The Lowdown
The Adam Audio H200 are a solid headphone from the company. Designed for producers (for whom they’re a good choice if a closed back headphone is required), they’re also great for DJs who want a basic well-built headphone that sounds excellent for the price. The supplied (very long) straight cable is definitely going to get under your feet when DJing, but luckily the company has other cable options available.
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Video Review
First Impressions / Setting up
These are a somewhat traditional, well-built headphone with a thick padded headband. There’s attractive yellow and black wiring between the headband and each of the closed-back earcups, which are themselves connected to the headband with horseshoe-shaped, adjustable metal clamps. The earpads are thick memory foam with yellow L and R lettering inside to indicate the left and right headphone.
There is a subtle Adam Audio name across the top of the headband, and a white embossed logo on each earcup, with the model written on each of the metal pivots.
An interesting feature is sockets positioned on both earcups for the eighth-inch cable minijack, so you can choose which side you want that attached on.
Worth mentioning that they come with a double-lined soft bag which is better than most bags provided with similar headphones that generally feel like an afterthought – not so in this case.
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There’s a small grille on the back of each earcup (near the top) – Adam Audio says this is porting technology designed to improve the performance of the headphones. We’ll get onto that later.
For now though, I tested these on DJ equipment, both professional and USB-powered, on a Hifiman DAC attached to my home computer, and also plugging them directly into our studio Mac, playing a range of music and beatmixing too. What follows are my impressions and how I felt they were suited for DJing primarily, but also with some thoughts on production.
In Use
Overall, these are a comfortable fit. They’re snug with good acoustic isolation. The earcups pivot up and down and very slightly forward and back, but they don’t fold up into the headband and they don’t pivot out the way of your ears like some DJ headphones do.
Personally, I found them very comfortable for DJing. For wearing for extended periods, they do get a bit sweaty and they do clamp quite hard onto your head, so some might find that gets uncomfortable after a while.
Sound quality
For a £140 headphone, I was very impressed with the sound quality. The bass in particular has a real thump and I suspect that might be due to the porting technology that I mentioned earlier – although as I’m no audio engineer, I’m not sure.
You don’t feel the thump in your tummy, but that’s kind of how it feels in your ears. I was very impressed with it, as it made for a very engaging, immersive, and intimate listen. The highs were very clear, which will be good for beatmixing, and the mids equally had a real presence about them.
It was very easy to get lost in the next song when DJing by putting these headphones fully on and listening properly to it, which I value in DJ headphones. So if you too like to have a good listen to what you’re thinking of playing next to see if it suits, you’re going to find this appealing.
They’re also loud! The tech spec says 32 ohms, and that translates to being fine to use with everything from smartphones (if you still have a headphone socket on yours, good luck with that) to cheap DJ controllers, all the way up to professional gear.
Finally, worth mentioning that there is a DAW plug-in headphone utility that Adam Audio is providing with these headphones that allows you to do some clever stuff, but we didn’t try that.
Conclusion
These are solid headphones. They’re well built, they’re sensitive, they’ve got good acoustic isolation, and overall, great sound.
I think the choice of a left or right socket for the lead is smart, and ultimately, if you don’t need pivoting headphones for DJing, I think they’re really good for that use.
If you’re looking for closed headphones for production, equally the sound quality is good enough for them to work in that environment, although I do think they might get a bit tight, as I mentioned.
The only real criticism I’ve got from a DJing point of view is that the lead that’s provided, while high enough quality, is really long! Having a three-metre straight lead in the DJ booth is asking for trouble, as it’s going to get under your feet and so on. I can see why they’ve done it for DJ/producers who might value a long lead for moving around studios, but we’d like to have seen a coiled lead provided in the box as well. Luckily, Adam Audio let us know they have other accessories available (a short straight cable (1.2m), a spiral cable (1.5-3m), and cloth earpads).
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Overall, there’s really very little to complain about. They’re an attractive headphone, they sound good, they feel durable, and it’s been a joy to review them. I think I’m going to enjoy taking them out to my next gig to further put them through their paces.
