Juilliard SchoolListens "Beyond The Music" With ADAM Audio

Berlin, September 8, 2010

The prestigious Juilliard School recently underwent a significant renovation as part of major upgrade in New York’s Lincoln Center and the Recording Department also benefited from the changes.

As Bob Taibbi, Director of the Recording Department who’s been at Juilliard for 38 years explains, “In addition to a new orchestra rehearsal room and main control room, they also built a whole new suite of audio and video edit rooms because we needed more space.”

ADAM Audio monitors are an integral component of Taibbi’s department, with ADAM P11As in the main control room and A7s in each of the edit rooms. Asked why he chose ADAM, Bob recalls his first encounter with the monitors at an AES show: “I was interested in their ribbon concept and they sounded great at the show, but you can’t judge anything based on that. So I auditioned a pair because I’d been using other monitors which were good but I hadn’t found what I needed in Nearfield monitors.

“When I A/B’ed the ADAMs with the other monitors,” Bob continues, “I was immediately able to hear what I’d been missing in terms of crispness and clarity that’s in the sound yet still get the overall view of someone who’s listening to the program material in their living room.

“The ADAM monitors gave me a crisp, clear sound and the background that I wanted. When you record classical music, there’s a lot going on in terms of nuance and room sound and the timbre of the instruments, all of which is critical to the final sound. I always listen ‘beyond the music,’ to what’s behind the music.”

Going into more detail, Taibbi adds, “And I when I played the ADAM speakers, because they’re so accurate, I’d start to hear things I hadn’t noticed before, some of which weren’t always that great sounding (laughs). They’re very uncompromising and if there are problems with the mix or the recording, they will be revealed by the ADAMs. Which allowed me to correct certain things I never realized were there when I was tracking. They’re unforgiving to a degree about certain elements, but that’s what you want. You don’t want to color it. When you want to get critical, you need critical speakers.”