I personally own the Yamaha HS7’s along with the HS8S (not jacked up, just present for that low low end) and they’re wonderful! Clear and crisp, and are enjoyable to listen to for hours on end. I highly recommend them!
That being said, the size of any speakers woofer is dependent on the size of the room and environment it is placed in. For instance using a pair of HS8’s in a small space is going to sound muddy, boomy and not really enjoyable. On the flip side, using a pair of HS5’s in a large space isn’t going to provide the bass response required. However — a very popular option is to use the HS5’s and the HS8S together. This sounds great!
The Adams are in a different class and a step up from the Yamahas. They sounded very crisp and clear to me when I demoed them at the store in their listening room using my music. They were a little above my budget at the time, and so I never brought them home to test. That being said, I do plan on upgrading my speakers at some point
Will be checking the Adams out then, along with some others.
I did bring home Yamaha HS5, HS7, HS8, and the HS8S home (all at the same time), set everything up, connected everything to my mixing board and went on about testing/ listening, changing the outputs to listen to the differences in the different sized speakers. I have a fairly large room that I’m using for my studio, about 19’ x 14’. The HS8’s simply sounded muddy and boomy, they were crisp too, but when listening to a full band, they got boomy and muddy. Would be fun for listening to if you really like bass, but I wanted honesty and clarity. Notice I said fun. Not so sure about enjoyable for a long time though. Or about how honest a signal I’m hearing from them in my room. (Also the reason I chose my Nord Stage 4 over the other choices available in that price range). The HS5’s sounded anemic by themselves, but when coupled with the sub, sounded very, very good. The HS7’s were just in the sweet spot - for my room. Especially when paired with the sub (the sub again, is just present, not turned all the wayyyy up - I want honesty, not coloring).
It’s super important to remember that each speaker is going to sound different depending on the space it’s put into. You may want to bring some different pairs of speakers home to test before committing to one. This will give you the ability to A/B them in your own setting, as opposed to the acoustics at the store. Our brains do not retain that type of audio information for a long period at all. It’s about five seconds. So the ability to A/B them quickly, and without interruption, to hear the differences is important so your brain can actually make a decision.
The HS7 is using a 6.5” woofer. The HS5 and the HS8 use 5” and 8” woofers respectively. The HS5, HS7, and HS8 all have the same tweeter.