Comparison of smaller Adams and Lipinski monitors

[postfader]

I recently had the opportunity to comapre the small Lipinski 505's with the Adam S2.5A's - in a small (acoustically treated) room. Both sets of monitors were fed signal from the same Bryston pre, were set up side by side, had some marginal EQ to adjust them to the room (with an RTA), and the volume levels were adjusted/matched at about ~85 dB level. The Lipinski's were powered by a Bryston 4B SST-PRO.

So if I have the numbers right, the Adams are 2-way powered (bi-amped at 150W/ea.), while the Lipinskis are getting 300W/ea, but in a single end configuration. And neither pair was using any sub-woofer at the time!!

Much to my surprise (after reading much good press about Adam monitors lately), to my ears anyway the Lipinskis very much out performed the Adams in terms of imaging, openness, spatial depth of instruments, and clarity. And it did not matter what was played on them - pop, rock, classical, even very badly recorded CD's. Very small changes in EQ were much more readily apparent on the Lipinskis compared to the Adams. TO their credit, the Adams did have a less focused or directional sweet spot, with more bass extension - but you would expect that given the Adams larger woofer and open port design. Depiste the lack of bass without a sub for either, I preferred the tighter bass of the acoustically sealed Lipinski's enclosure, though I don't know if adding a sub would change this perception (and again, it may be invalid to compare bass much sans sub).

This also may not be an entirely fair comparision because of differences in the power amps. I don't know what design/class of amplifier the Adams are using - they may even be class D, but I doubt that at their price point, the Adam design can afford to have the same kind of custom output stages that Bryston employs, or provide as large a damping factor to control of the drivers.

If you were to look at the dollar (list) numbers, you would get (sans preamp driving them) its ~$4250 for the Adam S2.5A's, and [ ($3000 for Lipinski 505's) + ($2200 for Bryston 4B SST-Pro) = ~$5200]. So thes Lipinski/Bryston combo is about $1K more then then Adams (or about a 25% increase in cost above the Adams).

I don't know how much a passive pair of S2.5's would be - and it would be interesting to hear them powered by the same Bryston electronics. Unfortuaently, while passive versions of all Adam monitors are available, they are all special orders, and cannot be returned to the dealer once ordered (which may indicate where the market is going). I see on the ADAM web site there is now a line of home/consumer speakers (whch are all passive ?), but these are apparently only available in Europe.

The "pro" dealers in my locale increasingly seem to carry only active monitors, with a few rare excpetions like the Earthworks Sigma monitors (which I liked, though I think the Lipinskis provide more/better bass and lower mids then the Earthworks). But, I have seldom found powered monitors that come close to comparable or better passive monitors with external electronics. I would say thus far, the Lipinskis (passive), PMC AML-1's (active), Adams (active), and Earthworks (passive) - have been what I've preferred compared to the other 90% of brands I see dealers carrying in these price ranges. But it seems there are fewer monitors I'm interested in as active designs dominate the market at these price points more frequently.

[elambo]

Originally Posted by postfader

I don't know how much a passive pair of S2.5's would be - and it would be interesting to hear them powered by the same Bryston electronics.

Unfortunately, this is the only way that would make this comparison relevant. Since that's not possible the comparison is too unmatched to mean anything. At least not to me.

I did enjoy reading your review though. I'm a huge Bryston fan, and a huge Adam fan, so the Bryston/Adam suggestion had me excited.

[Mafiso]

My father just picked up a pair of lipinkski 505's for a listening room he put together in our house. He compared them against the really high end b&w's and a few other more "high end" speakers, and consistently found the lipinski's stereo image and clarity to be much better.

Granted he was buying them for listening, it was still a great find. These speakers aren't very popular it seems.

[Fuel]

lipinkski 505's ? interesting..how much do they cost?

[Mafiso]

I think around 3 grand a pair. A killer deal if you ask me.

They also have a larger model as well that runs about 5 grand a pair. They also make preamps that I have heard good things about, but I don't have any personal experience so I can't really say.

http://www.lipinskisound.com/

[postfader]

The 505's are $1500/ea and the 707's are $2500/each. You might be able to save something off them if you were buying them as part of a larger package from a dealer, but I haven't seen them discounted. We bought ours directly from Lipinski, and we could just not send them back after the 2 week trial/demo period. Their web site lists them with pricing,

http://www.lipinskistore.com/store/

If you search for Lipinski or 707 in some of the mastering forums, you can read the feedback on these larger monitors by some of the more opinionated mastering engineers, e.g.,

Lipinski monitors

My expereince with even the smaller Lipnski's makes me doubt the credibility of some of the comments in the above thread; I'm not sure I subscribe to the philosophy that engineers should mix on one kind of monitor, then subsequently use some other kind of monitor to master on. I do believe it is wise to audition whatever you are mixing or (re)master(ings) on more then one kind of monitor however (even if you have a favorite/reference one).

The 707's were reviewed in Stereophile, but I believe the 505's would be close spec wise in terms of response, except the 505's would not have the base response of the 707's. I think its pretty well known that Bryston electronics are a good combination with these monitors (except of course if you are one of the few who can supposedly hear "transistor grain" - which I recall someone criticized Bryston for - sheesh!).

I find myself naturally gravitating towards monitors with extended frequency response
(~ 30K) - not because we can hear that high, but because this extension bodes well for performance/linearity in the audible range. Also, I don't think its a coincidence that I like both the 505's and the Earthworks Sigma 6.2's - because of their relatively fast/clean impulse reponse. You can see these down in the bottom of the left hand sidebar at,

http://web.mac.com/postfader/iWeb/po.../Tech_Rev.html

- or follow the link = the monitor title, to the Stereophile test measurements.

After living with monitors with these kind of time domain characteristics, all other monitors sound compressed and/or muddy by comparison.

The late, great David Blackmer (DBX, Earthworks) put a huge emphasis on designing everything in the Earthworks product line (a complete transdution chain of mics, preamps, and finally monitors) to have clean/fast impulse response time - and extended high frequency reponse. See "The World Beyond 20kHz",

http://www.earthworksaudio.com/f_wpa...yond20khz.html

I would be interested to see impulse response, step response, or such test results for Adam monitors, if anyone knows of them.

[Stick]

I got to do a mix on a set of the bigger Lips with dual subs, though it was an unfamiliar room for me... They sure sounded nice in the room, though being a first try the mix didn't turn out that great. (It was sort of a demo mix anyway.) Still they seriously smoked the Dynaudio setup they had going before it.

[Keyser Soze]

Originally Posted by postfader

But, I have seldom found powered monitors that come close to comparable or better passive monitors with external electronics. I would say thus far, the Lipinskis (passive), PMC AML-1's (active), Adams (active), and Earthworks (passive) - have been what I've preferred compared to the other 90% of brands I see dealers carrying in these price ranges. But it seems there are fewer monitors I'm interested in as active designs dominate the market at these price points more frequently.

Completely the opposite of my experience.

I've used high-end passive speakers with power amps for years and own Krell, Bel Canto, and Nuforce amps at the moment along with Apogee, ProAc and Electrocompaniet speakers.

None of the above combos remotely compare with my JBL LSR6328P powered monitors, especially in the areas of dynamics, absence of compression, imaging, or basic "see-through" transparency. In fact, I'm going to sell the lot except for my Apogee Stage's which I have sentimental feelings towards. The rest are just sitting gathering dust........

[danasti]

Adam isn't my thing. That ribbon sounds really brutal to me. I do agree that they are capable of revealing very minute changes in dynamics and frequency response, more so than many other monitors. As a tool they can be very useful but there are others that get me what I need. And I can still enjoy listening, imagine that.

You should try mixing on the Adam though. That will give you a much better idea of why they have such a big user base. I like those Lipinski too! good choice.

Good Luck!