AirPulse A100 or Adam Audio T5V? Is AirPulse worth twice as much as Adam? Comparison review


Today we wil compare two active monitors from twodifferent price brackets - AirPulse A100 and Adam Audio T5V. They have as much in common as they are different, but which one is actually better? Let's find out!

Build Quality & Features

This is the category where AirPulse product annihilates Adam Audio product, but let's start with commonalities. A100 and T5V similar external diemensions (A100 is a touch more compact). They both use a kind of ribbon tweeter to reproduce the mids and treble, in T5V is it a folded ribbon called U-ART tweeter while A100 has a horn loaded aluminium ribbon tweeter. Both A100 and T5V use 5 inch woofers and they also have similar power rating (70W per cabinet in T5V and 60W per cabinet in A100).
Now for the differences. The fit and finish of  A100 is top notch, the cabinet looks sleek and the gloss black paint is well done (all though it is also a pain to maintain clean). The cabinet solidity is also on another level, it actually feels like a solid piece of dense wood not hollowed inside. Adam T5V feels much less solid, mostly due to the plastic front panel, and overall rigidity of cabinet is also less impressive.
The set of features AirPulse A100 has is as impressive as its build quality,A100 sports tone controls for treble and bass, Bluetooth connectivity with Apt-X, remote control, USB and optical inputs with 192kHz input sample and subwoofer output. A100 comes with a pair of foam pads included, which will be helpful to lift and angle the speakers from the desk surface. Adam T5V - as most studio monitors do - does not have any of those features with the exception of tone controls.
Adam T5V has high level of hiss coming from the tweeters that will be annoying in nearfield and audible over quiet passages of music, AirPulse A100 has alamost no hiss at all (you have to put your ear next to tweeter to hear faint noise).

Sound Quality

The differences between A100 and T5V in terms of sound quality are much slimmer, but A100 is able to show improvement to the sound of T5V in almost every area. Basswise A100 has few hertz less extension down low but the bass it has is tighter, more nuanced and natural than bigger, but also slightly sluggish in comparison, bass of T5V. There is also a touch of boominess in the upper bass of T5V as well.
In the midrange area A100 shows better balance between lower and upper mids, and more open coherent and detailed sound. T5V has a sense of disconnection between lower mids and upper mids due to not very well executed crossover. I will sound clishe now, but A100 do sound like a vail is lifted from the midrange when compared to T5V. Same story is true when we compare the treble, A100 feels a bit more nautral and extended, more present and less grainy in comparison. This qualities translate to better soundstaging in A100 as well, The images are more realistic and sharper with more air in between them, there is more depth to the soundstage. Overall A100 disappears when the music starts to play, leaving the listener with almost holographic soundstage in front of them.
Adam T5V is less prone to shift is sound character when moving from the listetning sweet spot, especially vertically A100 is very directional due to the type of horn it uses.
Both A100 and T5V have enough power and headroom to fill medium sized rooms with solid sound, but do not expect them to shake the walls. To do that you need to pair them with a good subwoofer.

Here is a sound comparison between A100 and T5V from my YouTube channel:


Conclusion

AirPulse A100 is my favourite active speaker for desktop use at the moment. It has exceptional sound quality, great build quality and very nice set of features and all that justifies the price of this product. Adam T5V quality is compromised mostly in the "build quality & features" area, but soundwise it is a solid offering, unfortunately in this comparison it falls behind AirPulse even if we compare value for money ratio.









Komentarze

  1. The A100 I prefer over everything so far. One Question. I really want these AirPulse A100, how is the bass. I don't like bass too heavy but I don't want it to be absent either. If you can explain it to me, you would help.

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  2. Nice Info, semoga semakin berkembang dan maju
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    Terima kasih

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