Hello everyone, I'd like to tell you about my hifi journey (disclaimer : this will be a long post), because I think it might be of interest to the people of Reddit... and of the internet, as I didn't found neither here nor there exactly what I was looking for before buying. TLDR : budget monitor speakers (here the Adam Audio T7V) have unbelievable sound quality at their price point. And you should not believe anyone telling you their "directionality" hampers any hifi use, that they would not fill a living room, that their sound is not loud enough, not made to be "nice" or not enough bassy as they're made to be "flat" (aka boring, and ear-tiring), so you should prefer 2, 3 or 4 times more expensive bookshelves speakers/systems because you wouldn't be able to enjoy the monitors for casual listening in your everyday life. Anyway, to the story.
Some background information : I'm not a sound professional, just someone who likes to listen to music. And music of many genres depending of my mood, from bass-heavy electronic music and hip-hop to classical concertos and jazz, not neglecting old school rock music or modern pop. At home alone, with a few friends or partying loudly, on terrible sound systems and on good ones (I don't think everything is equal, and music is sooo much better with the latter). For many many years, I used a very old school vintage sound system, made of an Adcom preamp and amplifier (GTP 500 II + GFA 545 II for those interested), with big Beovox 4000 speakers. I used those either with proper CD player, then from the 2010s directly linked to computers and phones (no real DAC, don't recommend), then with an Advance acoustic WTX500 bluetooth DAC (do recommend if you need bluetooth and have old systems with RCA in).
The result was a pleasant all around bassy and warm sound (by no mean precise though), with more than enough power to fill the whole house. I was happy, but not everyone in the house was : this system had a huge footprint in our small living room (8x3m, so 26x10 feet). I reluctantly put it aside. And used then a small and cheap (like 40 $) bluetooth speaker bought in 2015 that I could move along with me around the house. Or OK headphones if I was alone. Massive downgrade I know ! Kids and life didn't allow me to think about it too much. Fast forward to a week ago. I finally accepted the fact that I would never (in the next years anyway) have enough space again at home for such speakers and amp, so I'd sell them. And that I liked music too much to be happy with my anemic bluetooth speaker.
My quest for better sound at an acceptable price (in the 150-300 euros range all included) began. At first, I thought I'd never be able to get my hands on anything remotely good for that low price, so I was looking into bettering my bluetooth portable speaker, setting my sights on a JBL Charge 5 for something like 130 euros (better stuff exists but the JBL was kinda praised, and seemed indestructible). Stereo was of importance to me though (I know how better it is, obviously), so maybe two of them ? 260 euros then for a movable system (not that I needed it that much), a not eco-friendly battery inside and better but not awesome sound. Then I thought : what could I get for 260 euros that could sound really way better than that without taking too much space ?
I began to look into powered speakers, the relatively small form factor being of importance to me, and the idea of individual amps tailored for each driver makes obvious technical sense. The prices of bookshelves speakers with dual amps per speaker made me renounce instantly (I mean, the cheapest ones I found were like KEFs at 700 euros used). Then to the monitor speakers ? First the small ones : JBL 305p, Yamaha HS5, Adam T5V, KRK Rockit and the likes. Not wanting an insanely ugly piece of equipment inside my living room (JBL and Rockit if I have to name names), I set my sights on either the Adam or the Yamaha. I read about them lacking bass, and even volume for my kind of room. So went for the T7V or the HS7, stretching my budget for fuller sound. I intended to buy used Yamahas for less than 350 euros, as T7V's were hard to find used where I live.
Now to the important part of this post (if anyone is still reading it) : searching all there was to read about these monitor speakers, the gist seemed mostly to be that they were very good as budget professional monitor speakers, but not so much (as per sooo many reddit responses to people on the same quest as I was) to use as general-purpose speakers because their directionality meant they couldn't fill a room with sound. They had to be carefully placed, in a treated room, to give something that would be OK. Music would be meh as soon as you were not in their very narrow sweet spot, and the sound would fade at the moment you would be away from the speakers (like more than 2-3 m). At the same time some commenters (notably in r/audiophile or r/BudgetAudiophile) said, from time to time, that they were good speakers period even if not for their intended/ideal use case. I hesitated : was I making the wrong choice thinking I was making the savvy choice ?
Then I found out that the timing was in fact great to buy new T7Vs : it never happens usually but they were massively discounted in Europe (new model coming ?). I closely missed an Amazon offer at 300 euros a pair, but I still could have them for 340 euros a pair. Black friday was closing on me though, so I pulled the trigger and bought them new instead of used HS7. And know they're here. I placed them as I would have done with bookshelves speakers, in a big bookshelf (deep and wide enough to allow them 30 cm right, left and rear), as high as my waist, on the narrow side of my living room. I added a panel of (white and flat, so invisible) sound insulation on the back and a mostly invisible pad of foam under the speaker (clearly a bit better sound than without). They're directly connected via RCA cables to my WTX500 without any volume adjustment knob. So not ideal at all.
First putting them on, I was weary of the potential hissing sound, having read about it for active speakers with class D amplifiers all around the internet. So I tested it without anything connected. I was pleasantly surprised : no volume, no sound at all, O dB, a very light hiss (audible if I was at like 20 cm of the speaker), max volume a light hiss (audible at 50 cm, so two feet). First worry gone (here in an old european house, so not state of the art electrical install). Second worry, as I didn't intend to buy anything unnecessary to stay on a budget, no more more cables than the OK RCA ones I already had, and here they zig-zagged through a NAS and my wifi router. But this made no more noise than disconnected (and the WTX 500 is blissfully silent on power with no sound, that I already knew). Second worry gone.
Now to the really interesting part, the sound itself. First the bass question : for earth-shattering bass, I'd need a subwoofer. But as standard speakers it's pretty good even compared to my massive B&O. Second, the loudness question : it's more than enough, as even at 0 dB it's quite loud, so I'll never need to push them at max volume even for a big party. Three, the sound quality : unbelievable is the word. As I read elsewhere, I'm hearing stuff in music (Flac and high bitrate mp3s via bluetooth LBC or apt-X) I didn't even know was there ! And I'm hearing it at any noise level, from a whisper to very loud, with pretty good dynamic (as in : symphonies). From Beethoven to The Prodigy, from Miles Davis to The Beatles, from Dre to Portishead, everything is magnified with this pair of T7V as long as the original mix is good.
I'm rediscovering my own music, album by album, artist by artist, and my ears are having the time of their life. No my setup is not ideal, far from it, but the speakers alone took it to a level of precision and overall quality I'd never thought I could have at home, and certainly not for this kind of budget. Contrary to so many posts I've read here and there about monitor speakers, my ears do not get tired, and the sound does not sound boring (I'd concede that I have only listened to good stuff since receiving them) in any way whatsoever. I can confirm though, about these specific monitor speakers and their ribbon tweeters, that their real highlight is in the high frequencies (and the mids to a lower extent) and they are clearly the star of the show for these T7V : bass is here and it's good but not so good as to make you cry.
So this long post is here to tell every casual listener who would be in a similar hesitation as I was, worrying to make the wrong choice with monitor speakers in your living room instead of more expensive bookshelves that you might not be able to afford period (or, god forbid, bluetooth speakers for a home setup), that you should hesitate no more and go for it. You'll thank yourself ! I understand picky listeners and music professionnals might disagree, but honestly if you just like to listen to music, I don't see how these Adam T7V (or other budget speaker monitors) couldn't be considered a huge bargain compared to consumer-grade stuff out there.
