This article will show you how to set up Adam T5V as height speakers using a bit of DIY! Scroll down to the bottom of the page for the images to accompany this blog post – there are a few of them! Here we go…

Background

Recently I upgraded my el-cheapo 7.1.4 spatial audio / Dolby Atmos setup to include my HEDD Type 07 monitors as LCR. I needed a cost effective, powered solution for the sides, rears and height speakers. An obvious place to look was Adam, knowing that their ribbon HF driver is very similar to the HEDD (designed by the same person!)

I spent some time looking around at some second hand Adam A7s and A3X (the latter has a bracket option so would have worked well for the ceiling speakers) but I couldn’t find anything for the right price and in good enough condition. Turns out my idea of ‘good condition’ gear is not necessarily the same as everyone else on Ebay!

I looked at the Adam T series and I was impressed with the price / performance ratio. I took a punt and ordered four T7V and four T5V from the lovely people at Scan computers in the UK, thinking I could return them if I really wasn’t happy. When the speakers arrived, I took some measurements and was incredibly surprised at how consistent the three speakers were. With a couple of bands of EQ I would be able to match the tonality quite closely – winner! Check out my Patreon post about this HERE.

Warranty

I emailed Adam at this stage and got their approval – as long as I didn’t damage the electronics or driver, I could modify the cabinet without invalidating my warranty – another win! I must say at this point, if you are doing this based on this blog post, I accept no responsibility for your errors / breaking your speakers! You need to take care, make sure you give yourself plenty of time to do this!

Hardware

So once I’d decided to go for it, I needed to find some hardware. I found some speaker brackets capable of taking 5kg (roughly the weight of a T5V) from CPC in the UK. I didn’t know if they were going to be very good as they didn’t cost much but when they turned up I was really happy with the quality. Check them out HERE.

I prepared myself by picking up some M10 security bolts, eyebolts, and T nuts, as shown in image 3 below, then marked up the cabinet. I decided to put the bracket at the back of the speaker, so that when the speakers were angled down (approx 45 degrees) there was little to no stress on the bracket. 4cm from the back and 5.6cm from each side was correct for these brackets. I also marked the position for the safety eye bolt – 15cm from the front and 8.9cm from the edge.

Fixing on the top makes sense as all the electronics are lower down in the cabinet, fixed to the rear panel. I think you could mount your bracket there and rig them upside down, but you’d probably need to move the bracket a bit further forward and take care with the length of bolts you used for the bracket.

Construction

Before drilling I opened the speaker up and carefully put the electronics to one side, pulled the foam away from the top of the inside of the cabinet. I clamped some spare MDF inside to prevent the wood from splitting. After drilling the first pilot hole I realised the cabinet is actually composite like MDF anyway so unlikely to blowout. Then hoovered all the dust and bits out of the cabinet.

Next I fixed the T nuts inside the cabinet, screwing a bolt and washer through to pull them tight inside the cabinet. The hardware was attached as shown in the pics, and repeated times four.

I fixed some long boards to the ceiling of my (rented) studio space to mount the brackets and some acoustic treatment to. The acoustic panels you can see in the pictures are made using the Sound On Sound 15 minute panel guide.

Result

The end result was really great, they work exceptionally well, a massive improvement on my old setup for not a lot of money. The combination of the HEDD Type 07 mk1 with the T7V and T5V is great. Ultimately it’s so cool to have a high quality Atmos setup! I’m loving exploring the content on Tidal via my Apple TV 4K and Denon AVR. A definite result 😀

Any questions about this please contact me via the contact page on the site. Please consider supporting me on Patreon to fund my experiments like this one 😀