ATC speakers / Monitors

[YSC]

would be interested if ATC have fixed it's directivity problem

 

[goat76]

would be interested if ATC have fixed it's directivity problem

How wrong did you find the old version sounding?

 

[Ilkless]

How wrong did you find the old version sounding?

Hazy and strident around the crossover area, but you lot would handwave it away with room acoustics, folk pseudoscience and your own anecdotal experience anyway.

A dispersion mismatch is an objective phenomenon with objective, detrimental psychoacoustic impacts that exist regardless of whether you believe in it, or are capable of interpreting it negatively (vs rationalising it with apologism). It's a physiological fact of you being human, having a human brain and human ears.

 

[goat76]

Hazy and strident around the crossover area, but you lot would handwave it away with room acoustics, folk pseudoscience and your own anecdotal experience anyway.

A dispersion mismatch is an objective phenomenon with objective, detrimental psychoacoustic impacts that exist regardless of whether you believe in it, or are capable of interpreting it negatively (vs rationalising it with apologism). It's a physiological fact of you being human, having a human brain and human ears.

It's not as often as you that I have a theoretical listening session. I did ask @YSC for his real-world listening experience.

 

[dfuller]

would be interested if ATC have fixed it's directivity problem

Not completely, it's not a deep waveguide at all. The old one wasn't waveguided at all, not even a flange around it.

It was also a substantially worse tweeter, I think it was like $20 in small quantities for that Peerless. (Not bad, mind, but not great for $9,000 a pair!)

How wrong did you find the old version sounding?

I can't say I noticed it being particularly bad - the dispersion mismatch is not horrible (ATC after all isn't pulling a Dynaudio and matching a 10" midwoofer to a 1" flat baffle mounted tweeter), just not SOTA.

Is Neumann making an arguably better speaker in the KH310? Yes. Does it have its own quirks? Also yes, namely the fact that 310s have basically no ability to get loud without a sub - low mid IMD goes through the roof.

 

[YSC]

It's not as often as you that I have a theoretical listening session. I did ask @YSC for his real-world listening experience.

In my only demo session it sounded unnatural and hazy around upper mid low treble region, especially when my head move around a bit and not in dead center of the audition position. Not really bad but not great either, especially at its price.

But why bother with fan/non fan opinion anyway? As @IIkless said directivity is a measurable and objective problem, and ATC themselves think there’s a problem that’s why they need to upgrade the original to the new tweeter. Which, in their a spec tweeter they says:

Improved Off-Axis Response: the complex geometry of the tweeter’s soft dome diaphragm and precision-machined, low-resonance alloy waveguide produces a smooth on-axis and improved off-axis response, which now extends beyond ATC ‘s previous benchmark of 22kHz to reach 25kHz (-6dB).

So they do think directivity need to be improved and they did so by this tweeter.

 

[Pearljam5000]

Wow almost $10K for a 6.5 inch

 

[YSC]

Not completely, it's not a deep waveguide at all. The old one wasn't waveguided at all, not even a flange around it.

It was also a substantially worse tweeter, I think it was like $20 in small quantities for that Peerless. (Not bad, mind, but not great for $9,000 a pair!)


I can't say I noticed it being particularly bad - the dispersion mismatch is not horrible (ATC after all isn't pulling a Dynaudio and matching a 10" midwoofer to a 1" flat baffle mounted tweeter), just not SOTA.

Is Neumann making an arguably better speaker in the KH310? Yes. Does it have its own quirks? Also yes, namely the fact that 310s have basically no ability to get loud without a sub - low mid IMD goes through the roof.

This is the thing I hope they did fixed, for old reputable brands I don't really care if the C/P is great, but the better they keep in SOTA realm the better. I treat all vendors for the imperfection (or flaw) the same way, look at and mind the problem, access the price and use case for the problem and find the one good enough. IMO (YMMV) distortion is easier to tickle and not trigger in the nearfield situation for hearing longevity, and with sub is an easy fix, but directivity problem with respect to head movement is more troublesome, minor error won't be really apparent so I'd give it a pass, but as always, the better it gets, the better, having freedom to move 10-30 degrees around and not really having the tonality changing is a big plus IMO at least

 

[Avp1]

View attachment 266529
View attachment 266530
Wow almost $10K for a 6.5 inch

Price is directly proportionate to bass driver size: 12" in SCM100 for $20K.

 

[dfuller]

Price is directly proportionate to bass driver size: 12" in SCM100 for $20K.

Not only that, but this is a relatively small price increase (~5%) for a way better drive unit. That Peerless tweeter isn't awful, but it sure as hell isn't on par with the drivers ATC uses everywhere else.

 

[Pearljam5000]

Price is directly proportionate to bass driver size: 12" in SCM100 for $20K.

Yes
But shouldn't the price be proportionate to other similar monitors on the market from other brands ?

 

[dfuller]

But shouldn't the price be proportionate to other similar monitors on the market from other brands ?

It is.

 

[Pearljam5000]

It is.

How?
8341 is $6K
Focal Trio6 also $6K
KH310 even less

 

[dfuller]

How?
8341 is $6K
Focal Trio6 also $6K
KH310 even less

I'll be honest; the KH310s and the SCM25As are the only ones there I'd actually want to spend time mixing on. The Genelecs work for some, but not for me. The Focals are really not at the same level. Very messy sounding and weird.

Also - the ATCs are the only ones there that don't fall apart as soon as you goose them a bit.

 

[Chrise36]

In my only demo session it sounded unnatural and hazy around upper mid low treble region, especially when my head move around a bit and not in dead center of the audition position. Not really bad but not great either, especially at its price.

But why bother with fan/non fan opinion anyway? As @IIkless said directivity is a measurable and objective problem, and ATC themselves think there’s a problem that’s why they need to upgrade the original to the new tweeter. Which, in their a spec tweeter they says:

Improved Off-Axis Response: the complex geometry of the tweeter’s soft dome diaphragm and precision-machined, low-resonance alloy waveguide produces a smooth on-axis and improved off-axis response, which now extends beyond ATC ‘s previous benchmark of 22kHz to reach 25kHz (-6dB).

So they do think directivity need to be improved and they did so by this tweeter.

They introduced this tweeter because customers asked this just because they were using a cheap one. Audibly there is not much of a difference at least in the 40s although they might have done something different on the 25a.

 

[goat76]

They introduced this tweeter because customers asked this just because they were using a cheap one. Audibly there is not much of a difference at least in the 40s although they might have done something different on the 25a.

I'm quite sure ATC has just modified their in-house tweeter to fit in the 25A physically, which previously wasn't possible because of the large motor structure. If it ever was a sound quality difference between the 25A and the rest of the ATCs speaker range, they should now sound the same.

 

[YSC]

They introduced this tweeter because customers asked this just because they were using a cheap one. Audibly there is not much of a difference at least in the 40s although they might have done something different on the 25a.

So either they did produce a tweeter which have no audible improvement to a cheap one, or there's actually something they did improved, no?

 

[Chrise36]

So either they did produce a tweeter which have no audible improvement to a cheap one, or there's actually something they did improved, no?

Unless they have done something in the xo points on the 25A MKII the sound will be the same after all they are the same type of tweeter (silk) if they had used something more exotic like berylium or RAALs that would worth the extra cost and could have sounded better imho.

 

[Pearljam5000]

They introduced this tweeter because customers asked this just because they were using a cheap one. Audibly there is not much of a difference at least in the 40s although they might have done something different on the 25a.

 

[goat76]

In my only demo session it sounded unnatural and hazy around upper mid low treble region, especially when my head move around a bit and not in dead center of the audition position. Not really bad but not great either, especially at its price.

But why bother with fan/non fan opinion anyway? As @IIkless said directivity is a measurable and objective problem, and ATC themselves think there’s a problem that’s why they need to upgrade the original to the new tweeter. Which, in their a spec tweeter they says:

Improved Off-Axis Response: the complex geometry of the tweeter’s soft dome diaphragm and precision-machined, low-resonance alloy waveguide produces a smooth on-axis and improved off-axis response, which now extends beyond ATC ‘s previous benchmark of 22kHz to reach 25kHz (-6dB).

So they do think directivity need to be improved and they did so by this tweeter.

Yeah right.