I recently had the experience of listening to some of my mixes on a pair of Adam S3A’s. I was blown away by the detail, hearing things I never could on my Behringer Truth monitors in my living room studio. Of course, how can you compare a $7,000 S3A to a $200 B2030A? So when I heard about the Adam T8V, I thought, “Can I get some of that warm, ribbon magic in a $300, made in China speaker?”

I ordered the monitors from Sweetwater, and they arrived in just two days. I set them up in place of the Behringer Truth’s. Due to the rear port design, I knew I’d have to set them up a bit further from the wall, so I moved both my desk and speakers before firing them up. The speaker offers high frequency and low frequency adjustment switches which can be set to unity, +2dB or -2dB. I kept mine at unity. I started with the gain knobs on both monitors at unity. Then, whilst listening to a mix I had done recently with centered vocals, my assistant (dad) adjusted one till I felt the image was centered.

The T8V’s have arrived

As expected, the Adam T8V’s outperformed my Behinger Truth B2030A’s in almost every way, with of course the biggest standout being the extended low end. The low end is tight and punchy; not flabby at all. The ribbon tweeters offer a warm yet clear vocal presence that does not fatigue.

At this point I have no cons to mention. At $300 per monitor, these nearfields are everything one could possibly ask for in a budget speaker. I would be curious to hear what these sound like when paired with the T10S sub, but for now, I have all the low end I need for accurate monitoring of my low end content. If I ever get to a point where I have the funds to upgrade I’d probably move up to the A or S series before investing in a T series Sub.

Well, that’s it for my first product review. If you own a pair of these, I’d be curious to know what you think of them.