ADV M5 12D
The Thousand Dollar Shimmer($1,299.99)
This happens to be my first entry for the Top-of-the-line Tier In-Ear Monitors, I got the opportunity of trying out ADV products thanks to PH Review Circle. I am not reviewing under any form of directives, incentives nor any honorariums thus you can expect my utmost honesty in all of my reviews.
Welcome again to my reviews and this time we be talkin about ADV M5 12D. I'm freshly coming out from a quick hiatus from reviews and have prepared my ears for some critical listening.
As per ADV, M5 12D is their Neutral entry in their M-series. Offering 12 Balance Armatures on each side with an Active Crossover technology for near perfect harmony(I said it). 1 of the most uncolored IEMs that really wants to show transparency and perfect notes from the artists' masterpiece.
Is it worth investing $1,299.99 for an IEM? Yes and No for me. I will tell you more about it in random order cause my train of thought isn't working quite well right now. It's caused by this TOTL IEM in my ears now..
To start with, I remember inquiring about the M5 12D last year because of its appearance but got disappointed for its value, like you saw something in the mall and realized your wallet will never be prepared for it unless you're playing with stocks and futures. So much about that, 4 ADV best selling models were sent to me all with no boxes to unbox but came with their respective inclusion from water tight cases, tips, brush cleaners and clothes.
SPECIFICATION
Driver unit 12 BA with active crossover
Impedance 9ohm+/-15%
Sensitivity 109dB+/-3dB at 1kHz
Frequency response Ultra Wideband 10Hz – 40kHz
THD <0.2% at 1kHz
Input power 5mW
Cable composition Silver-plated copper
Cable length (SPC) 1.5M
IEM connector 2-pin (0.78mm)
Plug 3.5mm gold plated
WHAT'S INCLUDED
1 pair of M5-12D IEM
1 2-pin silver-plated copper quad-braided cable
3 pairs of black foam tips
3 pairs of black single-flange silicone tips
3 pairs of black dual-flange silicone tips
1 CNC-machined aluminum carrying case
1 leather cable tie
1 microfiber cleaning cloth
1 cleaning brush
PROS:
design
Freebies
Clean Neutral Tonality
Natural timbre
Good bass
Good mids
Great treble extensions
CONS:
Drum placing
Potentially Scratch Magnet requires a thousand dollar caring
Mid bass bloat on some badly recorded new metal tracks
Pricing
Not quite an all rounder
The IEM shells use recessed .78pins 2 pins which I love the most btw. Shells are made with high end 3D printed shells. One that would make you rethink how IEMs should be built, solid, smooth and weighty. It has this rigidity that you would get from a real gem. Meticulously handcrafted with high class taste. It's like witnessing a McLaren F1 showroom unveiling their newest engine type of feeling, like you can actually see how neat the cables inside are laid out despite its small size. Like engine valves. The shells are extravagantly huge but doesn't bother but could be decreased for more comfort. Furthermore I am truly satisfied with its obsession to please the eyes.
It has long semi aggressively angled nozzles which penetrate well and sits deep for more sealing and details. The model and serial # are actually embedded on each pair. No L and R markings but has this cool writing wrapped around the nozzles that says Designed for Musicians, one cool way to tell the disclaimer haha. Cause it is mainly for musicians and not for those wanna be ones. Some parts of the whole experience does not suggest it for easy listening where you'll find yourself being lectured by everything around you almost like watching motivational videos to keep positively high for 6hours but at some point you would feel being nagged on or just left baffled with all the questions you formulate in your head.
SPC Cables are pretty much bad.. It can be better. Feels a few steps classier than the typical chifi stock cable that has the ultimate similarity in requiring mental fitness in untangling them every single freaking time you need to use them. Seriously, I have seen mid tier IEMs where you can see the value even from the cables only.
Freebies compensate for how bad the cables can be. Fresh bright colored water tight cases.. And some premium tips like Sedna Xelastic clear tacky tips that I find bad since day 1, you can see my review on that from an old post, it just lacks sealing and makes harsh and congested quality. Despite that I am pleased with their intentions to please the upper level audiophiles spot on for the iem cleaners and cloth too which are important in taking care of your iem and to prolong its life.
Moving on to the real deal about how it sounds.
Bass has the weight and punchiness of a finely tuned Dynamic driver. Its neutral tonality comprises clean and fast attacks with quite an excellent texture, considering it's built with purely BAs. Bass is properly tamed to release heavy rumbles when required but doesn't go overboard bassy. It almost sound like real DDs and I guess that's where most your money will go for making BAs sound like DDs, that's enough to brag about.
Mids on the other hand sounded great at first or so in male vocals. But for vocals that hit the upper mids, that's where all the questions start popping up. That's where you notice a little bit of ghosting where you can tell some BAs aren't harmoniously blending with each other. After all 12BAs are notoriously hard to tune, more drivers, more chances to miss. But it's not my biggest caveat yet. Still mids are totally enjoyable, big, lean and clean despite my observations. Acoustics will make you feel you're inside the chambers.
Trebles are its main selling point. For me it has the best treble extension so far. It can be bright at times but never harsh. Strings, wind and cymbals are true to the tone making it feels like you're in the actual record. It really makes everything for this IEM really. It makes your listening experience with M5 12D really soulful in every note the treble hits, it hits it in the right spot! Perfect micro detail performance.
Imaging can be better. Prolly my 2nd most concerning caveat on this IEM next to its stock cable. Imaging is finely laid out evenly but the drums… cymbals extend behind the ears but floor toms, snares and kicks and mid and high toms seem compressed in the middle for some cosmic reason. To compare with, I can tell Toneking T4 and CVJ CSN wins that part of the segment giving off truly holographic feeling. Speaking of which it also has the Sonion signature of having subtle and smooth transitions from 1 channel to another. It can be good or bad depending on the listener's preference.
Soundstage. It is noticeably 1 of the biggest I've heard. It creates this illusion of making things easy to conceptualize a music video. It helps you lay out images in your head for story telling. The images consist of well separated layers of big sounds, this mostly leaves me in awe but sometimes I find it awkward for some genres like new metal where things remain big and get on top of each other creating bloats and congestion.. Nevertheless, the soundstage is truly what this IEM is trying to sell.
Bass
![Star :star: ⭐](https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/2b50.png)
![Star :star: ⭐](https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/2b50.png)
![Star :star: ⭐](https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/2b50.png)
![Star :star: ⭐](https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/2b50.png)
Mids
![Star :star: ⭐](https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/2b50.png)
![Star :star: ⭐](https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/2b50.png)
![Star :star: ⭐](https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/2b50.png)
![Star :star: ⭐](https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/2b50.png)
★
Trebles
![Star :star: ⭐](https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/2b50.png)
![Star :star: ⭐](https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/2b50.png)
![Star :star: ⭐](https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/2b50.png)
![Star :star: ⭐](https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/2b50.png)
Imaging
![Star :star: ⭐](https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/2b50.png)
![Star :star: ⭐](https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/2b50.png)
![Star :star: ⭐](https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/2b50.png)
★★
Layering
![Star :star: ⭐](https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/2b50.png)
![Star :star: ⭐](https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/2b50.png)
![Star :star: ⭐](https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/2b50.png)
![Star :star: ⭐](https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/2b50.png)
★
Microdetails
![Star :star: ⭐](https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/2b50.png)
![Star :star: ⭐](https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/2b50.png)
![Star :star: ⭐](https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/2b50.png)
![Star :star: ⭐](https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/2b50.png)
Soundstage
![Star :star: ⭐](https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/2b50.png)
![Star :star: ⭐](https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/2b50.png)
![Star :star: ⭐](https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/2b50.png)
![Star :star: ⭐](https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/2b50.png)
Spatial Panning
![Star :star: ⭐](https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/2b50.png)
![Star :star: ⭐](https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/2b50.png)
![Star :star: ⭐](https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/2b50.png)
★★
Timbre
![Star :star: ⭐](https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/2b50.png)
![Star :star: ⭐](https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/2b50.png)
![Star :star: ⭐](https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/2b50.png)
![Star :star: ⭐](https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/2b50.png)
★
Tonality
![Star :star: ⭐](https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/2b50.png)
![Star :star: ⭐](https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/2b50.png)
![Star :star: ⭐](https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/2b50.png)
![Star :star: ⭐](https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/2b50.png)
★
Affordability
![Star :star: ⭐](https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/2b50.png)
![Star :star: ⭐](https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/2b50.png)
![Star :star: ⭐](https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/2b50.png)
★★
Overall rating
![Star :star: ⭐](https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/2b50.png)
![Star :star: ⭐](https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/2b50.png)
![Star :star: ⭐](https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/2b50.png)
![Star :star: ⭐](https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/2b50.png)
★
Additional Comparisons: based on similar set up, price range and tuning
ADV M5 6D - 4BA + 2 EST. In low impedance mode there's not much of a competition but in High Impedance mode on my V50, M5 6D won in every segment. It just scales way better. Best texture in micro details. Better and snappier spatial pannings. Better treble extension and leaner and airier mids. More accurate drum placing than 12D. For USD 300 less, I'd go for this instead.
Toneking T4. Both all BA set up. Sells at 200usd. M5 12D makes everything big and overwhelming compared to T4 which makes sounds more like needles that are well spaced from each other but penetrates quite well in laying out the imaging compared to M5 12D.
T4 has its metallic timbre vs a DD quite like experience from M5 12D.
BQEYZ Spring 2 - similar sensitivity and both are clinical in all aspects of being neutral. Spring 2 has better technicality for me which I will still recommend for hard core sound engineers. I would recommend this over 12D and have a thousand dollar more to invest on other sound engineer gear instead.
CVJ CSN - at a fraction of what M5 12D is currently sold at, CSN stands tall with its 1dd 5ba set up that has quite the similar characteristics but of course not at par. CSN excelled on drum placing for 1 and has more visual spatial pannings. M5 12D sounds so much more realistic tho.
Tested on LG V50 Quad Dac, UAPP with some local DSDs and Flacs and Tidal Masters on iFi Zen Dac
Final say:
First of course thanks ADV for letting us test their products. Marlowe you're the man! Well this Top of the line IEM will truly leave a mark in my preference once I send it back to ADV. It holds the best treble performance for me. It gets really clinical at some point making it feels so natural but not in the extent of coloring the sounds. Also the bass performance from an All BA set up truly sets the standards on any IEM I will be trying out.
This is truly easy to drive but scales even better with more power where the noise floor remains low while making the details pop even more.
Also, I noticed that the black tips are somehow taming the mids in an unusual way so I would highly recommend wide bored tips like those cheapo bgvp w01 to retain as much details as possible. Replacing the cable with any upgrade cable would be required too, not to alter the sound but to avoid ruining your listening experience even before plugging it in your ears. I really hate the untangling part.
So for $1300 is it a yes? Yes only if you're the type of that well off to prove that BAs should sound this way. But No in most practical situations like not putting your eggs in 1 basket. I would invest on Spring 2 for clinical listening and buy a Tforce YL for musicality then invest the rest on more professional gear for audio mixing. It sounds very analogue on my LG V50 and that's truly something anyone would enjoy.
Thank you again PH Review Circle!
These are all my honest opinions and I only hope that my audience may find my reviews credible and somehow inf
Watch my video reviews on YT
https://youtube.com/channel/UCnAYLTwl8G-8Sc4INfeZe1Q
#berrywhitegamingandreviews