Well this is my first post and I’m sure it won’t win me any friends here, but it has to be said.
I’ve been a full time audio engineer for six years, I work as a live sound engineer on a very large d&b rig, so I like to think that I have some knowledge about what sounds good. (At least I’ve convinced my employer of that anyway) I have always wanted to have my own home studio and have just about finished this project. The treatment is all done except for the acoustic cloud. In celebration of this milestone I started researching which studio monitors I wanted to purchase.
I drove to Vintage King in Nashville to demo studio monitors in February. Having done my research I asked if they had the Neumann KH 310’s for me to hear but sadly they did not. I listened to every monitor they had down there and without a shadow of a doubt the very best speakers that I have ever heard in my entire life were the ATC speakers. Oh my God! There was not even a close second, it was a transcendent experience and an audio orgasm. The speakers were out of my price range though.
Fast forward to May and I bought some Footprint 02’s. One of the speakers arrived with a tweeter that didn’t work. I’ve read a surprising number of accounts of the Footprint’s having quality control issues. I listened to them anyway to get an idea of what I could. The upper mid range is certainly crunchy and I would suffer from fatigue working on them. The dynamics were incredible though. I had to move my computer monitor which was in between the two speakers to get them to behave correctly and this was a bit annoying. Obviously I sent them back because of the failed tweeter.
Due to the love from this site and others, I blindly purchased the Neumann KH 310’s. They arrived yesterday and I’ve been testing them. I’ve heard them called boring by some, and this is very true. I’m not saying boring means bad, it’s just the first impression they give compared to other speakers. They sound very good and I would not experience fatigue listening to these. I don’t doubt at all that these are very accurate. One thing I miss dearly from the Barefoot’s is the dynamic punch. The Neumann don’t compete at all in this area. Also, I’m having a hard time being able to separate the kick from the bass. The bass of the Neumann is good, but not mind blowing. The Barefoot were incredible at this.
I’m a little disappointed by the KH 310’s for now but plan to keep listening. They seem to get more enjoyable every hour I spend on them. One thing that makes me question the love they get on this forum is the absurdity of all the people who dismiss ATC speakers here. If I had the money I would have those in my studio and wouldn’t even think twice about it. I have to assume that those with negative things to say about ATC are just looking at data and have never heard them. I can’t imagine hearing those speakers and not immediately knowing you are in the presence of a masterpiece.
So there it is. My first post…
Welcome to the forum! Don't worry, we can still be friends =]
As I always say: the data is useful to make a prediction of what you will like, and for recommending what others will like. But there's nothing wrong if you find yourself preferring a certain speaker that doesn't measure great, you have every right to enjoy it to the fullest. Just don't expect everyone else to feel the same way.
(Well I would argue that for music creation one should definitely opt for something neutral if we ever want any hope of 'standardizing' acoustics like video, but for enjoyment, you like what you like).
Part of the problem with speakers that are less than neutral, especially if they have directivity issues, is that they'll also be more variable from room to room. So you may not find that magic in your own listening space. I don't have very much experience with sound engineering, but I test speakers (partly) for a living and I've been through several cycles of thinking some speakers were the greatest-thing-ever-of-all-time-forevermore only to eventually find they had a small advantage in positioning or sounded less remarkable over time.
What ATC speakers were they? I've only actually seen two ATC speaker measurements and while they weren't the best ever, they weren't awful either -- just not great for the price. I heard a pair of ATCs a few years ago and thought they were good but nothing crazy.
As for the KH310s, you might end up liking them, you might not. There is some acclimatization that happens, especially if you're coming from something less neutral, so perhaps that is what's happening now.
As a speaker reviewer who tests new speakers every month, I always like to keep in mind this quote from Dr Toole:
"How do listeners approach the problem of judging sound quality? Most likely the dimensions and criteria of subjective evaluation are traceable to a lifetime accumulation of experiences with live sound, even simple conversation. If we hear things in reproduced sound that do not occur in nature, or that defy some kind of perceptual logic, we seem to be able to identify it. By that standard,
the best sounding audio product is the one that exhibits the fewest audible flaws."
Emphasis mine. The best speakers aren't the ones that seem to sound like god's own voice on a few songs and reveal things I've never heard before -- something often caused by deviations in the frequency response and which will inevitably cause problems in other tracks -- they're the ones with the least audible flaws.
I don't agree with the ATC hatred here either. Their SL spec drivers, especially that coveted mid-dome (which is the greatest midrange driver in the world), are engineering feats that have yet to be surpassed by anyone. The one area you can criticize with ATC is the lack of extended bass until you pay $20k+ for the SCM150s. The tradeoff is ATC goes for the lowest amount of distortion in the bass. You just have to pay a ton of money for full range. ATC's rule at revealing every detail in a recording (and the electronics you feed them). These are not speakers you probably want to have if your recordings suck, unless you want to know how much they suck.
Not surprised you are missing the dynamic punch with KH310s. That's definitely something those speakers don't have.
Well, it's because the ATCs we've seen don't measure that great for the prices being charged. In my book, they've ranged from 'okay' to 'pretty good.' So I'm definitely not surprised many people enjoy ATC speakers, even aside from the kind of cultish admiration they have. They also have the potential advantage of being wider directivity than many other studio options, a quality which on its own will make them sound 'different' compared to some of the more neutral speakers out there, and different often means 'good' upon a first impression. And many people prefer wider directivity in general (myself included).
But if you believe in the science of frequency response and directivity, the speaker measurements that matter the most, ATC's performance is not particularly remarkable. It doesn't really matter how great the drivers are if these aspects are not correct.
And as much as I think we should be 90% ignoring distortion performance, the distortion measurements for ATC speakers have not seemed completely remarkable either.
The Dynaudios tricked me into thinking I had finished mixes when they still had a long way to go.
