ATC speakers / Monitors

[YSC]

Funny i am looking to buy again a bmw e36 coupe just for the analog feeling lol.

It is, I enjoyed the most the 993, but just like ATC, they are no longer SOTA, and funny analogy is, I saw some heavily modded 993 still runs the Nurburgring around 8min mark which is really impressive, but it’s the mods not the car itself.

Point is that great sound was possible decades ago but it can be achieved easier nowadays

 

[Chrise36]

I still remember the first time i saw a black 993 gt3 rs outside a pub in Germany one of the most beautiful cars ever. Never drove one though cause i was so much obsessed with the E36.

 

[Chrise36]

Point is that great sound was possible decades ago but it can be achieved easier nowadays

There are more tools now than in the past to get you there for sure

 

[YSC]

I still remember the first time i saw a black 993 gt3 rs outside a pub in Germany one of the most beautiful cars ever. Never drove one though cause i was so much obsessed with the E36.

let me keep off topic again, I driven a 993 C2 for quite some time and it was, very fun yet it will kill you if you are not capable enough.

There are more tools now than in the past to get you there for sure

yea that is, and more design choice are known, even in analogue domain can achieve the directivity and flat FR, low distortion etc. but not someone take some random poor driver, slap inside a mediocore cabinet and DSP the heck out of it for on axis anechoic flat response. on that front say even some of the dsp calibrated speakers like the adam T8V, have some directivity issue and I forgot which one, have some mid/low treble distortion issue settle in early on, those are drawbacks, possibly worse in practice than the non-optimized directivity or less linear big ATCs. what I admire in the audio field are the more tools or more SOTA offerings to let small to medium sized apartments can enjoy really hifi sound, and usually, with a nicer looking which gets the WAF sorted.

 

[BrokenEnglishGuy]

I think the problem here is ATC wanna sell his things as it were the best in the world, wich come with nosense words like magic
With tons of competition, as soon as you look at the market there is cheaper and better things, speakers competition is very tight.





That being said, since ATC is a old company and there is plenty of owners, you are going to see a lot of '' owner defense '' agaisnt the speaker. Like everything in this world.

Companies/studios using hi end speakers are a few minority, not every country is 1st world, i have to remember that? not everyone is rich even in the 1st world?


This is how looks like a popular monitor using for mastering music. Much more popular than any ATC.

 

[Tangband]

What do you mean by "old fashion" room treatment, that's the only real way of getting the decay times down. With EQ you can basically just flatten the frequency response but the decay times will roughly stay the same or just be somewhat reduced caused by a little less energy in those areas.

When using room acoustic treatment you fix the problems where the source of the problems occurs, and that should in all circumstances (when that can be done) be the absolute first step to fix the problem, and obviously long before you reach for the EQ tool which is basically just a 2D tool trying the repair a three-dimensional room problem.

I'm sure you know all this. But calling room treatment "old fashion" indicates that you maybe think there are new modern ways of fixing the room decay times.


I'm not quite sure what you want to show with your comparisons between your Genelec computer setup, and Torbachkristensen's professionally treated studio setup. Tonality is just one single parameter among many, your setups will most likely not sound even remotely the same or similar.

Yes, and first move is to have a good room and then to do the speaker installement in the correct way. The tune dem method is the best, and this method is done without measurements, by listening to the tunes of the music - most easy is to follow the bass players tunes.
This is not something spoky , and how to do this is described here, by lejonklou:

Setting up loudspeakers for the best tune -

In this way, you gonna need much less dsp correction to begin with. The roomcorrection works much better If the corrections can be done individually , different for each speaker, this is however not needed if the setup of the loudspeakers are absolutely symmetrical with the same distance to L/R walls.

 

[dfuller]

Yep. ATCs are not bad. They are not SOTA either. But they are decent, well built, reliable speakers that do some things very well, and others not so much.

Their directivity behavior is just okay though far from the worst I've seen, same for their frequency response. What ATCs do in my experience that few others do well is the dynamic "jump" they have. Few direct radiators are on that level.

 

[YSC]

Yes, first move is to do the speaker installement in the correct way. The tune method is the best, and this method is done without measurements, by listening to the tunes of the music - most easy is to follow the bass players tunes.
This is not something spoky , and how to do this is described here :

In this way, you gonna need much less dsp correction to begin with. The roomcorrection works much better If the corrections can be done individually , different for each speaker, this is however not needed if the setup of the loudspeakers are absolutely symmetrical with the same distance to L/R walls.

actually, for this basically I exclusively follows the Genelec suggestion of soffit mount/ put the speaker really close to the wall, to make that mainly bass boost with room gain, then DSP it out, and thing is to not let the reflection calcellation into the mids/highs, reflection boost/cancellation is fairly straight forward and can be estimated pretty accurately with say REW room simulation for placing spot estimation. The point is, not to say just randomly put a speaker in a random spot and EQ the bad things away, that's only done when the lord of home is included into the formula. and if you look at suggestion here, it's usually "why not both", no single way fixes everything, but if you have the space and freedom, do treatments, place the speakers at locations where DSP would have minimal adverse effect and less cancellation nulls. if you have no choice, just do what you can

 

[Chrise36]

Yep. ATCs are not bad. They are not SOTA either. But they are decent, well built, reliable speakers that do some things very well, and others not so much.

Their directivity behavior is just okay though far from the worst I've seen, same for their frequency response. What ATCs do in my experience that few others do well is the dynamic "jump" they have. Few direct radiators are on that level.

Agreed and the better ones even more expensive now

 

[Tangband]

actually, for this basically I exclusively follows the Genelec suggestion of soffit mount/ put the speaker really close to the wall, to make that mainly bass boost with room gain, then DSP it out, and thing is to not let the reflection calcellation into the mids/highs, reflection boost/cancellation is fairly straight forward and can be estimated pretty accurately with say REW room simulation for placing spot estimation. The point is, not to say just randomly put a speaker in a random spot and EQ the bad things away, that's only done when the lord of home is included into the formula. and if you look at suggestion here, it's usually "why not both", no single way fixes everything, but if you have the space and freedom, do treatments, place the speakers at locations where DSP would have minimal adverse effect and less cancellation nulls. if you have no choice, just do what you can

Yes, but the truth is - If you have a big, good room for two channel playback and can place your speakers wherever you want, the result can be very good or even the best without any roomcorrection at all, but this demands understanding of the tunemethod , how to listen to melodies when doing correct installement.

”the lord of home” or the ”Queen of home” can be a drawback in good soundquality , If the placement of the speakers are compromised depending on WAF *

The Genelec suggestions are a good beginning, but can be bettered using tunemethod in all normal listening rooms . You also have not only the distance from the frontwall behind the speakers to play with, but also the distance between the speakers, the listeningposition in the room and the distance to the sidewalls. This ratio or formula will be different in every room.
Optimal 2-channel listening need the listeningroom to be somewhat ”live” and to much damping of reflections make the sound worse. This is very different from 5.1 channel listening where almost every wall can be damped in the room. If talking about 2-channel listening, diffusion is very often much better, with the exception of basstubes for corners which is often very beneficial.

* Wife acceptance factor

 

[Purité Audio]

The Linn ‘tune dem’ method!
Get a microphone and REW.
Keith

 

[DSJR]

Yep. ATCs are not bad. They are not SOTA either. But they are decent, well built, reliable speakers that do some things very well, and others not so much.

Their directivity behavior is just okay though far from the worst I've seen, same for their frequency response. What ATCs do in my experience that few others do well is the dynamic "jump" they have. Few direct radiators are on that level.

Now Billy's gone, it may come to pass that research along modern lines can happen. No idea as I've had no contact with anyone there since 2009. I wonder how sales of the domesticated models fare compared to the studio ones now? If Harbeth can pave the way for their futore, taking their market by the hand and leading it upwards to better things with them, then I'm sure ATC can.

I always believed with experience that you MUST ideally get the room right FIRST, 'cos if you do, ANY speaker will have a far easier time doing its job with minimal if any correction. A bad room will make everything sound crap frankly - and you'd be amazed how awful some barely furnished and huge glass expanse domestic rooms are these days. Even sweet toned Harbeths suffer here!

Like a poster says above, I can slip back into hearing music through various ATC models with no effort at all. Who effin' cares if they're leading edge sota any more? A good box is still a good box, even if the current version of the mid 80's original is early noughties or so (SL drivers well established and curvy midrange waveguide).

 

[DSJR]

The Linn ‘tune dem’ method!
Get a microphone and REW.
Keith

I know most human males are comp;letely tone deaf, but don't knock it if you've never done it (tune dem). It's a great tool to help get a room and rig set up right, if not the only one!

 

[Tangband]

The Linn ‘tune dem’ method!
Get a microphone and REW.
Keith

I have a lot of microphones and measurement programes already , they are good for measurements and roomcorrection but cant help me hearing melody-tunes, - I suggest you also learn the tunedem method to gain in sound quality.

Melody - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Tangband]

I know most human males are comp;letely tone deaf, but don't knock it if you've never done it (tune dem). It's a great tool to help get a room and rig set up right, if not the only one!

Very true!
Nice to have at least two other persons on this forum who can do installement of speakers with the tune dem method- you and goat76 .

Everyone thats not tone-deaf can learn this method, this is 95% of the population.

Tone Deafness Explained

Do people cringe when you sing? You've got company. But researchers have found that only 1 in 20 people truly has amusia, the technical term for tone deafness. Tests have shown that some people with bad singing voices hear music just fine. Amusics are a smaller group with a perceptual problem...

www.sciencedaily.com

 

[YSC]

After reading that method. It just looks to me like… move around to find the spot where there are least room mode induced in the lower frequencies, and also spaces where comb filtering isn’t that bad. Which in my experience rew can handle pretty well, after moving around and found the right place to put will minimal room mode excited in the speakers frequency range, eq the unavoidable, I did that with the cheapo 2.1 and results are pretty good. You know compared to uk, HK is a far worse place with concrete tiny apartments and huge glass windows, but this approach actually makes sound pretty well within all the limited space

 

[DSJR]

Very true!
Nice to have at least two other persons on this forum who can do installement of speakers with the tune dem method- you and goat76 .

Everyone thats not tone-deaf can learn this method, this is 95% of the population.

Tone Deafness Explained

Do people cringe when you sing? You've got company. But researchers have found that only 1 in 20 people truly has amusia, the technical term for tone deafness. Tests have shown that some people with bad singing voices hear music just fine. Amusics are a smaller group with a perceptual problem...

www.sciencedaily.com

I obviously don't regard this as the ONLY way to do it, but as I always learned lyrics and sang along with songs practically ever since I could speak, it's kinda natural for me anyway. It's just that before May 1981 and a fateful visit to Linn, I never did it consciously

Another method just using voice and ears, stand facing close to the wall saying/singing 'Dum de Dum de Dum' in a deep voice to yourself (yes, seriously) and then step back slowly, listening for how your voice changes timbre. The point where the room-added 'boom' all but disappears is a great first place to put your speaker. I know, it's not objective enough for here, but it's another crude technique that helps and certainly doesn't hinder!

 

[Tangband]

After reading that method. It just looks to me like… move around to find the spot where there are least room mode induced in the lower frequencies, and also spaces where comb filtering isn’t that bad.

This is correct. Also, with tunedem method, you can find the best soundquality place for the two speakers within +-1 cm in a normal room. This is because the brain is intelligent, and can draw musical conclusions. The microphone is plain stupid and tone-deaf, but can measure some corrections needed in the room with high precision.

 

[goat76]

I obviously don't regard this as the ONLY way to do it, but as I always learned lyrics and sang along with songs practically ever since I could speak, it's kinda natural for me anyway. It's just that before May 1981 and a fateful visit to Linn, I never did it consciously

Another method just using voice and ears, stand facing close to the wall saying/singing 'Dum de Dum de Dum' in a deep voice to yourself (yes, seriously) and then step back slowly, listening for how your voice changes timbre. The point where the room-added 'boom' all but disappears is a great first place to put your speaker. I know, it's not objective enough for here, but it's another crude technique that helps and certainly doesn't hinder!

That sounds like a fun way to do it, will try it sometime.

 

[Purité Audio]

I know most human males are comp;letely tone deaf, but don't knock it if you've never done it (tune dem). It's a great tool to help get a room and rig set up right, if not the only one!

It’s complete and utter BS, alongside PRAT and not wearing your wristwatch, Linn should have spent the time on research rather than marketing.
Keith