ATC SCM19 Bookshelf Speaker Review

[Hector Achilleus]

Welcome to science based audio discussions.

"Science" is a huge word for most audiophiles, also the tecno(...)oriented ones.
Micro-positivism (I'd say pseudo-positivism but...maybe too harsh for my second post ) is way best terminology.

Yes this model presents some (not bad but) questionable performance and design choises,
BUT the company that introduced that dome midrange and supplied it to Neumann for his old flagship monitor... well this company is not by any means a voodoo company...and is not in the same ballpark with Totaldac, BS audio, snake oil cables companies and so on.

 

[Inner Space]

I see one side providing data and the other not doing so ... Really quite sad to see fanboys sticking to their brands like mussels to their rock ...

Wrong end of the stick, I'm afraid. I'm not an ATC fanboy. Possibly a mild opposite. I worked 18 years in front of pro monitors and never once used ATC by choice. (My problem with the brand was one I haven't heard here yet.)

What I'm interested in is the data itself. This thread shows "bad" data on the part of the ATC SCM19, and a simultaneous thread about the KEF R3 shows "good" data about that unit, yet no one really likes it either. Therefore I'd like to dig down into what the data actually mean, and what correlations we can derive from them, and what we are missing, and how we can improve our understanding. Some random guy on the sidelines yelling audiophool buzzwords like "obliterate" isn't helping me. That's all I'm saying.

 

[Hector Achilleus]

View attachment 72703

ahahahahahaha

 

[Eetu]

The SCM19 v1 did poorly for the price. I also mentioned the blind test where the SCM7 finished 14th out of 14 speakers tested. Are their higher end models better, yes probably. This still does not look good for a 'well-respected' manufacturer.

I think we can and should be harsher towards established players than newcomers. How much of that reputation is marketing, close ties with reviewers (What Hi-Fi? 5 stars for every speaker..) and how much is objectively good performance? I think it's a valid question at this point and there doesn't have to be hostility behind it.

I do agree with @Inner Space too though. We need more data so we can learn more about speakers and how to quantify and predict their performance since it seems the preference score can only take us halfway.

 

[Tangband]

Wrong end of the stick, I'm afraid. I'm not an ATC fanboy. Possibly a mild opposite. I worked 18 years in front of pro monitors and never once used ATC by choice. (My problem with the brand was one I haven't heard here yet.)

What I'm interested in is the data itself. This thread shows "bad" data on the part of the ATC SCM19, and a simultaneous thread about the KEF R3 shows "good" data about that unit, yet no one really likes it either. Therefore I'd like to dig down into what the data actually mean, and what correlations we can derive from them, and what we are missing, and how we can improve our understanding. Some random guy on the sidelines yelling audiophool buzzwords like "obliterate" isn't helping me. That's all I'm saying.

Whats missing is really that listening tests should be done in stereo with optimal setup in the room for the loudspeakers. And this takes a long time to do for every pair of loudspeakers. Toole is wrong when he says listening to only one loudspeaker in mono is good enough. In a stereo setup, you are listening to two loudspeakers creating a phantom image of the recording. The frequency responsen should be flat, but not entirely so. With that said, the distortion measurements Amirm is doing is really interesting reading.
Amirm is driving the best audiophile site on the internet. Keep on doing the good work . All others : please understand that it takes a LOT more than measurements to verify the sound of two loudspeakers in a room.

 

[617]

Reviewers basically launder the reputation of these dinosaurs, preventing new businesses from competing on performance. That's what I have a problem with.

 

[Inner Space]

The SCM19 v1 did poorly for the price. I also mentioned the blind test where the SCM7 finished 14th out of 14 speakers tested. Are their higher end models better, yes probably. This still does not look good for a 'well-respected' manufacturer.

Sooner or later, re your "well-respected" comment, we should recognize that the pro world is vastly different than the home world. Depends exactly where you work, but certainly anywhere big enough to have a technical manager, "well respected" means boring stuff like properly documenting MTBF, identifying the three most common faults and specifying whether they can be fixed on-site by studio engineers, or is a service call required, and will the manufacturer supply at no cost packs of spare parts for the maintenance closet, possibly including whole replacement units, and so on and so forth, yawn, yawn, etc, etc, etc. I literally never saw a technical manager place audio quality higher than about 4th or 5th consideration. Yesterday they were your pal and colleague; today they're a suit. That's the world ATC knows.

Then at some point they saturated those parts of the pro market where ATC fits the bill, so they expanded into domestic audio to keep growing, relying on the message "your favorite albums were mastered on our speakers". My personal view is their pro products are reasonably satisfactory, and their domestic products are unexceptional, and that the "respect" they earned on Planet Studio has absolutely no relevance on Planet Living Room.

All that said, I would love to understand from data why I feel that way, but I'm still some way from being able to do that. I would buy electronics (and have) based on a measurement suite, but I wouldn't buy speakers that way. Why not?

 

[Hector Achilleus]

This forum is with very, very few brilliant exceptions all useless smalltalk thinly disguised as science but in reality is hardly any different from facebookism at its lowest...

There's no web place totally immune by that tendencies, but IMO yours are very harsh and ungenerous words for this whole place.
Au contraire I think this forum is, as hydrogenaudio guys, a cool and refreshing community in a world like audiophilly...dominated by superstition, referenciality, self-indulgence, pseudoscientism and lack of rational attitude to audio technology.

The problems IMHO start when a totally deterministic approach, if not pedantic...an approach perfect with electronics (a field where accuracy is in 2020 a trivial issue), is applied to loudspeakers.
Two groups of different electromechanical transducers , with stereo signals (by itself an inaccurate rendition of real aural field) in a unmodelled room....
A much much much more complex issue.
No defense by me of BS marketing, or magic, or pure subjectivist approach. I'm rationalist guy and, why not, an objectivist where and when possible...BUT a more cautious attitude is IMHO absolutely nequired.

Come on guys...read the great Peter Aczel, King of Objectivists, on this specific topic.
And excuse me for my macaronic english, from Italy ahaha

 

[Pharos]

I think q3cpma, that to say; "Don't bother trying to sweet talk your way out of this, going all argumentum ad temperantiam, " as a response to my post is disingenuous, I am not attempting to 'sweet talk my way out of anything.

I have made my stance very clear, the 19's measurements seem very poor, and those of the SCM50ASL seem to be quite good, but this does not make me a fanboy, and having had a slight tendency to that some years ago I am now rather sceptical about the current state of speaker design.

I have had four pairs of ATCs, and do not now have them, but I do admire what they have done over the years with a conventional approach. There is new stuff now, for eg., the Purifi mid/woofer.

Your attack, if not supportable with quotes, can only be a result of your personal agenda.
Please illustrate any contradictions on my part quoting directly examples, (I do not have a low integration personality), and it seems that your responses are very subjective in nature.

I think it is better to develop cerebral detachment from the subject, and to avoid invoking personal agendas.

 

[q3cpma]

I think q3cpma, that to say; "Don't bother trying to sweet talk your way out of this, going all argumentum ad temperantiam, " as a response to my post is disingenuous, I am not attempting to 'sweet talk my way out of anything.

I have made my stance very clear, the 19's measurements seem very poor, and those of the SCM50ASL seem to be quite good, but this does not make me a fanboy, and having had a slight tendency to that some years ago I am now rather sceptical about the current state of speaker design.

I have had four pairs of ATCs, and do not now have them, but I do admire what they have done over the years with a conventional approach. There is new stuff now, for eg., the Purifi mid/woofer.

Your attack, if not supportable with quotes, can only be a result of your personal agenda.
Please illustrate any contradictions on my part quoting directly examples; I do not have a low integration personality.

I think it is better to develop cerebral detachment from the subject, and to avoid invoking personal agendas.

Well, I wasn't talking about your stance, but what you were saying about the catfight going on; your approach to these result is mostly reasonable compared to others. I may have confused you a little with the other guy with a green P for automatic avater in my mind.

Though I still see some audiophile bias (not ATC bias) when you say "How, if they are so poor, have they managed to penetrate the professional monitoring market to such a degree?", which is just a classic argumentum ad populum. And you did go argumentum ad temperantiam, by talking about tone instead of content, and I don't see what's indecent in using data to (continuously) disprove what can only be called terminal audiophilia; nothing wrong with criticizing the tone alone, but even implying that it influences the degree of truth/objectivity of the content is simply wrong.

Anyway, there's nothing more to gain in this thread, I'm just being bored. People will see the review itself and understand that buying ATC without measurements is quite risky.

 

[Pharos]

How can you quote a question from me and then state;

"Though I still see some audiophile bias (not ATC bias) when you say "How, if they are so poor, have they managed to penetrate the professional monitoring market to such a degree?"

This is simply a question, though you may infer form that a stance, which may or may not be true.

I have neither adopted a middle position arguing that it is true, or sort to gain approval of the members here, I have however avoided being rude or insulting.

I think all that I have said is from an integrated belief system which is devoid of conflict, contradiction, or approval seeking.

Tone can be a very useful indicator of an subterfuged agenda. Whilst some time ago psychologists regarded tones and body language as merely 'modifiers' to the spoken or written word, they are now increasingly giving it a much greater significance, even to the point of being more important than the overt statement.

Which data did you use to disprove "disprove what can only be called terminal audiophilia;", and from whom?

Does not your apparent confusion of me with other members, suggest a lack of focus, this required for objectivity?

 

[q3cpma]

How can you quote a question from me and then state;

"Though I still see some audiophile bias (not ATC bias) when you say "How, if they are so poor, have they managed to penetrate the professional monitoring market to such a degree?"

I'm sure you can understand that this can look like a rhetoric question. But I now understand that you're completely honest, sorry about this.

Tone can be a very useful indicator of an subterfuged agenda.

The thing is that being a possible reason isn't the same as being the only possible reason, that's jumping the gun.

Whilst some time ago psychologists regarded tones and body language as merely 'modifiers' to the spoken or written word, they are now increasingly giving it a much greater significance, even to the point of being more important than the overt statement.

I wouldn't use psychology in a serious scientific discussion; not that actually scientific psychology doesn't exist, it's just a speck in the sea of political and ideological pseudo-science known as Psychology (tm), especially from a media coverage point of view.

Which data did you use to disprove "disprove what can only be called terminal audiophilia;", and from whom?

ATC's usual reputation being upholded without data in this very thread, where a detailed review showing absolutely mundane distorsion performance took place, deserves that title.

Does not your apparent confusion of me with other members, suggest a lack of focus, this required for objectivity?

Was just a joke of bad taste, sorry for being misleading.

 

[617]

Guys it's Saturday

 

[Vintage57]

New model from ATC, Limited Edition, whatever that means.

The SCM150ASLT Limited Edition speaker system is available for immediate order. The recommended retail price is 65,000 Euro. ($75,000 USD).
As with all ATC loudspeakers, owners of the ATC SCM150ASLT Limited Edition enjoy a six-year manufacturer's warranty. As each set is built to order, the earliest delivery date is August 5, 2020, and with only 22 pairs available, the rule is: first come, first served!

 

[A Surfer]

Good grief. Such prices. Well for the wealthy of the world that is just fun money to them so I guess it isn't expensive for the target market.

 

[Southall-1998]

New model from ATC, Limited Edition, whatever that means.

The SCM150ASLT Limited Edition speaker system is available for immediate order. The recommended retail price is 65,000 Euro. ($75,000 USD).
As with all ATC loudspeakers, owners of the ATC SCM150ASLT Limited Edition enjoy a six-year manufacturer's warranty. As each set is built to order, the earliest delivery date is August 5, 2020, and with only 22 pairs available, the rule is: first come, first served!

Meh, yawn!

S.

 

[Purité Audio]

New model from ATC, Limited Edition, whatever that means.

The SCM150ASLT Limited Edition speaker system is available for immediate order. The recommended retail price is 65,000 Euro. ($75,000 USD).
As with all ATC loudspeakers, owners of the ATC SCM150ASLT Limited Edition enjoy a six-year manufacturer's warranty. As each set is built to order, the earliest delivery date is August 5, 2020, and with only 22 pairs available, the rule is: first come, first served!

The death throes of a company, the ultra expensive ‘limited edition’.
Keith

 

[stunta]

For those defending ATCs with fervor on this thread , I am selling my ATC SCM19s, one of which was the review sample here. DM me if you are interested.

 

[Chrise36]

For those defending ATCs with fervor on this thread , I am selling my ATC SCM19s, one of which was the review sample here. DM me if you are interested.

Can you measure them in your room or have you already?

 

[BYRTT]

For those defending ATCs with fervor on this thread , I am selling my ATC SCM19s, one of which was the review sample here. DM me if you are interested.

Many thanks ship your exemplar in for ASR analyze, that said if you have a player with covolution engine i can share below filter setting if you happen like to listen that correction, say it because your sample should respond well to filter and in that build actual look relative smooth in directivity index curve being free of multible intereferences other than one at 485Hz and think that is not bad sign if we compare many other analyzes and how many resonances is visible into the directivity index curve, else have best sales.