Yep, exactly.  I'm hoping my position will not incur some kind of huge null.  If it's really awful I could even put the monitors on one of the short sides of the room (I bought 36" stands) and simply turn my chair to listen.  Might even try that first since it doesn't require me to move any furniture.

Another small bonus is that my condo building was built in 1978 (first in the city) and due to the thick concrete between floors/units there is very good sound isolation from other units.  Extra bonus I have an end unit so I am even more isolated.  As long as I can mostly tame the bass nodes I should be able to turn it up pretty loud when needed without seriously pissing anyone off.   

OK time for me to stop derailing this thread and steer things back on track so here is a super cool resource I discovered the other day where you can find recordings of 55 different studio monitors of all price ranges:
https://soundcloud.com/sonic-sense-pro-audio/sets/studio-monitors

Recording methodology can be found this video:


You can also download the original 24 bit recordings since soundcloud compresses everything to 128Kbps.

Obviously the output is going to be colored by your playback system; still I think you can get a pretty decent picture of how the various monitors sound.  Very cool.

Yeah, I don't really see how I am supposed to evaluate the synth and mostly electronic instruments that dominate the track... How is it supposed to sound?  It's not like there is a reference or anything... 

Would have strongly preferred something acoustic.  Still, I think it's a pretty cool resource.

I heard Adam A5x compared to Genelec 8050A at a local mini-meet. Now that i actually heard em, they are decant speakers, but Genelecs are in a totally different league when it comes to authentic sound reproduction.  I was slightly disappointed by the Adams, in terms of over all resolution. Where you get amazing realism with Genelecs from the lows to highs, the Adams seem to have great resolution only in some narrow area 3k-4k maybe and some place higher up (some characteristic of the ribbon tweeter?). So you are missing out on holographic imaging, realism and depth of instruments and sounds (as if instruments are 2d instead of real 3d physical objects).

On the plus side. (Especially considering that the A5x are midrange, lower price monitors.)

 * Adams can do vocals. Not as physical or nuanced as Genelecs, but still, very much enjoyable. One place where the system managed to disappear.

 * Highs were decant, did not disturb in anyway, had good bite in certain areas. High hats were well resolved (not as full sounding as the other system).

 * Great build quality. Was really impressed actually.

DACs used: Soekris DAC, Yggdrasil

Music: Puscifer, Massive Attack, Pink Floyd, Ladyhawke, Archive, Tool, Hans Zimmer, Arvo Pärt.


As it has been said before, well done R2R with great speakers is something to be experienced.

Went to Guitar Center a week ago to audition the JBL 308 versus the Yamaha HS8. Was surprised I actually found the HS8 having clearer treble (but hollow midrange) than the JBLs and wasn't sure if the 308 was actually better than the 305 except for the bottom end, kinda different. Have to say, compared to those, the comparable Tannoys, Genelecs, Mackies, KRKs, etc., the Adams A7x crushed all of them in almost every way using their setup. Of course their price ended up being crushing too relatively speaking. I didn't really bother with the 5" stuff there other than cursory confirmation I didn't want any of it. The only real drawback was their hard L/R imaging but they were also setup up the furthest apart on the demo shelf as well.

I didn't even think the other speakers were remotely up to par with my HD800 rig tbh. The Adams were and then some. Definitely worth the money to me.

Caveat-I'd need to hear them at home to make sure no weird retailer/demo funny stuff is going on. I really though the JBLs should have sounded better than they did. Definitely not M2s.