not only allows me to enjoy my dusty (as in dirty, not Springfield!) CD collection, but due to digital in, I can connect my Mac mini through the DAC in the CD player. I think this is a great way to mix up computer with traditional hifi. I cannot wait to hear the results.


For £600 odd (DAC1 price) you get.. the DAC1.. for £750 you get a better DAC, and CD player, that doesn't look odd on your rack (well, perhaps won't effect you now you have the ADM9s!)

I have heard nothing but praise for the ADM9s, so perhaps they just take a bit of adjusting to, seeing as it's a large jump from an old analogue set up.

BTW, do you have any photos of your system, interested to see...

Thanks

Just out of interest, do you have the internal photos of the ADM9s?

[Steve Z]

I have not yet heard the sub for the ADM9's, however, I currently have the ADM9's on home dem. I thought you may be interested in the results I have found with my setup. First of all I do not have a cd player and have been listening to vinyl for many years up until about 5 years ago when I moved house and the big black Maudant Shorts were relegated to the garage. I am now looking to get a good but reasonably proced system based around itunes , lossless files and a Mac Mini. So having done a lot of research I decided to trial the ADM9's.

I have linked them direct to my laptop by usb so am using the DAC in the speakers. First of all I can say that these speakers on a sound quality basis are excellent value for money. Although having seen photos of the internals, the value for money feelings are reduced a little. Sound Quality: They are detailed with v. good clarity and go loud, although after 40 minutes at silly rock volumes the back panels are too hot to touch. On listening to voices and simple music such as Eva Cassidy, the clarity is really excellent and on rock and indie such as Rage against the machine, the drums are crisp and sharp. Certainly this makes for a revealing system and a lot of my 80's and early 90's cd's which I have ripped to my laptop HD are shown uo for the bad recordings they are.

So pretty good for £1000. However, there is a downside, when I listen to my old and weary pink triangle through my meagre 25W Exposure amp and Large 70's Black ash MS's, my toes start tapping and I drift off into the music and get seduced by the emotion of the track. This is what is missing from the ADM9's. They are clinical but unfortunatley a little boring. I found myself switching tracks half way through and trying to connect to the next song before the first one had finished.

So not perfect, I am now confused as I love the idea of ripping my 1000 cd's to hard drive on a Mac Mini and linking it to my plasma. But I do want and need to be emotionally connected to my music. Maybe this is just a genereric problem with digital music and I will never find any system through comupter or CD player which will surpass my turntable for musical involvment. I am now considering finding an external DAC such as Russ Andrews DAC1, so I can then buy Mac Mini and use my current amp and speakers for a while.
Any comments and suggestions would be appreciated.

Hello Chris,
As you and Jack are discussing stuff close to my heart I thought I'd let you know my feelings and observations. I've been a vinyl fan for over 30 years but being open to new tech stuff I was attracted by CD back in 83' and stopped buying vinyl for a couple of years and bought only CDs, back then not every artist released music on CD and due to this I reverted back to buying vinyl again, having realised that CD was good but not perfect I decided to upgrade my turntable to try and rival CD replay, to cut a long story short I ended up with an original Townshend Rock, Kuzma arm and ATOC7 cartridge, and found this didn't rival CD it blew it away. This setup I still own to this day. In the last 20 years I've had numerous CD Players, Pre/Power amps and lots of different speakers. Up until about 4 months ago I had an Arcam CD92 AVi S2000mp pre and MF X-A50 power amps feeding Quad ESL63 speakers which gave a very acceptable sound both off CD and vinyl, but wanting to improve things I thought an upgrade to the latest preamp from AVi would fit the bill (about £1600). So I contacted AVi boss Ashley James to ask his advice, frankly his reply was abit of a shock, he said the most cost effective way to get better sound from CD was to junk the Arcam and buy a MacMini computer stick all my CD collection into iTunes and use the computer as a music server, the computer apparantly having the same DAC as their own £1500 CD Player. As I'd been after a new computer anyhow I bought one, spent one evening importing my favourite CDs into iTunes connected the audio output to a spare input on the preamp and sat back to listen expecting to be underwhelmed, the sound quality I heard was better than any CD player I'd tried by quite a margin, I was impressed. The reply from Ashley also made reference to their new ADM9 active digital monitor speakers which I had not heard of, he said the Mac could be connected digitally to these speakers for even better sound quality. As he'd been right about the Mac I thought I must give the ADM9 a listen, no dealer within 100miles of me, so Ashley suggested I pay him a visit to hear them which I did the following week. To say I was again impressed is understating the fact. A couple of weeks later I ordered a pair, which I have now had for the last 3 months or so and I'm enjoying my music more than ever before. The speakers at first do seem a little "light and bright" but the more you listen the smoother they get, the bass seems light at first because most amps lose damping factor sending power through passive crossovers and hence don't control the bass driver properly so you get overhang of the notes which adds to the percieved bass, ADM9s amps dont have that problem so when the note stops so does the driver, bass is more accurate but their is apparantly less of it. The best thing about this story is these upgrades have cost me nothing in fact I'm in profit due to the sale (wonderful ebay) of my Quads, CD Player and Power amps + some expensive cables, has more than covered the cost of the ADM9s and Mac. So I've got a better sound, money in pocket and more space (the Quads were massive) so I'm a very happy bunny. I kept the Preamp so vinyl is covered and any other non digital source is catered for, vinyl sounds great through the ADM9s analogue input. I've got good quality heavy and rigid stands which help with bass definition and weight but I must admit some of my music has me hankering after the new sub, so I will be paying Ashley another visit for a dem (he's a very obliging fellow) sometime between now and Xmas, it looks a nice bit of kit and as I like my movies too it should work great with them too,so all the bases are covered. Although I'm a vinyl fan, lossless digital files played into the ADM9s do sound wonderfully natural, almost vinylike but even more detailed, you can listen for hours on end without fatigue, the speakers do a very good job in showing just what music is well produced and what is not, some 80s and 90s music sound much better balanced than up to the minute stuff does, they tell it as it is. Anyway I'll report back when I've heard the sub.

Best Regards

Steve Z

[jack667]

Hi Steve,

Thanks for your interesting response.

Do you have any photos of your ADM9s?

I have spoken to Ashley in the past, he is definitely on a mission to change the way people look at "hifi" in the future. I am yet to hear the ADM9s so I cannot comment on their quality.

I read the review in WhatHifi (5/5), but I think they totally missed the point. It's a bit of a rubbish mag to be honest.

[dknightd]

Chris, one thing you might try is connecting your turntable to the new speakers,
and connecting your computer to the old system. This might help isolate if the toe taping was due to the speakers or something else.

[Steve Z]

Hello Jack,
I totally agree about What HiFi they did miss the point totally, if you email Ashley he will no doubt send you a copy of a forthcoming review by the editor of Sound on Sound, Paul White, someone who really has some credibility and shows he really does know what the ADM9s are all about, there's a lot of good stuff in the review it's even more informed than AVis own excellent website, a very interesting writeup. He's also gives his impressions of the sub which WHF didn't get to review, I think he's the first reviewer to give the sub a listen. The ADM9s are also being given a full review in the December issue of HiFi Choice but without the sub, I'm sure it will be favourable but not as indepth as Paul Whites review.
I don't have any picture of my ADM9s, they are the Rosewood veneered ones and they look beautiful, should have been £100 extra but Ashley let me have them the same price as the standard finishes as I'd taken the trouble to travel 200 miles to dem them, thoughtful chap he is. By the way my ADM9s are the ones with the Toslink optical connection so it can take the optical digital output from the Macmini, I've also bought an Airport Express Base unit so I can stream the music wirelessly from the Mac to the speakers for more convenience still, although I have not got round to trying it yet.

[jack667]

Hi Steve,

I will definitely drop Ashley a line, SOS is a great mag, I am heavily involved in music production, and always appreciate SOS reviews, as they are very thorough and honest.

Enjoy your ADM9s, I bet they sound incredible!

[finbred]

Here are a few pics of mine. I'll be getting the sub in January. As to the matter of emotionality, these speakers certainly have me crying more than any others before them, regardless of source.



The gentlemen at AVI were very clever in giving the sub the standard width of 43 cm... a Mac Mini has already taken the place of the set top box in the pic below. But for optimal DVD image quality a Pioneer DVD-player will replace the somewhat technically old (no progressive scan or HDMI) Sony.

[jack667]

Finbred, I have to say... your ADM9 set up looks fantastic. OK ENOUGH!! I need a pair!

[Steve Z]

Hello again Jack,
Got a message from Ashley to say you'd been in touch, bet you found the Paul White review very interesting. Just to let you know I'll be able to report on the sub a bit sooner than anticipated, I'm going to pay Ashley a visit the back end of next week all being well, to have a listen to the sub, no doubt I'll be impressed and will bring one home. I see you've been talking to Johan (Finbred) in Finland, we've been in contact a few times since we both got the ADM9s, looks like I'm going to get my sub before him.He's lucky with his setup that he can put the sub between the speakers, I unfortunately can't as I have a Panasonic 42" plasma TV on a large glass shelved stand between my ADM9s so the sub has got to be off to one side (left), Ashley did try the sub in my expected position and found it didn't cause an imbalanced sound, probably as low stuff below 60hz doesn't carry any directional information to speak of,and he recommends setting the hi-pass filter at 60hz with the ADM9s. My speakers are the same finish as Johans so you know what they're like now, I don't have his classy stands though. Are you planning to get a pair of ADM9s yet?
Regards
Steve

[wolfgang]

It would be interesting to read this SOS's Paul White article. It was his review of the previous Pronine that I became aware of AVI speakers. Maybe it is time to upgrade mine.

By the way, anyone know why they did not stick with the previous Scanspeak tweeter?

[finbred]

By the way, anyone know why they did not stick with the previous Scanspeak tweeter?

The manufacturer was bought by americans and problems followed. The new ones are designed by a former scanspeak chief designer, though. They provide drivers for REL and Bentley Motors among many others.

[Steve Z]

Hello Jack,
As promised I can now report on the sub, went down to AVi last Friday to audition it and as expected brought one back. Had one or two problems getting it set up to give a good sound in my listening room, the recommended gain settings were too high for me and I had a bit of a problem with cable matching, Ashley does not supply interconnects with the sub so I bought a pair of cables from an ebay seller which were listed as subwoofer cables, with these the sound was terrible, overblown and wooly with poor definition. So I hunted round and found an old freeby interconnect that had come with something I'd bought years ago and never used, tried that and WHAT a difference, tight bass with lots of slam but no excess. I finally moved the sub out a little further away from the back wall and now the whole system is in perfect balance.
I must admit I was a bit dubious about spending the extra money on the sub (It's hardly a cheap item) wondering if it would allow me to get any extra enjoyment from my music. I have to say I am getting much more enjoyment from my music now, the sub and ADM9s are a knockout combination. Previously unheard basslines are popping up in all sorts of music, It's the old adage about rediscovering my music collection all over again. You've definately got to get on this band wagon.
regards
Steve

[crackedactor]

Hi, Can you please tell me what make your speaker stands are. Cheers Robert.

[finbred]

Hi, Can you please tell me what make your speaker stands are. Cheers Robert.

If you're asking me, mine are Dynaudio Stand4s. Expensive and quite a task to assemble but lovely and very effective in giving the low end some more weight (without boom).

: Johan

[rene]

avi adm9 subwoofer

hello i am from holland, are you still pleased with your new subwoofer from avi for your adm9

are you also use it for surround and if so is it good in an 2.1 solution

thanks r.bruin