Karl Houseknecht
Power User
I bought a set of KRK Rokit Powered 6's for my 40th birthday 10 years ago and those have been my reference for mixing and tone since that time. Fast forward, celebrated my 50th birthday and wanted to do an upgrade since 90% of my playing (really, anyone's) is done at my desk in my home studio. And then COVID hit and I spend even more time there. Did some research and went for a pair of Adam A7X's.
Before I made the switch, I used the Axe-III Synth block to run pink noise through my current setup and monitored via a RTA mic and the Axe-III RTA block. The results showed a sizable bump in the low end and a descending slope through 6K or so, and then a more steep cutoff in the highs.
Made the switch, ran the same test. The results, minus a tiny, but not unwelcome, bump in the 150 range, are damn near flat all the way up to 15K. Running reference tracks through them, I noted tight but defined low end and excellent high mid and high end detail without it being fatiguing. There is a clarity here that the KRK's were severely lacking with their, by way of comparison, bloated low and and smeared, blanketed highs. Don't get me wrong, the KRKs actually sound decent, but these Adams are on another level. The real test would be how do my tones that I dialed in through the KRK's sound through them?
I wasn't really prepared for this big of a difference. I have been compensating for the KRKs bloated lows and rolled off highs, and I probably need to do a bit of re-tweaking to bring things into balance. While my tones seemed to translate to live pretty well before, I know I felt like I'd overhyped the high end on them a bit and was lacking in the bottom. These monitors should give me something a lot closer to the truth. Looking forward to seeing how my patches translate for services next week.
Bottom line, yeah, I paid like $1500 for the pair. That's probably about 3 times what I paid for the KRKs. I wasn't expecting this big of a difference but clearly I was wrong about that. I recommend these if you're interested in truth in monitoring at home.
Before I made the switch, I used the Axe-III Synth block to run pink noise through my current setup and monitored via a RTA mic and the Axe-III RTA block. The results showed a sizable bump in the low end and a descending slope through 6K or so, and then a more steep cutoff in the highs.
Made the switch, ran the same test. The results, minus a tiny, but not unwelcome, bump in the 150 range, are damn near flat all the way up to 15K. Running reference tracks through them, I noted tight but defined low end and excellent high mid and high end detail without it being fatiguing. There is a clarity here that the KRK's were severely lacking with their, by way of comparison, bloated low and and smeared, blanketed highs. Don't get me wrong, the KRKs actually sound decent, but these Adams are on another level. The real test would be how do my tones that I dialed in through the KRK's sound through them?
I wasn't really prepared for this big of a difference. I have been compensating for the KRKs bloated lows and rolled off highs, and I probably need to do a bit of re-tweaking to bring things into balance. While my tones seemed to translate to live pretty well before, I know I felt like I'd overhyped the high end on them a bit and was lacking in the bottom. These monitors should give me something a lot closer to the truth. Looking forward to seeing how my patches translate for services next week.
Bottom line, yeah, I paid like $1500 for the pair. That's probably about 3 times what I paid for the KRKs. I wasn't expecting this big of a difference but clearly I was wrong about that. I recommend these if you're interested in truth in monitoring at home.