ATC speakers / Monitors

[bachatero]

Density and perceived loudness are a desired quality.

WRONG. Or, maybe WRONG. In my own experience, regular people don't actually care about audio quality at all, or people wouldn't have accepted old car stereos or phone speakers today. The rise of compression seems to have been the result of music producers projecting what they think regular people want, but don't actually care about, at the cost of everyone else. Alternatively, it could have been an artifact of playing with the shiny new digital toys and everybody copied that because "everyone else" is doing so, and that's where we are today. However, those could be wrong so if you've got a different explanation I'm all ears.

ATCs are exceptional for picking out resonances in the midrange, which is extremely valuable as they can be unpleasant if not resolved. They're good at that specifically because the mid driver is 1, wide range (it covers a bit over 4 octaves) and 2, so well behaved that you know the problems are in the music and not the speaker.

Same Brawndo issue as before: If they're so good, why can't we get the frequency response and distortion measurements we are clamoring for?

 

[dfuller]

WRONG. Or, maybe WRONG. In my own experience, regular people don't actually care about audio quality at all, or people wouldn't have accepted old car stereos or phone speakers today. The rise of compression seems to have been the result of music producers projecting what they think regular people want, but don't actually care about, at the cost of everyone else. Alternatively, it could have been an artifact of playing with the shiny new digital toys and everybody copied that because "everyone else" is doing so, and that's where we are today. However, those could be wrong so if you've got a different explanation I'm all ears.

I do this for work, so I'm going to say straight out - you are incorrect here. Compression has been around literally since the dawn of electronically recorded music, and it has been used artistically pretty much the entire time. All those classic records everybody loses their minds over because they have DyNaMiC rAnGe have buttloads of compression. It lends weight and consistency to music (and sometimes movement, if you use it right). What you're after is lookahead brickwall limiting, which definitely was a serious problem in the late CD era. Things were getting pushed too loud to their detriment. The pendulum has swung back the other way a bit - and people have gotten better at making perceived loudness

Same Brawndo issue as before: If they're so good, why can't we get the frequency response and distortion measurements we are clamoring for?

There have been measurements posted throughout this thread - unfortunately searching a 251 page thread is kind of a giant pain in the neck. They are generally "flattish" - not to the DSP'd-to-within-an-inch-of-their-lives modern wonderboxes, maybe, but within +/-2dB for sure. Off-axis is decent though not perfect by any stretch, but for a flat baffle design it's very good. They have generally really pretty good stored energy behavior too.

 

[goat76]

Put together, I can't find many examples of producers with ATC making significantly better content than the competition despite the speakers being marketed and priced that way

That was my point.

My question wasn't if audio productions are better than others because of the use of ATC speakers, the question was if you think audio productions are generally worse in comparison to using other brands of speakers.



And where exactly does the price come into the picture?

Let's say there is an engineer who prefer the smallest and cheapest ATC speaker over the largest and the most expensive speaker Neumann got to offer, and always get the better result with the small ATC speaker. Which one do you think is the better choice for him to use for his work.

You can now swap out the brand names in the above example, as the opposite could equally likely to be true. The smallest and cheapest Neumann speaker could be the better choice than the largest and most expensive ATC speaker if that happens to work better for the engineer.

 

[goat76]

Here comes the circular argument

If atc isn’t good enough and no need to hope for more, thousands of studios and pros won’t use it to make a living
If the bad modern music out there isn’t good, it can be something else like user error or they can be produced using something else.

Hack a few weeks ago a link shared a certain old guy endorsing an ATC using studio, then the mix he did sounds bad. We had to admit that tools are tools, and professionals are also human who have a ton of capable people as well as a ton of bad ones, and both are able to survive. And that a brand in general is good enough doesn’t mean their whole lineup is good enough or is among best in class (price?) and nothing more should be demanded to be improved. If “overall good enough for the studios” is enough, they shouldn’t be even releasing their own tweeters, the $20 ones they had been using for decades is obvious good enough for thousands of studios. And they don’t need to refresh their own product line from 20 years ago, cause there was nothing to “worry” or hope for isn’t it? Why did they even release something new then?

Sorry, I have no idea what you are trying to say.

 

[bachatero]

I do this for work, so I'm going to say straight out - you are incorrect here. Compression has been around literally since the dawn of electronically recorded music, and it has been used artistically pretty much the entire time. All those classic records everybody loses their minds over because they have DyNaMiC rAnGe have buttloads of compression. It lends weight and consistency to music (and sometimes movement, if you use it right). What you're after is lookahead brickwall limiting, which definitely was a serious problem in the late CD era. Things were getting pushed too loud to their detriment. The pendulum has swung back the other way a bit - and people have gotten better at making perceived loudness

I never actually claimed compression was a bad thing, just that compression out the wazoo wasn't great and that it was the result of those two things. Also note that "I do this for work" doesn't actually mean anything because not only is it an appeal to authority, but I'm a musician and I nearly do this engineering stuff for work too.

There have been measurements posted throughout this thread - unfortunately searching a 251 page thread is kind of a giant pain in the neck. They are generally "flattish" - not to the DSP'd-to-within-an-inch-of-their-lives modern wonderboxes, maybe, but within +/-2dB for sure. Off-axis is decent though not perfect by any stretch, but for a flat baffle design it's very good. They have generally really pretty good stored energy behavior too.

That's the problem because for that price I expect nothing less than the best DSP designs possible. Actually, from what we're covering in my electrical engineering classes, it seems like the stuff DSP is doing is boring old technology that everybody should be using by now and it's downright unacceptable to not be able to get that.

 

[Avp1]

Why can't we just get the frequency response and distortion charts we deserve?

There were multiple measurements posted on this thread for big ATC speakers made by third party reviewers, which show what you are asking for. The only thing missing is a full spin report made using one particular tool which most people love here.

 

[Avp1]

People make good and bad mixes on almost everything, but also, most audiophiles wouldn't know what is commercially desired if it bit them in the face. Density and perceived loudness are a desired quality. That said, there's so much that goes on that has nothing to do with compression. ATCs are exceptional for picking out resonances in the midrange, which is extremely valuable as they can be unpleasant if not resolved. They're good at that specifically because the mid driver is 1, wide range (it covers a bit over 4 octaves) and 2, so well behaved that you know the problems are in the music and not the speaker.

I just heard an album using ATC SCM100 where there was too much upper base and some sibilants present. Three notches down for bass and two for treble in simple tone control brought everything to balance. Almost surely mastering engineer did not use good speakers in studio, otherwise he/she won't make that easy to fix mistake. This particular record was released in DSD format, thus I would expect that it would be done right, but no.

 

[Jim Taylor]

Actually, from what we're covering in my electrical engineering classes, it seems like the stuff DSP is doing is boring old technology that everybody should be using by now and it's downright unacceptable to not be able to get that.

Sometimes consumers are hesitant to purchase something, for whatever reason. If sufficient numbers of people won't buy it, manufacturers won't invest in it. Whether we think it has obvious advantages is totally beside the point.

Jim

 

[Avp1]

That's the problem because for that price I expect nothing less than the best DSP designs possible. Actually, from what we're covering in my electrical engineering classes, it seems like the stuff DSP is doing is boring old technology that everybody should be using by now and it's downright unacceptable to not be able to get that.

I have experience working with Audyssey and Dirac DSP programs. In both cases (various speakers) they subjectively sounded worse when I tried to use full range correction. Thus it is better to leave speaker response alone and only fix room interaction (low and mid bass mostly). ATC concept is to try make speaker drivers almost perfect on their own instead of adding crutches in DSP.

 

[bachatero]

subjectively sounded worse

This doesn't actually mean anything. How did they measure up?

 

[Avp1]

This doesn't actually mean anything. How did they measure up?

Objective measurements were better with full range correction, but they did not sound right subjectively. Something was unnatural in overall presentation.

 

[lowkeyoperations]

This doesn't actually mean anything. How did they measure up?

“Subjectively worse” does mean something to the listener. It’s just not necessarily translatable to someone else.

I find in my studio that a prefer my Dirac Live set to full range. It gives me the ability to set the overall slope of the frequency response.

Given my ears are 80cm from the tweeters there’s not a lot of natural roll off of high frequencies, so I find Dirac helps fine tune that.

 

[bachatero]

Objective measurements were better with full range correction, but they did not sound right subjectively. Something was unnatural in overall presentation.

Subjectivity doesn't matter when all you want is sound quality, because maybe a phone speaker is what sounds good to you. However, measurements standardized as being "good" don't have emotions or other biases by definition, and you can guess the rest based on this forum's name.

 

[dfuller]

That's the problem because for that price I expect nothing less than the best DSP designs possible. Actually, from what we're covering in my electrical engineering classes, it seems like the stuff DSP is doing is boring old technology that everybody should be using by now and it's downright unacceptable to not be able to get that.

You'd think, but no - keep in mind ATC is doing no corrective EQ in their crossovers. I'm not joking when I say that, I've seen the crossover board schematics.

 

[Avp1]

“Subjectively worse” does mean something to the listener. It’s just not necessarily translatable to someone else.

I find in my studio that a prefer my Dirac Live set to full range. It gives me the ability to set the overall slope of the frequency response.

Given my ears are 80cm from the tweeters there’s not a lot of natural roll off of high frequencies, so I find Dirac helps fine tune that.

In my case I used speakers at 9 to 13 feet range in somewhat treated rooms. This could be different. I would never put speakers at 80cm - none of speakers I ever experienced gave concise sound at less than 1.5M. Even coaxial drivers need some distance to achieve coherency.

 

[lowkeyoperations]

My speakers are point source designed for nearfield monitoring in studio environments.
They are 85cm apart and I’m sitting just inside the equilateral triangle.

The manufacturers recommended listening distance is 0.75-1.5m.

 

[Ktacos]

I do this for work, so I'm going to say straight out - you are incorrect here. Compression has been around literally since the dawn of electronically recorded music, and it has been used artistically pretty much the entire time. All those classic records everybody loses their minds over because they have DyNaMiC rAnGe have buttloads of compression. It lends weight and consistency to music

Ain't nobody but people who work on music are going to get this. Good luck.

I have experience working with Audyssey and Dirac DSP programs. In both cases (various speakers) they subjectively sounded worse when I tried to use full range correction. Thus it is better to leave speaker response alone and only fix room interaction (low and mid bass mostly). ATC concept is to try make speaker drivers almost perfect on their own instead of adding crutches in DSP.

Generally indicative of a speaker with poor directivity IME. This is why I consider speakers with that problem basically useless speakers, you can't EQ anything in the mid range and top end because they don't respond to EQ properly. If your speaker has good a dispersion transition between it's mid and tweeter, you can EQ the upper range all day to your preference. I recently just accepted a speaker I have can never sound good because it will always be throwing out too much energy at 3-5k and have a dip below that, nothing you can really do to make it sound right. All the speakers I currently use have good dispersion and I EQ the upper range just fine, I even mix on them

 

[YSC]

Sorry, I have no idea what you are trying to say.

Doesn’t matter, let me put it in simpler terms, everything survived in the market must have thousands of ppl using them, thinking they are good enough, or they will get bankrupt in a few years.

Every profession have good and bad participants, and usually it’s the ppl who are the difference between good and bad professionals, rarely the tools they choose, habit and good enough (usually this bar is far from SOTA), so professionals choice of gear is only meaning they are good enough and their skills could overcome the shortcomings, and that choice of gear are more often the company they worked at provide those gears, usually have some relation to how much a contract provides discount or guarantee of quality and services within a timeframe. Usually brand inertia and habit contribute more to absolute technical performance.

ATC themselves thinks they have stuffs to improve on, if not they would just produce the same speakers over and over since 50 years ago when they are obviously SOTA.

As @dfuller said, from the limited data of individual atc model have shown in the thread. The expensive pro lines generally have flattish on axis and ok but not great directivity, some quite easy to pick out directivity errors usually can be seen as steep peak and nulls at around mid to high cross over region. Great for flat baffles designs but there are lots of non flat baffle designs all around now. It’s the not going that final further step make at least some critics considered them not SOTA, not bad, but not that great.

Put it in simpler terms, if ATC made the KH420 with all ATC drivers, with better directivity matching, would you want it over the flat baffle one? I will personally feel it’s looking good, but FR and distortion plots of the imaginary speaker vs competitors will be the final decision

 

[boxerfan88]

Doesn’t matter, let me put it in simpler terms, everything survived in the market must have thousands of ppl using them, thinking they are good enough, or they will get bankrupt in a few years.

Agreed. ATC is surviving well because people are still willing to pay asking prices, their products are still very good, and demand is still running ahead of supply, which is good for ATC.

Many of their competitors are using newer tech like DSPs to overcome less than stellar drivers, which can close the gap with ATC’s drivers, and may surpass them from overall speaker performance perspective.

Hopefully they continue to innovate & survive, and not become another “Nokia” case study “we never did anything wrong but our competitors killed us”…

 

[YSDR]

At almost double the price
What advantages does the SCM50 have over 8361 or KH420?View attachment 379245

Double suspension drivers, hence the double price.