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ADM9.1

ADM9.1

ADM9.1 - a state-of-the-art amplified speaker that connects to the digital output of your computer or network media player



Of course you can use your ADM9.1s with your flat screen TV to produce stunning stereo sound without
all those little boxes. The subwoofer fits behind the cabinet to give you more oomph if required

ADM9’s have been in production for two years now and they’ve been a tremendous success, however things are changing rapidly. An increasing amount of 24 bit material is becoming available because many producers are unhappy with what record companies do to CD’s to make them more “commercial” - they want people to hear their work as they produced it. As a result there are an increasing number of downloads or DVD A tracks available with better sound quality. Downloads have rendered CD players redundant for all but traditionalist Audiophiles and this makes their future even less certain because they cannot play 24 Bit material.


Elegant setup of white ADM9.1s with a new iMac

We’re very much a purist audiophile company (albeit one coated liberally with BS repellent!) and we're anxious to be amongst the first to get the very best sound quality that these new Studio Master Downloads and Reference Recordings will allow and to that end, we’ve completely redesigned almost every part of the original ADM9.

ADM9.1 comprise of the highest Audio Quality 24/192 DAC, a remote controlled three input Preamplifier, two optical digital and one analogue RCA - an electronic crossover and two power amplifiers (75 WPC for the tweeter and 250WPC for the bass drivers). This makes them unique in being a complete Hi Fi system in a pair of stand, wall or shelf mounted speakers. All they need is zeros and ones. i.e. anything with a digital output.

Conventional active loudspeakers are the standard in professional recording studios, but are a not a complete system because they do not usually have a DAC or preamplifiers built in, so these need to be purchased separately for domestic use.


ADM9.1 in Rosewood finish

It is widely accepted that active loudspeakers sound better than passive ones. This is because the crossovers can be made truly transparent and power amplifiers can be optimised for the particular drive units chosen. Contrary to traditional Hi Fi opinion, you achieve a far better result by integrating as much of the system as possible. There are the massive savings to be made and it is no exaggeration to state that ADM9.1s will outperform, by an appreciable margin, separates systems costing many times their price. For example despite their costing much more, our Lab Series CD player and Integrated Amplifier driving Duos/ Pro-Nine-Plus/Neutron 4's -( or any passive two way speaker for that matter) - simply cannot sound as good, because the quality of the front end (any front end) is sabotaged by the passive crossover in loudspeakers. This is fact not hype.

AVI sees no sense in docking an iPod with it’s comparatively fiddly interface when iTunes in a domestically acceptable computer works so much better and gives access to so much more, or there are many excellent streaming devices like Sonos, Logitech’s Duet or Squeezebox, Apple TV, Airport Express or Roku Soundbridge. You can even use a DVD or CD player. For music lovers/collectors ADM9.1s are the perfect solution.

In these days of limited resources it's irresponsible of manufacturers to produce products that use multiple expensive metal enclosures to house everything, some with separate and larger add on power supplies, when there is absolutely no need for it in a properly designed system, especially when they cannot produce comparable sound quality to ADM9.1s that are a fraction of the cost.

The ADM9.1s come with 2 x 5 metre mains lead, one by 5 metre interconnecting cable and the handset, so all you need is a suitable Optical Cable and two Triple A batteries.


The ADM9.1s with an Apple MacMini. A full library of music from that tiny box

Technical Specifications

Power amplifiers - High speed, linear, analogue bipolar, 75 wpc for the tweeters and 250 wpc for the bass drivers. System distortion typically better than 0.002%. 
Crossovers - Active 4th order Linkwitz Riley.
Preamplifier - High quality state of the art analogue preamplifier with two digital and one analogue input. Control is remote and volume settings are remembered for each separate input.
Volume control resolution - 1/2 dB steps 100dB range
DAC - Up to 24/192 with optional coaxial input or 24/96 with preferred Optical S/PDIF. Sample Rate Conversion to remove jitter.
Bass driver - Very high power handling, long excursion 6.5" paper cone drive unit with 1.5" voice coil and exceptionally broad bandwidth to enable a phase perfect crossover at 3.4 kHz. Bass extension better than - 6dB @ 60Hz.
Tweeter - 1" Silk Dome tweeter with -3 dB point of 28 kHz.
System Amplitude response better than + or - 2 dB 100 Hz - 20 kHz.
Max continuous SPL (both driven 1 m 100 hr rating) 108dB with 8dB Threshold.


The back of the two speakers, and a close-up of the contacts on the left hand unit

 

The Subwoofer

In active speakers the power amps are connected directly to their drive units, so are a great deal better controlled (its a factor improvement of several hundred). By comparison, passive designs are poorly controlled and boom (often confused with bass by less experienced listeners) which makes using a sub difficult. However this is not the case with ADM9.1s whose specially designed Subwoofer seamlessly integrates with them.
Bass varies enormously from room to room, between recordings and some modern popular music is deliberately mixed harsh and bright to make it appear louder and more exciting, which means that some, but not all customers, (less than half in practice) may need a Sub, but probably won't know till they've had time to get used to ADMs at home.
Ours is an ultra high powered 10" model specially designed for the ADM9's alone. The voice coil is 3" diameter, maximum excursion is 2" and it's in a sealed box and driven by a linear, analogue bipolar amplifier that can produce up to 30 Amps and 200 Watts. The filter can be set to 20, 30, 40, 60, 80 or 100 Hz and gain adjusted to suit room acoustics. In practice it extends low frequency excursion to below 30Hz, increases the dynamic and plants the ADM9.1's firmly in big speaker territory. They work well without a Subwoofer but better with one designed especially for them.
It is important to understand that ADMs and the Sub have been designed as a system and best results will be achieved if they are used together. However rooms tend to add bass to speakers and you may have enough without it, but if you don't, you can easily resolve the situation. The ADMs are in effect a three way floor stander with the option of infinitely adjustable bass.

 

The ADM9.1 Handset

Our new dedicated handset that controls ADM9.1s and the forthcoming Neutron 5 2.1 system