ATC speakers / Monitors

[elvisizer]

More so, that they are ridiculously over-overpriced.

depends on location- the prices in the UK aren't bad but here in the US they're about double the UK!

 

[Liya]

depends on location- the prices in the UK aren't bad but here in the US they're about double the UK!

Buying local makes sense again.

 

[Ilkless]

Did you get to hear them after all your posts?

Of course, the usual handwavy appeals to the purportedly unquantifiable mystique of flat baffle multiway speakers and insistence on anecdotal experience, sticking fingers in the ears at any mention of directivity and psychoacoustics. We don't really stand for that from the mystical artisan brands here and I have no clue why ATC gets a pass for just pretending to care about the engineering when it subscribes to a paradigm that has been out of date for at least 20 years.

Would it satisfy you to say I found bass was unremarkable, that the midrange was forward and obscured harmonics of fundamentals in the vocal range, and the crossover hazy from the mismatch across the lineup?

But of course, it seems to ATC cultusts that when ATC performs well its down to their oh-so-special design and just-right amount of idiosyncracies - and down to room and operator error when it doesn't. But oh, the 20 year out of date playbook is conveniently the best for its job despite ignoring all the massive steps forward in psychoacoustics and acoustic design because it still has an rarefied air among users and engineers who have just an outdated understanding of speaker performance.

Oh stop it, please! We know you dislike ATC. If a Kii Three or one of the other domestic favourites such as D&D goes t*ts up in a few years, I wonder how easy it might be to get it fixed, espedcially if the Hypex? amp modules are no longer made or the company itself if an EPROM needs replacing no matter how unlikely. Same for the drivers unless they're SB or similar stock parts?

I didn't know it then, but the ATC 100A's I loved thirty years ago can still be fully serviced and updated today, from amp packs to drivers if needs be. The amp packs (which run quiet through the tweeters by the way!) shouldn't ever be an issue and I've seen other UK speaker repairers working on ATC-like drivers (not sure how different the Audax mid dome that PMC used is to the ATC original. The bass units are all but indestructible out in the field (the 15" foam surrounds go though as they all do) although an amp failure with DC at rail level going in will kill them.

Of course, living in the far east and distanced from the factory may well turn your head to other modern brands, but just because ATC currently don't use DSP or other fancy tech doesn't mean the speakers are crap - and I for one have never EVER dismissed what the likes of Genelec and Neumann are doing at lower prices, believe me I haven't! I look even lower at the sub-£/$1000 wonder-boxes coming along and wonder just how good, or not, they really are

No matter to me as this brand's pricing is beyond me now and herself doesn't like the looks of the 40A's, so ruling them out despite them being a good size match to our room. I don't see why we can't have a fanboy thread about them with some objective comments, praise and criticism where necessary. Me? For whatever subjective reason, I can 'live' with ATC's way of doing things (even the 11's which seem better balanced mid-bass to upper-midrange than the 19 and 20) easily. It remains ot be seen (or heard) if I'd find Genelecs or Neumanns so easy to listen through (Kii's look too oddball as do D&D's and price rules them out as well). Just PLEASE don't criticise for the sake of it! Cottage Industry Crap is below the belt for a brand such as ATC, even if it may be falling behind a bit.

I have the cheapest ATC prices worldwide where I am. I can walk out my door to get an SCM19 for $2.5k new from the local distributor.

Ok, so no cutting edge super-speakers. Neumann and Genelec both have analog amp packs in several speakers, a similarly broad service network and track record of reliability. That the ATC happens to work better in your room is essentially down to some haphazard two-wrongs-make-a-right approach and the inevitable influence of non-auditory variables like the prestige of ATC. Impeccable engineering is not devoid of personality.

 

[goat76]

…and not to mention, that they killed someone you loved.

 

[czt]

A recently deceased Hungarian engineer, who changed his mains from Genelec to ATC (and always dismissed room correction):

Spoiler

 

[Pearljam5000]

A recently deceased Hungarian engineer, who changed his mains from Genelec to ATC (and always dismissed room correction):

And...?

 

[Chrise36]

A recently deceased Hungarian engineer, who changed his mains from Genelec to ATC (and always dismissed room correction):

Can you help with translation

 

[kongwee]

Lots of studio don't do dsp room correction and happily survived and earning.

 

[DSJR]

It's like this and I admit these are very old reminiscences now... Many recordings that I knew sounded good on all manner of different speakers were mixed using ATC's. the 'slight overdamped fuzzy' kind of quality Ilkless refers to (I heard it in some models to start with, but not others..) actually works here as it does seem to make engineers work just that little bit harder to get the mix just right. It's been commented here that Genelec speakers seem just a touch more flattering and one engineer here claims that mixes can't always be 'finished off' with them alone. Engineers do adapt to their monitors thoigh and look at the awfully coloured Tannoys and so on used in UK studios in the 60's which still managed to produce good recordings especially in the 'classical' field. The ATC's from my era disliked compressed recordings intensely (maybe Ilkless listens to more compressed records, I don't know), but give them their head (same I'm sure of all decent pro monitors) and they come to life in a way many domestic models simply don't!

I'm not in the slightest saying that the speaker world begins and ends with ATC, flat baffle and all (so feckin' what!!!). It's such a shame that transport costs of these heavy old lumps is so high currently, but we suffer too getting things here to the UK and no matter how 'good' Revels may be or are, that multi-driver tower approach doesn't interest me overmuch despite good Klippel test figures. My personal interest now is smaller cheaper speakers that appear to have extended bass up to a moderate level - does the bass sound 'wrong' even at moderate volumes before terminal distortion takes over? My 20ASL pro's with bass turned up a couple of notches had 'stunt bass' to me, which I found disappointing, but the Vifa based tweeter was uncouth in this early pair and I couldn't replace the tweeters without much alteration to the cutoput in the baffle (or a fresh pair of blue painted baffles which ATC then didn't want to do unless I paid around £1500 to them - kind of put me off back then). Apparently the new tweeter drops right in and performs rather better but it's to late now for me.

We were talking about 40's. Knowing what I know about the ATC mid dome and its fussiness if not actively driven (ATC used to put phase adjustments at the crossover points to better optimise the transition but I don't know if the 40A does too), I'd always look to the A version and ignore the passive, as I'd probably look at Harbeths for a passive speaker option given five grand to blow on speakers, as the SHL5+-XD's really are very good and integrate well, despite the old fashioned shape - flat but wider baffle again - oh dear . Not everyone wants a pair of vaguely feminine egg shaped wonder-boxes in their room and the larger Neumanns which I'm sure are wonderful at their job, just look terrible in a domestic setting when it's not just the (usually male) owner to please.

 

[goat76]

@DSJR

Can you tell me what you mean by the “fussiness” of the ATC’s mid dome?

To me, the mid is the best I've heard from any speakers. Voices and instruments sound very convincing with a sense of a three-dimensional quality to them, meaty and life-like.

 

[DSJR]

@DSJR

Can you tell me what you mean by the “fussiness” of the ATC’s mid dome?

To me, the mid is the best I've heard from any speakers. Voices and instruments sound very convincing with a sense of a three-dimensional quality to them, meaty and life-like.

The dome is narrow band and is used almost wide open with little to no room for crossover overlap. the revised (twenty years ago) curvy waveguide may well help here, but there were/are resonances just above the usable range of said driver coupled with an early roll-off at the lower end (there was an extremely heated thread on the long defunct Zero Gain forum about it with response plots presented, challenging the almost religious admiration of said driver), which may explain why many plots of ATC speakers show a bump-up in response in the middle of its passband.

Now, the above is all very well, but the doping is CRITICAL to get right. Too much and the dome works too low in range and too little and it's too high, not going quite deep enough. There's very little to no margin for error here as I mention above, the thing is used almost wide open. At one point it was admitted to me that the doping was a bit variable and it's one reason why PMC claimed to abandon it in favour of an Audax type some decades back (PMC's words to me, not mine). Steps were taken to try to sort it out, but the fact remains that the ATC mid dome needs care to match properly to the drivers either side of it and it's really best done by an active crossover!!!

By the way to answer criticisms of the designs being old fashioned - FAR better to get a basic design right in the first place (or as near' right' as possible) than purely to rely on DSP alone to sort it out as I suspect some of the cheaper active 'wonder-boxes' do? Just my thoughts obviously with only 'experience' rather than hard evidence to back the vibe up.

 

[czt]

And...?

And "we" don't understand this ATC hype.

 

[czt]

Can you help with translation

I only posted to illustrate the switch to ATC. (Both are presentations of the studio gears.)

 

[kongwee]

There is no much to say as you mastering studio might not end up using ATC, Neuman or Genelec. I do encounter the floorstander 3 way ATC monitor. Not really outstanding in details and sounds tagging. Being in studio lots of gear in the room can affect the sound even it is acoustically treated. You have console and racks.

 

[fpitas]

People used (and still use) NS-10s for mixing. Once again, it's not because they're the best speaker. I can believe ATCs serve a similar purpose. Not at all sure that's a compliment.

 

[goat76]

People used (and still use) NS-10s for mixing. Once again, it's not because they're the best speaker. I can believe ATCs serve a similar purpose. Not at all sure that's a compliment.

Seriously, what makes you think that?

I guess you think the same about all speakers that are popular in music studios like Genelecs, Focals, Neumann etc. You should probably avoid them all!

 

[fpitas]

Seriously, what makes you think that?

I guess you think the same about all speakers that are popular in music studios like Genelecs, Focals, Neumann etc. You should probably avoid them all!

What type of speakers do you use at home?

No, people here have commented that Genelecs can be too forgiving in a studio. I imagine that is true for a lot of the more refined monitors. You need some idea what your mix will sound like in the real world, like in a car, or listening on old white van speakers, or rocking out to Bose cubes. Most end-users don't know or care about high fidelity.

I built my own active MTM speakers, from a witches brew of RSS390HF-4 woofers, W18E-001 mids, and TAD TD2002 drivers on 511 horns. They use an RCF DX-2006 DSP.

 

[goat76]

No, people here have commented that Genelecs can be too forgiving in a studio. I imagine that is true for a lot of the more refined monitors. You need some idea what your mix will sound like in the real world, like in a car, or listening on old white van speakers, or rocking out to Bose cubes. Most end-users don't know or care about high fidelity.

I built my own active MTM speakers, from a witches brew of RSS390HF-4 woofers, W180E001 mids, and TAD TD2002 drivers on 511 horns. They use an RCF DX-2006 DSP.

What I've heard, it's a bit of a misunderstanding why the NS-10 was so popular in studios. It wasn't because they sounded like something the general population had at home, they worked more like a magnifying glass for the midrange, and if the mixing engineer didn't hear anything wrong with those speakers, the mix would most likely not sound bad on anything else.

It was also a small portable speaker that freelancing engineers could easily take with them, just for a reference if they had to work with monitors they weren't used to.

I don't think many productions were made with the NS-10 as the main monitors, a full-range speaker is needed to hear the full spectrum in most cases.


This article goes in-depth about the NS-10. If you look at the measurements they had a really good transient response, which was probably one of the things that made them a good “studio tool” among others. Fast, brutally revealing tools that made certain aspects and faults in the mix stand out, and in most cases not used as the main monitors.

The Yamaha NS10 Story

Love or hate the Yamaha NS10, this unassuming little speaker has found a place in the studios of many of the world's top producers. We trace its history, and investigate why a monitor whose sound has been described as "horrible" became an industry standard.

www.soundonsound.com

 

[Chrise36]

People used (and still use) NS-10s for mixing. Once again, it's not because they're the best speaker. I can believe ATCs serve a similar purpose. Not at all sure that's a compliment.

You know most of the reviews back in the day use to quote that ATC are too revealing because of the studio character therefore not ideal for home use...

 

[fpitas]

What I've heard, it's a bit of a misunderstanding why the NS-10 was so popular in studios. It wasn't because they sounded like something the general population had at home, they worked more like a magnifying glass for the midrange, and if the mixing engineer didn't hear anything wrong with those speakers, the mix would most likely not sound bad on anything else.

It was also a small portable speaker that freelancing engineers could easily take with them, just for a reference if they had to work with monitors they weren't used to.

I don't think many productions were made with the NS-10 as the main monitors, a full-range speaker is needed to hear the full spectrum in most cases.


This article goes in-depth about the NS-10. If you look at the measurements they had a really good transient response, which was probably one of the things that made them a good “studio tool”. Fast, brutally revealing tools that made faults in the mix stand out.

The Yamaha NS10 Story

Love or hate the Yamaha NS10, this unassuming little speaker has found a place in the studios of many of the world's top producers. We trace its history, and investigate why a monitor whose sound has been described as "horrible" became an industry standard.

www.soundonsound.com

Yes, they have a peak around 1.5kHz, which gives them a forward sound.