Have you seen the in-room measurements of the SCM100ASLT..? You will find much better measurements of speakers in this forum that are much cheaper. BTW, my ATCs also had this dip between 1 and 3 kHz...
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ATC speakers / Monitors
- Thread starter Pearljam5000
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A pair of KH150s with two subwoofers costs about 8000 EUR - the ATCs are approx 3.5 times as much. Yes, they are pretty...
You are paying for nice cabinet finish. Pro version of these speakers (flat black paint) is almost 10K cheaper.List price in Germany is 28.500 EUR per pair. I think it's too expensive. OK you have to pay extra for the "magic marketing dome"...
BrokenEnglishGuy
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i will never understand the will of Neumann to make ugly finish speakers... the better speaker the ugly is... the kh420... my god not even the white ugly color
In-room measurements will look different from room to room, how did the gated measurements look like with your ATC speakers?
Bass extension isn't the only thing to look at here - the 100ASL gets crazy, insanely loud without strain. 420s... not so much. The big ATCs have big drivers that don't extend particularly low with gigantic motors, and that more or less leads to quite high sensitivity.
And, yeah, they're not as flat as the Neumanns, no question there. Very much in the same sonic ballpark in my experience.
It's a tradeoff ATC makes as I've explained in this thread before. TL;DR version, with ports your big tradeoff is decay time vs LFX. Neumann's designs trend toward the LFX side, ATC towards the short decay time side.
It is often mentioned that ATC speakers do not extend that low in bass, and the explanation is maybe this:
"The reason that this ported speaker sounds like a sealed cabinet is down to ATC’s unique design. All ported cabinets have a resonant frequency, which is related to relative dimensions of the port and cabinet. Most designers use this resonance to artificially enhance bass response, particularly in smaller enclosures, which is why they often sound boomy and slow. By contrast, ATC doesn’t use the port to extend the bass, merely to reduce distortion by controlling the motion of the bass driver. ATC designs for a relatively low damping factor (Q) of around 0.5, which produces a gradual low-frequency rolloff similar to a sealed cabinet. By contrast, most ports are tuned to a Q of 0.7 or more, which reduces port damping and gives the impression of a more powerful bottom end—but often gives a “one note” bass response. A high-Q ported cabinet also has a much steeper rolloff than a sealed-cabinet design."
"The reason that this ported speaker sounds like a sealed cabinet is down to ATC’s unique design. All ported cabinets have a resonant frequency, which is related to relative dimensions of the port and cabinet. Most designers use this resonance to artificially enhance bass response, particularly in smaller enclosures, which is why they often sound boomy and slow. By contrast, ATC doesn’t use the port to extend the bass, merely to reduce distortion by controlling the motion of the bass driver. ATC designs for a relatively low damping factor (Q) of around 0.5, which produces a gradual low-frequency rolloff similar to a sealed cabinet. By contrast, most ports are tuned to a Q of 0.7 or more, which reduces port damping and gives the impression of a more powerful bottom end—but often gives a “one note” bass response. A high-Q ported cabinet also has a much steeper rolloff than a sealed-cabinet design."
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Pearljam5000
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If we look at the data in the Jeff Bagby measurements (few posts before) and the ASR review of the KH420, we can see that the ATC dome have lower harmonic distortion of the two, -70 dB vs -58 dB 3rd harmonic around 95-96 dB at 1 m for example. But both performance is very good IMO.
Edit:
In the case of the KH420, the 3rd harmonic distortion rise between 1-2 kHz can also be the distortion of the tweeter because the crossover is around 2 kHz.
Anyway, the ATC dome can easily be used above 3 kHz, which means less possible load on the tweeter. We don't know how high the Neumann dome can reaches in the spectrum without problems.
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Measurements of an entire speaker vs one driver are not really comparable.
Yes, that's why I edited my previous comment.
Yes, and a driver doesn't need a wide band, just enough for a directivity match. 3kHz with that C2C spacing and driver diameters wouldn't work as well.
Plus it is rather disingenuous to post Bagby measurements of the driver in isolation when we already see measurements of both ATC and Neumann completed speakers released around the same time, yet a marked difference in favour of the Neumann. Talk about shifting the goalposts - another common method of ATC apologis.
And anyway, fixating on the distortion of the ATC dome without realising the compromises needed in directivity match of a 3" dome that requires a C2C of a 7" driver shows a superficial understanding of driver radiation and psychoacoustics against the weight of extensive evidence.
They're both great.
This is the only "bare driver" measurement I could find for the Neumann mid, FWIW. There's no reason it couldn't cross substantially higher than what Neumann has it at, nor any reason it couldn't be crossed 150hz or so lower than it is (distortion doesn't rise like crazy, nor does FR roll off substantially).
ATC SM75-150 withdrawl
The ATC is not crossed at Fs but also some 100 Hz above: You're right of course. It's been a while (10years+) since I looked at their spec. I get the impression that ATC and Quested are being rattled by diy. A few years ago both would list useful info like xover points and slopes but both...
FWIW, some of that 7" driver C2C is because the mounting flange includes a decently sized waveguide. Don't misunderstand, I think the MF/HF cross could probably do to be 500hz lower, but still.
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Different C2C spacings have different results of course but the lowest spacing is not always desirable. I mean the ideal spacing would be 1/4 wavelength of the crossover frequency or closer, but that only achived by coaxial drivers at the typical mid-to-tweeter crossover frequencies, otherwise we have to make a compromise. There is a thread at diyaudio.com where it was showed why larger C2C spacings (relative to xo frequency) are works and can be better (not always of course) over smaller C2C spacings.
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Don't think it offers sufficient control for a smooth blend, to justify the increased C2C.
And we are supposed to believe ATC have thought of that when the radiated soundfield of the completed speakers are wholly unremarkable?
There was one more issue with posted measurements of SCM100: when they assessed vertical dispersion, they only posted traces when microphone was ABOVE mid-range dome. But it is well known that ATC assumes that listener ears will be on mid-range axis or BELOW. I understand that this tower model is too short for common listener chair height, but I do not believe that ATC tuned tower speaker differently from stand mounted version of SCM100. What seems to be needed - add short speaker stands, similar to what was done for old B&W 800/802 models. I am sure someone like Sound Anchor will be happy to produce them.
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In the frequency range where Neumann uses it shows lower distortion:
ATC speakers / Monitors
Which would be? For example the current Neumann 75 mm mid dome. Neumann used the ATC dome in their former flagship O 500 C. The newer KH 420 uses their own driver which is superior to the older ATC design in terms of non-linear distortion (up to 10 dB), below measurements show this: The...
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Also distortion measurements of different sources since they usually are not anechoic.
Hmm, strange that there is a significant distortion rise around 1,7 kHz on the ATC that not show up on Bagby's measurements.In the frequency range where Neumann uses it shows lower distortion:
ATC speakers / Monitors
Which would be? For example the current Neumann 75 mm mid dome. Neumann used the ATC dome in their former flagship O 500 C. The newer KH 420 uses their own driver which is superior to the older ATC design in terms of non-linear distortion (up to 10 dB), below measurements show this: The...
