ATC speakers / Monitors

[goat76]

ATC are no more ‘dynamic’ than any other well designed loudspeaker, they have simply taken the decision not to innovate, perhaps now that the founder is dead they will be allowed to create a contemporary design.
Keith

Yes, they are more dynamic, even by a good margin to most other speakers.

 

[DSJR]

ATC are no more ‘dynamic’ than any other well designed loudspeaker, they have simply taken the decision not to innovate, perhaps now that the founder is dead they will be allowed to create a contemporary design.
Keith

Keith - I take it you spoke at length to Billy himself before he passed to make that assumption?

I have a very good idea of old what Billy was like and this was gleaned from many chats over a few years. i think the innovation to survive was done wuite well in the 7, 11 and 19v2 models and thenew tweeter is very good indeed. is that not innovation in a way? The active amp packs are quiet, reliable and serviceable (lets see how the class D amp packs in other cheaper actives fare over twenty years?) and were designed specifically for th ejob they have to do.

Regarding dynamics - ever heard the 200 or 300's? The original laterally disposed bass driver models were available in veneered finishes, weren't always ludicrously expensive and I still remember how the 200A in a smallish drawing room environment (Ashley's old house) totally blew me into the wall a few feet behind me. OF COURSE there are other large monitors by 'our' favourite makers, but it's going to be damned well impossible to hear them unless a friendly studio with some lets you in... The 200A's did 'Ozric Tentacles - The Throbbe' like no other speaker before or since Oh the memories..... I don't *think* this contributed to my hearing issues today, but who knows...

 

[YSC]

I think there are many compromises going into designing a speaker, and I think ATC is doing some sacrifices for the overall performance they aim for. As I said, in my opinion they are better than most other speakers when it comes to the dynamic capabilities, and I hope they never sacrifice that for absolute linearity or something else that I see as less important.

The JBLs I’ve heard are also pretty good at reproducing the dynamics, but I’m not sure I like horn-loaded speakers so that’s the compromise I don't like.

And just to be clear, I have not heard all speakers in the world and there may be other speakers that are even better than ATC and JBL when it comes to dynamics.

For this I think we have no disagreement, I always said they are good, but isn't ahead of all competitors in these regards and they just lack behind in some areas where more and more vendors get catching up like directivity. I don't think anyone here would hope them sacrifice the distortion/dynamics for absolute linearity, but then, those achieving those apparently didn't sacrifice them for say, on axis linearity or distortion, e.g. the recently hotly debated with QC issue of March Audio, their passive (I really can't remember the spelling of that Sutinova or something) have good extension, good directivity, great absolute linearity and the purifi driver have ppl praise about the dynamics also, it's not a either A or B situation nowadays, but "why not both" IMO

 

[Purité Audio]

Yes, they are more dynamic, even by a good margin to most other speakers.

Perhaps you just haven’t heard anything better?
Keith

 

[Purité Audio]

Keith - I take it you spoke at length to Billy himself before he passed to make that assumption?

I have a very good idea of old what Billy was like and this was gleaned from many chats over a few years. i think the innovation to survive was done wuite well in the 7, 11 and 19v2 models and thenew tweeter is very good indeed. is that not innovation in a way? The active amp packs are quiet, reliable and serviceable (lets see how the class D amp packs in other cheaper actives fare over twenty years?) and were designed specifically for th ejob they have to do.

Regarding dynamics - ever heard the 200 or 300's? The original laterally disposed bass driver models were available in veneered finishes, weren't always ludicrously expensive and I still remember how the 200A in a smallish drawing room environment (Ashley's old house) totally blew me into the wall a few feet behind me. OF COURSE there are other large monitors by 'our' favourite makers, but it's going to be damned well impossible to hear them unless a friendly studio with some lets you in... The 200A's did 'Ozric Tentacles - The Throbbe' like no other speaker before or since Oh the memories..... I don't *think* this contributed to my hearing issues today, but who knows...

Yes heard both the 200 and 300, I thought you have written many times that Billy was adamantly against change?
Keith

 

[Blockader]

Yes, you could say that.

But I think you are using the measurements the wrong way. It seems like you are looking at the measurements and then ruling out some speakers and other products, just based on the visualization of the measurement protocols without doing the follow-up listening test to determine if the measured imperfections really can be heard in real life.

I don't think ATC will ever be a company who are chasing the numbers for the sake of it, they seem to be more concerned about a good transient response, low distortion, and a generally higher dynamic capability than most other speakers. You know, things that have a real impact on the musical reproduction performance for people actually interested in listening to music.


P.S. There's nothing wrong with being interested in HiFi without an actual interest in music, there are many people who are highly interested in cars without being particularly interested in actually driving them.

This 'transient response' you talk about is something that is linked to frequency response, speakers with perfectly flat frequency response and flat group delay have ideal transient response. It's not a mysterious immeasurable performance metric. In fact, Neumann KH 310 which is relatively very cheap to SCM25 has one of the best *transient response* in the market right now:

Any non ported design with flat frequency response and low order crossover filters have great *transient response*. It is no mystery. However, our hearing is not evolved around hearing phase shifts, according to genelec's research even phase shifts from 8th order crossover filters are not audible. Higher order crossover filters allows transition from woofers to HF units be smoother hence allowing a better directivity and improving *timbre* of reflections while introducing delays to the system and harming the *transient response*. As I said before, human hearing is not as sensitive as people like to believe to phase shifts. A very wise man once said, ''we do not have hear waveforms.'' and this is why:

T
This is the result of the Genelec's research. You can read more about it here: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9450008
Compare the 'threshold(ms)' to the group delay per frequency numbers of KH 310. You'll see KH 310 has *faster* transient response than humans can discern. Needless to say KH 310 has better transient response than any ATC's in the market too. ATC speakers have high order crossovers and on top of that they have uneven frequency response. You may be asking what the hell has frequency has something to do with transient response?! The answer is, because sound transducers are min phase devices, every dip & peak you see in the frequency response denote a phase shift too. Flatter frequency response = better transient response.

Let's talk about distortion, in 90's Klein & Hummel(former company where Neumann lead engineers were working) utilized ATC middome in their flagship model O 500. Neumann improved the design since then and now the middome in KH 420 and KH 310 has lower distortion and smoother response than that *legendary* ATC middome. Neumann's Middome is capable of reaching 120db peak in mids. ATC speakers have poor distortion performance in comparison to Genelec & Neumann speakers nowadays. Feel free to compare distortion of Neumann and ATC speakers in same size.

Dynamics? You mean lack of compression? If you mean ATC drivers have very high max SPL. You are clearly wrong.

What about compression? Compression tests show the output loss of speakers with instantenous peaks or when drivers are stressed for a long time:

There is a 0.2db loss when the speaker peaks from 76db to 102db almost instantenously. This performance is as close as it gets to textbook perfect. I won't comment on ATC's compression performance, because I haven't seen any compression measurements of any ATC speakers, however I'm pretty sure that ATC's have very poor *dynamics* too. All in all, *dynamics* and *compression* is something that can be measured too.

Basically ATC's were groundbreaking speakers in 80's. Since then they are refusing to innovate and some audiophiles just like to shill what they have because ATCs are extremely overpriced and they have a good name in the industry. However, they just make outdated, overpriced speakers with average performance.

 

[DSJR]

Yes heard both the 200 and 300, I thought you have written many times that Billy was adamantly against change?
Keith

He knew what he knew - and what he knew was ahead of the game to start with back in the 80's. The new youthful designer may have had some input though but is obviously happy to work with what he has.

My hope, without talking in circles all the time here, is that the products will continue to evolve as I still feel they're pretty darned good exactly as they are, so any DSP in the future and so on will be guilding the lilly, rather than helping them to work at all, if you see what I mean.

Plenty of fish in the loudspeaker ocean at various prices, hopefully to please all of us.

 

[goat76]

This 'transient response' you talk about is something that is linked to frequency response, speakers with perfectly flat frequency response and flat group delay have ideal transient response. It's not a mysterious immeasurable performance metric. In fact, Neumann KH 310 which is relatively very cheap to SCM25 has one of the best *transient response* in the market right now:

Any non ported design with flat frequency response and low order crossover filters have great *transient response*. It is no mystery. However, our hearing is not evolved around hearing phase shifts, according to genelec's research even phase shifts from 8th order crossover filters are not audible. Higher order crossover filters allows transition from woofers to HF units be smoother hence allowing a better directivity and improving *timbre* of reflections while introducing delays to the system and harming the *transient response*. As I said before, human hearing is not as sensitive as people like to believe to phase shifts. A very wise man once said, ''we do not have hear waveforms.'' and this is why:

T
This is the result of the Genelec's research. You can read more about it here: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9450008
Compare the 'threshold(ms)' to the group delay per frequency numbers of KH 310. You'll see KH 310 has *faster* transient response than humans can discern. Needless to say KH 310 has better transient response than any ATC's in the market too. ATC speakers have high order crossovers and on top of that they have uneven frequency response. You may be asking what the hell has frequency has something to do with transient response?! The answer is, because sound transducers are min phase devices, every dip & peak you see in the frequency response denote a phase shift too. Flatter frequency response = better transient response.

Let's talk about distortion, in 90's Klein & Hummel(former company where Neumann lead engineers were working) utilized ATC middome in their flagship model O 500. Neumann improved the design since then and now the middome in KH 420 and KH 310 has lower distortion and smoother response than that *legendary* ATC middome. Neumann's Middome is capable of reaching 120db peak in mids. ATC speakers have poor distortion performance in comparison to Genelec & Neumann speakers nowadays. Feel free to compare distortion of Neumann and ATC speakers in same size.

Dynamics? You mean lack of compression? If you mean ATC drivers have very high max SPL. You are clearly wrong.

What about compression? Compression tests show the output loss of speakers with instantenous peaks or when drivers are stressed for a long time:

There is a 0.2db loss when the speaker peaks from 76db to 102db almost instantenously. This performance is as close as it gets to textbook perfect. I won't comment on ATC's compression performance, because I haven't seen any compression measurements of any ATC speakers, however I'm pretty sure that ATC's have very poor *dynamics* too. All in all, *dynamics* and *compression* is something that can be measured too.

Basically ATC's were groundbreaking speakers in 80's. Since then they are refusing to innovate and some audiophiles just like to shill what they have because ATCs are extremely overpriced and they have a good name in the industry. However, they just make outdated, overpriced speakers with average performance.

By dynamics I mean the speaker's ability to follow the music signal swings that go from almost nothing to full throttle with an almost brutal "power kick" to the stomach. Take for example IV. Infernal Dance of King Katchei - Stravinsky: The Firebird Suite with Robert Shaw, there are not that many HiFi speakers I've heard that can handle those musical swings as convincing as the ATCs, it's almost scary.

I would find it interesting to hear the ATC SCM25 and the Neumann KH 420 side by side and compare how they sound in real-life use, it's possible the Neumanns can do it too, if so, I salute them!

 

[dfuller]

By dynamics I mean the speaker's ability to follow the music signal swings that go from almost nothing to full throttle with an almost brutal "power kick" to the stomach. Take for example IV. Infernal Dance of King Katchei - Stravinsky: The Firebird Suite with Robert Shaw, there are not that many HiFi speakers I've heard that can handle those musical swings as convincing as the ATCs, it's almost scary.

I would find it interesting to hear the ATC SCM25 and the Neumann KH 420 side by side and compare how they sound in real-life use, it's possible the Neumanns can do it too, if so, I salute them!

The 310s are as good as the 25s on this front, if not slightly better. I can't understate how good the KH310s are. That said - I think if we include subs, I ever so slightly prefer the SCM25s. The mids are a bit more even handed - the dispersion across the midrange is very even, better than the KH310s on that front because of the lack of that one-toothed comb filter around 1k, plus the midrange driver is covering more of the lower midrange which makes a difference in IMD (the woofer by far has the most excursion - the less midrange info on it, the better).

 

[YSDR]

By dynamics I mean the speaker's ability to follow the music signal swings that go from almost nothing to full throttle with an almost brutal "power kick" to the stomach. Take for example IV. Infernal Dance of King Katchei - Stravinsky: The Firebird Suite with Robert Shaw, there are not that many HiFi speakers I've heard that can handle those musical swings as convincing as the ATCs, it's almost scary.

I'm sure the previously mentioned JBL M2, for example, would easily do it.

 

[Tovarich007]

By dynamics I mean the speaker's ability to follow the music signal swings that go from almost nothing to full throttle with an almost brutal "power kick" to the stomach. Take for example IV. Infernal Dance of King Katchei - Stravinsky: The Firebird Suite with Robert Shaw, there are not that many HiFi speakers I've heard that can handle those musical swings as convincing as the ATCs, it's almost scary.

I would find it interesting to hear the ATC SCM25 and the Neumann KH 420 side by side and compare how they sound in real-life use, it's possible the Neumanns can do it too, if so, I salute them!

Of course the Neumann KH420 can do that too !

You'd better compare the KH420 with the ATC SCM50 than the smaller 25 in that regard. Not only the Neumann is as dynamic as the ATC 50, but it has a deeper bass response and is more linear. And it's the same for Genelec like the 1237 and the 8361 and also the PSI A25M.

I was a big fan of ATC (I always consider them as very good speakers indeed), but since I've listened to big Genelec and PSI I'm not such an ATC's big fan anymore.
ATC has beeen at least equalled if not bettered for sheer sound quality and performances, but they are indeed overpriced compared to their competitors, who aren't cheap too anyway. And very good hifi passive speakers like Revel, JMR, Récital audio (two excellent little french brands) can give them a run for the money too.

That's a matter of facts. Compare the measurements and listen and you'll see and hear.

 

[Pearljam5000]

Which Genelecs are comparable to SCM50 and SCM100?
SQ and SPL wise etc

 

[Tovarich007]

GENELEC 1237 AND 1238 and the 8361

 

[Northward]

Northward came to speak on this forum and only unpacked banalities.

Thank you, you're welcome. Banalities and yet it was impossible to have a simple conversation.

 

[dfuller]

The golden ear remark wasn't meant for you

I don't care that it wasn't meant for me. You've been insufferably rude about this for half this thread.

 

[Frgirard]

Thank you, you're welcome. Banalities and yet it was impossible to have a simple conversation.

Have proofs of your tells? Proof =measurements.
Conversations are good for audiophiles. Measurements are better to engineers.

I see you have that you have your guard dogs like on Gearspace.

 

[Frgirard]

I don't care that it wasn't meant for me. You've been insufferably rude about this for half this thread.

I'm a former engineer, not a former student of the Poudlard school.
This thread fell in the ridiculous by dint of not going to the essential: the measurements. How you find the sound of atc is immaterial to me. All tastes are in nature.

 

[Avp1]

I'm a former engineer, not a former student of the Poudlard school.
This thread fell in the ridiculous by dint of not going to the essential: the measurements. How you find the sound of atc is immaterial to me. All tastes are in nature.

Well, since no one provided in-room measurements for large ATC speakers so far, I will put here source measurements for my Dirac Live DRC. Speakers are ATC SCM100ASL in 15x19x10 room with moderate amount of treatment. Listening position is 9 feet from speakers placed along long wall.

I have two measurement series, one for narrow matrix of 2x2x2 feet, and another for wide matrix 4x2x2 feet. The difference between them should give you an idea about horizontal dispersion.

Channel 1 Narrow

Channel 2 Narrow

Channel 1 Wide

Channel 2 Wide

 

[Elkios]

I'm a former engineer, not a former student of the Poudlard school.
This thread fell in the ridiculous by dint of not going to the essential: the measurements. How you find the sound of atc is immaterial to me. All tastes are in nature.

Engineer of what . How ro be rude ?

 

[YSC]

Well, since no one provided in-room measurements for large ATC speakers so far, I will put here source measurements for my Dirac Live DRC. Speakers are ATC SCM100ASL in 15x19x10 room with moderate amount of treatment. Listening position is 9 feet from speakers placed along long wall.

I have two measurement series, one for narrow matrix of 2x2x2 feet, and another for wide matrix 4x2x2 feet. The difference between them should give you an idea about horizontal dispersion.

Channel 1 Narrow

View attachment 228747

Channel 2 Narrow

View attachment 228748

Channel 1 Wide

View attachment 228751

Channel 2 Wide

View attachment 228750

result looked fairly good, but at 9ft distance and the averaging of listening position is not actually varying the angle to speaker but much of a real difference, so it won't show up much if any difference in room IMO, but the wide dip and peaks above ~300hz do looked like directivity mismatch and with reflection summing up.