ATC SCM19 Bookshelf Speaker Review

[Dialectic]

The English should stick to cooking

They should. The Ledbury and St. John are two of my favorite restaurants.

 

[Tks]

Personally, I love the look of this or Harbeth's Radial woofers, but I think that the goal is (partly) to look like elegance was compromised in favour of performance. A kind of "look at me, even uglier than Genelec, can't sound worse!" thing.

I got you with some sick sneaker fashion you might be into in that case.

 

[wwenze]

Could they at least not make the speaker look like tar was spilled on the woofer? At these price points, I wouldn't mind garbage performance (sad isn't it), but the looks? This thing better look like a Ferrari in terms of attraction level at these price points if you're not going to deliver the performance..

Ooo wait till u see how their grilles look like. (To be fair, at least they have a grille when most studio monitors don't. Genelec is really an oddity.)

To be fair I have seen worse, from a speaker that asks for $2.5k

Spoiler

 

[RickSanchez]

"If you value insight and honesty above all else ..." That's rich, coming from WhatHiFi. (I realize they're talking about the v2; my comment is about WhatHiFi in general not this speaker in particular.)

[source: https://www.whathifi.com/atc/scm19/review]

 

[Dialectic]

"If you value insight and honesty above all else ..." That's rich, coming from WhatHiFi. (I realize they're talking about the v2; my comment is about WhatHiFi in general not this speaker in particular.)


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[source: https://www.whathifi.com/atc/scm19/review]

The people who write for What Hifi should go back to selling Vauxhalls.

 

[wwenze]

Thanks to Amir for elucidating another of the myriad ways to waste money in this hobby.

Perhaps the ATC and PMC fanboys who criticize properly engineered loudspeakers (M2s, Kii Threes, 8Cs) as toys will go home now. And yes, I know Amir hasn't measured everything ATC and PMC make, but the deficiencies here are so severe and so unnecessary as to cast doubt on those companies' engineering capabilities.

I'm from the skeptics camp, but after ASR, I did a 180 with Kii, D&D, Genelecs and BS22. KEF was a ~135 degrees. Buchardt... 90 degrees I guess? Even JBL's 305P didn't escape unscathed.

Most of the rest were generally as expected. I have waited long for ATC and PMC.

 

[pozz]

That may be the case in their original conception but today the LS3/5A are sold, marketed and purchased by manufacturers and audiophiles for music, so to me it is even more interesting to see their test results and put the design intent and their current application into context.

Measured by Harman and found in Toole's book. Commercial version of the LS3/5A.

Here's the Rogers pro version of the LS5/8 someone else mentioned.

So a maximally flat on-axis, with a kind of ragged off-axis.

 

[BYRTT]

Think it sounds some interpret low end reach is bad when its actual quite low in a 2nd order Butterworth allignment @58Hz roll off, but yes sensitivity is a bad 81-82dB at 58Hz roll of knee and baffle step loss and diffraction looks not taken care of, here is approximately how compensation for baffle step loss and diffraction could look for SCM19:

And for interested here is animation that toggle some technical parameters for SCM19, for info baffle step loss and diffraction is modeled on axis at 2 meter distance for positions of a 143mm and 25mm piston:

 

[617]

Thanks to Amir for elucidating another of the myriad ways to waste money in this hobby.

Perhaps the ATC and PMC fanboys who criticize properly engineered loudspeakers (M2s, Kii Threes, 8Cs) as toys will go home now. And yes, I know Amir hasn't measured everything ATC and PMC make, but the deficiencies here are so severe and so unnecessary as to cast doubt on those companies' engineering capabilities.

Normally I would be reluctant to judge a mfrs good products based on their entry level but these are lazy, poorly made speakers. If a DIYer like Troels or Jeff Bagby published this design with these measurements, they would get roasted.

 

[Koeitje]

Normally I would be reluctant to judge a mfrs good products based on their entry level but these are lazy, poorly made speakers. If a DIYer like Troels or Jeff Bagby published this design with these measurements, they would get roasted.

Its not even that hard to make a good entry level speaker, there are a lot of those out there. They are usually limited in SPL output, but apart from that they are pretty good.

Besides, this is NOT an entry level loudspeaker.

 

[Frank Dernie]

The Ledbury

https://www.hardens.com/uk-london/09-06-2020/the-ledbury-to-close-indefinitely-due-to-covid-19/

 

[Frank Dernie]

Terrible news. I'm worried which of my haunts will be gone when NYC reopens.

It will be a different world I'm afraid.
I wonder how long it will be before it gets back to anything like the normal we have known, if ever.
My favourite local chef (who is a friend now all our kids earned a bit of money there washing up and waiting at table) is making meals to deliver. We have something 3 weeks in 4.

 

[ROOSKIE]

Awesome review.
A big shout out to @amirm for trying the listening test 1st this review. (Before seeing the measurements)
Really, really interesting and appreciated.
Thank you for that and thanks again for the revealing test.

 

[LTig]

Ooo wait till u see how their grilles look like. (To be fair, at least they have a grille when most studio monitors don't. Genelec is really an oddity.)

To be fair I have seen worse, from a speaker that asks for $2.5k

Spoiler

Ouch. These really look horrible. The grilles of my K&H O300D look nicer, are very expensive but almost indestructable (you could beat them with a hammer without destroying the drivers).

 

[ROOSKIE]

Ouch. These really look horrible. The grilles of my K&H O300D look nicer, are very expensive but almost indestructable (you could beat them with a hammer without destroying the drivers).

Zero chance I am buying these speakers though I do feel like piping in that I actually really LIKE the looks. Especially the grill. Very industrial and duty oriented. I also dig the hard lines and simple satin of the cabinets.
If these sounded excellent I would actually buy them due to the look.

 

[LTig]

Narrow housing, 2-way, no visible wave guide - most of those show the expected flaws in the spinorama, some (like this) errors in the BSC. Time to move to 3-ways ...

 

[Soniclife]

But then so have Linn Kans.....

S.

Kans sounded like 2 tweeters in a box to me.

 

[Purité Audio]

But with Kans you can play ‘guess the song’.
Keith

 

[Soniclife]

Thing is, so many small 'monitors' seemed once upon a time to be balanced more this way I think, with lifted upper mids and for us in smaller well furnished listening rooms it's something of a godsend as the bass is so taut, allowing closer to wall mounting (which ruins Harbeths for example if placed too near to walls with their less well damped bass and heavy port use).

I'm glad that we are beginning to see speakers come onto the market that are specifically designed to work either against a wall, or you can adjust for wall distance. This is a crucial domestic retirement ignored by so much of the market for to long.

 

[Thomas savage]

Christ two national apologies in a week , seems these British speaker companies are doing all they can to take the ' Great ' out of Great Britain.

I'm going into hiding until this all blows over.