ADAM HD200 Headphones

Adam Audio known for their well regarded range of studio monitors are not exactly a newcomer when it comes to headphones, with the SP-5’s having been around for a while now but the HD200 models will aim to bring the Adam Audio house sound at a far keener price point.

Designed as a low impedance solution to allow for effortless handling whether they be plugged into a PC, Amp or mobile phone these closed back headphone do feature a ported design which aims to allow for a smoother and more manageable bass extension.

Shipping with a 3m straight cable, adaptor jack and soft carry case the essentials are included with the option to also pick up a 1.2m straight cable or 1.5m (2m stretched) spiral cable as possible upgrades. Sound reproduction is via a set of factory matched 40mm drivers with tuning aiming to match the premium S3V speakers in tonality, with this all arriving in a headphone design weighing in at 250g.

The speaker pads are memory foam and user replaceable, with both leatherette and soft material options available. This brings us nicely on to the included headphone application as we find that it features it’s own headphone utility application, for optimizing the HD200’s in when recording and mixing with the plugin hosted within your DAW package.

Depending on the material used, the frequency response can alter slightly, so the first stage in the application allows you to choose between the leatherette and soft cloth options and it will include a EQ adjustment to flatten out the response that you can hear. The second part of this processing is the gain adjustment selector which is switchable between 3 different modes.

The off setting is not a true by-pass, rather it disables the gain but leaves the EQ curve adjustment for the pads in place. The equal loudness setting, looks to match the input and output stage and counter any inherent perceived loudness changes that can come from applying a EQ adjustment. Lastly safe mode looks to also achieve same end result as the equal loudness mode, but does so through only using negative EQ values which aims to limit the potential for clipping audio if the signal is being driven hard into the speakers.

Also found in the plugins feature set is a externalisation or cross feed setting, allowing you partially cross feed the signal and give a more natural loudspeaker style listening experience. A feature often implemented via third party software tools like can opener, having this tuned for the HD200’s specifically should prove helpful for moving between the speakers and headphones when mixing whilst still maintaining a more natural soundstage.

The final voicing option allows you switch between two voicing profiles, with the “Pure” setting looking to emulate the “Pure” flat response setting found on the S3V when located in a natural sounding environment. The UNR setting in contrast offers a slightly more relaxed sound, more sonically in tune with the popular A and AX series of ADAM studio speakers which plenty of producers working today will have come across and worked on before.

Ultimately, whilst there’s a lot of competition at this level, the extra functionality through signal processing could tick a few boxes you may not find anywhere else in this sort of all in one package and certainly not at this price point. This alone could make it an essential audition next time you go headphone shopping.