ATC SCM19 Bookshelf Speaker Review

[Ilkless]

My first post & a question if I may Ilkless.
Would you kindly name two or three of the modern & technically superior speakers you seem to reference?
Apologies if within these many pages, the information has already been written.
Over many years I have enjoyed my search for ever more realistic sound reproduction within my home & am genuinely curious & eager to hear your recommendations.
I only hope they are within my budget.
My DAC (thanks to this site) & amplifier are a done deal but I am wondering if I have somehow taken a wrong turn with loud speakers.

Thanks again in advance.

As another user has replied, Neumann/Klein and Hummel, Genelec, Kii, DutchDutch, even Focal in comparison to ATC. I started a long thread on evidence-based speaker designs, which might be useful.

 

[Lao Lu]

The usual British monitor apologist playbook at work again...

- Ironically having to fall back on anecdotal experience and intuition despite the manufacturer holding itself up to be an engineering outfit, when the engineering falls apart

- Appeals to authority

- Discredit results by casting FUD and conveniently ignoring other independent data points already in this thread, including one that conclusively shows how a competitor's mid dome has distortion so low it requires 10 times more power input and twice the loudness to reach the same distortion as the ATC dome.

I am not at all trying to dismiss Amir's findings and thank him for his efforts and expense; I appealed to authorities like Troels and Bagby because I am only using my subjective impressions and they are experts...If anything, I am making these appeals to see if anyone else has had similar impressions. I thought ATC was "anti-hifi" in the sense that they were no-nonsense tools used by people working in the recording industry (like Benchmark), and are reputable. These findings have startled me to say the least....Have either Dennis Murphy or Rick Craig heard the ATCs....and if so, would they be kind enough to share their impressions?

 

[JohnYang1997]

Do they really master on this? No they don't....

 

[wwenze]

A grot box is also a tool, but I don't recommend consumers to get one.

 

[Lao Lu]

Do they really master on this? No they don't....

The 19 is nearly the same volume and shares the same drivers as their professional gear; I assumed that sound-wise they were very close and that they were just dressed up a bit more people's living-rooms..... And one other criticism is that they are not friendly to poorly recorded albums.....

 

[Ilkless]

The 19 is nearly the same volume and shares the same drivers as their professional gear; I assumed that sound-wise they were very close and that they were just dressed up a bit more people's living-rooms..... And one other criticism is that they are not friendly to poorly recorded albums.....

Not friendly in the ATC case is a bug not a feature stemming from low distortion design. ATC has showed a consistent pattern of primitive engineering that has not shown any indication of improving.

Again, more intuition and anecdote-based apologism.

 

[tw99]

Not friendly in the ATC case is a bug not a feature stemming from low distortion design. ATC has showed a consistent pattern of primitive engineering that has not shown any indication of improving.

Again, more intuition and anecdote-based apologism.

I think we get that you don't like them. Other people might value a 6 year warranty and great factory service over a lifetime of ownership, compared to a DSP speaker that's way more complex and probably throwaway.

Whatever the measured failings of this version which I don't see anyone denying, it's not the one you can buy today, and there are other technical test results online that show the current version as being a lot more linear.

 

[Thomas savage]

Great Britain refers to the whole island, technically Scotland is included.

@Purité Audio every day on ASR is a education !

 

[LDKTA]

Bright, bright, bright.

 

[McFly]

Poor ATC. No one is safe. I had the SCM19 V2 and still have the SCM40s. I certainly don’t hear what I’m seeing here. If anything, it’s the opposite.

 

[q3cpma]

ATC and "bling" ? I thought one of their selling points was their accuracy, and customers overlooked their staid appearance......

I don't see how accuracy can be their "selling point" when they don't give any useful data. Their selling point is their reputation of accuracy, not accuracy itself.

I think we get that you don't like them. Other people might value a 6 year warranty and great factory service over a lifetime of ownership, compared to a DSP speaker that's way more complex and probably throwaway.

https://www.genelec.com/product-warranty-lifetime
Genelec products are highly regarded for their bulletproof reliability and extremely long lifespan. For decades we have been building long lasting solutions for audio professionals, starting with our very first S30 studio monitor back in 1978.

Today we still receive requests for repairs and spare parts for products manufactured in the early 1980s – and we are able to service most of them. We carry a substantial spare parts inventory for all the models manufactured during the company’s long history.

Spare parts availability is guaranteed for many years (but a minimum of 5 years) after production has been discontinued. In all cases, we will always provide service as long as we are able to source the appropriate spare parts.

All Genelec products are supplied with a minimum of 2 years warranty (from the date of purchase) against manufacturing faults or defects that might impact on the product's performance. During that time Genelec and its distributors will cover the cost of warranty service labour and spare parts.

As part of Genelec's sustainability program, from the 1st of January 2015 we now provide an extended spare parts warranty period of 3 years, in addition to the normal 2 years warranty terms. This applies to all registered products, and proof of purchase is mandatory. During this extended period Genelec and its distributors will cover spare parts free of charge, but normal labour costs will be charged.

Do we have another "toy" joke of an argument?

 

[5th element]

Aside from not having a waveguide loaded tweeter these speakers only real flaw is the absence of baffle step compensation. This has been commented on before but isn't really a concern.

As has been mentioned placing them against a rear wall will correct for most of this and bring about a much improved tonal balance.

Amir seems to dislike small speakers with small amounts of baffle step compensation. Go figure he likes bass and his big Revels free standing in his big listening room.

These are small speakers with a small driver and in a sealed cabinet what were you expecting? They cannot go loud, nor produce particularly deep bass, physics is against them.

Small room, against a wall at sensible listening levels and they'll do fine.

And that distortion peak at 700Hz? This is 2nd order in nature and will be inaudible. It's a classic soft cone material issue that shows up in scanspeak, seas, sb acoustics etc paper/poly coned drivers too. It's a surround/cone edge resonance that typically shows up between 500-1500Hz and causes a small dip in the frequency response along with an associated peak in the second order distortion. You do not get this, usually, with stiff cones, such as metals or ceramics.

I'm not concerned at all with this second order peak in these speakers.

And as to the comments about the ATC mid dome? The only detailed measurements I've seen of it have been on Zaphs website where it shows very low levels of harmonic distortion. Maybe the Neumann dome is better but the ATC is still excellent by any standard.

 

[kaka89]

Poor ATC. No one is safe. I had the SCM19 V2 and still have the SCM40s. I certainly don’t hear what I’m seeing here. If anything, it’s the opposite.

Another ATC 40 owner here. Agree with what you said although I’m not surprised to see the non flat measurement because I have measured it my self. The bass in 40 is fine tho.

 

[Dimifoot]

It's the price and the "reputation".

Leaving aside price, since this is a long discontinued product and price was reported completely wrong, are you implying that there is some type of bias against a specific “category” of companies?
Would the panther still have his head on his shoulders if this speaker was made by an unknown company? Why?

If yes, is this a scientific approach in reporting measurements and performance?

 

[Lao Lu]

Aside from not having a waveguide loaded tweeter these speakers only real flaw is the absence of baffle step compensation. This has been commented on before but isn't really a concern.

As has been mentioned placing them against a rear wall will correct for most of this and bring about a much improved tonal balance.

Amir seems to dislike small speakers with small amounts of baffle step compensation. Go figure he likes bass and his big Revels free standing in his big listening room.

These are small speakers with a small driver and in a sealed cabinet what were you expecting? They cannot go loud, nor produce particularly deep bass, physics is against them.

Small room, against a wall at sensible listening levels and they'll do fine.

And that distortion peak at 700Hz? This is 2nd order in nature and will be inaudible. It's a classic soft cone material issue that shows up in scanspeak, seas, sb acoustics etc paper/poly coned drivers too. It's a surround/cone edge resonance that typically shows up between 500-1500Hz and causes a small dip in the frequency response along with an associated peak in the second order distortion. You do not get this, usually, with stiff cones, such as metals or ceramics.

I'm not concerned at all with this second order peak in these speakers.

And as to the comments about the ATC mid dome? The only detailed measurements I've seen of it have been on Zaphs website where it shows very low levels of harmonic distortion. Maybe the Neumann dome is better but the ATC is still excellent by any standard.

"Small room, against a wall at sensible listening levels and they'll do fine." That is exactly how I have them in a 3.5 by 4.5 meter room that is not at all overly lively (Northern Chinese heavy brick and concrete construction)...so I am getting at least 6-8db of bass reinforcement ....and the solid walls and hundreds of books are taking the edge off any brightness (if there is any...remember, I have the 19v2).... I had forgotten that Zaph had also checked out the mid...Zaph, Troels, and Rick Craig have always given reasonable measurements...they always sound honest and straightforward with no axes to grind...One day I hope to have a 3-way loudspeaker and I have long thought of having Rick at Selah design and build it....

 

[Thomas_A]

Nearfield measurements within few milimeter are very accurate for the low end part of a transducer because S/N ratio is so good at those close range and therefor good to establish how low end slope really looks with precision, but not so good as frequency increase because microphone sits in center and then gets same distance to 360º around obstracles that can create interference. In that center and close distance microphone can't really see where +6dB half space baffle amplification end up and for that to happen microphone needs to be at distance same or more than the widest dimension of baffle but then we get reflections and loose S/N precision, therefor see below visual that should explain for Amir's curves what happens, except that for a normal correct procedure one should splice a nearfield measurement to a farfield measurement to hinder the drawback that nearfield is not good as frequency increase.
View attachment 71913

This is a specific question that has been raised before; the in-room curve from the Klippel spinorama is some kind of average and does not include specific response for e.g. a near- or in-wall placement of a speaker.

 

[carlosmante]

This is a specific question that has been raised before; the in-room curve from the Klippel spinorama is some kind of average and does not include specific response for e.g. a near- or in-wall placement of a speaker.

The "room response" needs to indicate specific room sizes.
Let's Remember the ongoing discussion on cholesterol and be very cautious about the interpretation of the data. The money spent on cholesterol research amount to hundreds of millions of dollars and thousands of subjects under controlled study but one of the conclusions to this day is "The controlled studies are limited in generalizability". .https://www.acc.org/latest-in-cardi...3/dietary-cholesterol-and-cardiovascular-risk

 

[Frank Dernie]

Today the LS3/5A variants are a popular speaker in Asia, they are regularly featured in hifi magazines in Japan and Hong Knog (where I was born), their smaller size is attractive because they suit the smaller apartments there. The larger LS5 variants are less popular due to their size and price, so naturally the LS3/5A are more relevant to more people.

The fact that they are a cult speaker does not automatically make them good.
I bought a pair in the 1970s and used them as my office speaker until I retired 10 years ago.
They sound pretty good on speech and stuff like string quartets but struggle on the bigger stuff IME.
I sold them to a Singapore buyer for 10x what I bought them for.
I own Harbeth P3ES with Xtender and LS50s now but they are both in storage, I only listen to 3-way speakers now. I should sell them...

 

[Frank Dernie]

The arrangement of the tweeters should lead in the upper frequency range to strong comb filter effects in the listening window.
Depending on the frequency at which the midrange crossover is located, comb filter effects may also occur there.
UPDATE:
Unless, of course, the tweeters are individually controlled and the top tweeter only transmits the uppermost frequency ranges.
The same applies to the midrange speakers.

View attachment 71920

Here are a few quotes from a test of these speakers:
Audio-Magazin 04-2017:

They are the best, or at least most thoroughtly, engineered speakers on the market.
I am only just able to resist buying some because I am 70 and won't live long enough to get my money's worth...

 

[Frank Dernie]

That's like saying performance of B class is indicative of G wagon. He doesn't need to test all of them, of course, anything ATC 50 or above would indeed demonstrate actual engineering capability of the company.

I am amused by this, as a racing car designer who has driven both.
The A class is a good car, the G-wagen an expensive fashion statement for ignorant owners, and not particularly good at anything and bad at most things.