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ATC speakers / Monitors

Ilkless

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ATC drivers and speakers measure better than all of the other speakers I have ever encountered, and by no small margin. That's both in time and frequency domain.

Frequency response of some DSP corrected speakers was maybe a bit better once calibrated in room (by less than half dB peak to peak) but that came at a very high cost in terms of coloration, loss of depth, headroom and definition. Time wise ATC are running circles around them DSP or not. Once the DSP correction is bypassed, those speakers typically fall apart.

So he's deliberately crippling other speakers while designing entire rooms around ATCs and their directivity mismatch, before using that as evidence of ATC superiority.
 

Puddingbuks

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Nice post from Thomas at Northward Acoustics on ATC over at the blue place today:

Nice as in ridiculous.
 

subframe

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So he's deliberately crippling other speakers while designing entire rooms around ATCs and their directivity mismatch, before using that as evidence of ATC superiority.
ATC (and Northward) are relied upon by a huge number of absolutely top-level studios, and have been for a very very long time. There’s a reason for that. Though it seems to be hard for lots of ‘hifi’ people to believe, professionals in the studio world know exactly what they’re doing.
 

Ilkless

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ATC (and Northward) are relied upon by a huge number of absolutely top-level studios, and have been for a very very long time. There’s a reason for that. Though it seems to be hard for lots of ‘hifi’ people to believe, professionals in the studio world know exactly what they’re doing.

They are also responsible for, and perpetuate, Toole's circle of confusion. Not exactly what people who know what they're doing do.
 
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ATC (and Northward) are relied upon by a huge number of absolutely top-level studios, and have been for a very very long time. There’s a reason for that. Though it seems to be hard for lots of ‘hifi’ people to believe, professionals in the studio world know exactly what they’re doing.
Yes, the constant dissing of ATC on here is pretty hilarious.



I'd rather trust their clients and the stunning work they have produced, than the plethora of pent up keyboard warriors here. :facepalm:
 

Purité Audio

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I would trust measurement if I were you, Northward doesnt seem keen to publish any measurements a reticence he shares with ATC.
Keith
 
D

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Nice post from Thomas at Northward Acoustics on ATC over at the blue place today:

You might want to revisit your link?

There was an issue when you reposted it here:
1678386408625.png



As seen on that gearslutz thread:

1678386468327.png
 

dfuller

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Mk1 (L) and Mk2 (R).
1057917d1677389984-atc-announces-scm25a-pro-mk2-d01f894e-c920-4ea4-be30-b9c9fb48ed7c.jpeg



Noticed a couple of things...

1. ATC's tweeter has a substantially deeper flange on the faceplate vs the old Peerless. Will it improve directivity? Maybe a bit.
2. The mid driver was moved down slightly to make space for the new tweeter; this does not bode particularly well for vertical directivity matching, which was already less than amazing.
3. The cabinet is ever so slightly taller. That might mean interior cabinet volume is slightly increased, which might change the box tuning ever so slightly.

So he's deliberately crippling other speakers while designing entire rooms around ATCs and their directivity mismatch, before using that as evidence of ATC superiority.
That is... not really accurate, given his designs with Genelec mains are still generally top-class. The issues he pointed out with Genelecs themselves are not insubstantial, but you don't want to hear it, you're literally just here to call us all dumb.
 
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Chrise36

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Mk1 (L) and Mk2 (R).
1057917d1677389984-atc-announces-scm25a-pro-mk2-d01f894e-c920-4ea4-be30-b9c9fb48ed7c.jpeg



Noticed a couple of things...

1. ATC's tweeter has a substantially deeper flange on the faceplate vs the old Peerless. Will it improve directivity? Maybe a bit.
2. The mid driver was moved down slightly to make space for the new tweeter; this does not bode particularly well for vertical directivity matching, which was already less than amazing.
3. The cabinet is ever so slightly taller. That might mean interior cabinet volume is slightly increased, which might change the box tuning ever so slightly.
Too many bolts on the new one. Was it necessary to avoid resonances maybe.
 
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dfuller

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Too many bolts on the new one. Was it nessesery to avoid resonances maybe.
The front baffle was changed at some point to bolted on instead of glued - I've seen plenty of Mk1s with bolted on front baffles.
 

Geert

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The issues he pointed out with Genelecs themselves are not insubstantial,
What issues did he point out? I'm only aware of one opinion he gave: "in my experience they don't translate nearly as well". There's also "I stopped working with B&W, GENELEC, PMC etc because they all have (sometimes major) issues", without further details so no clue what to make of it.
 

dfuller

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What issues did he point out? I'm only aware of one opinion he gave: "in my experience they don't translate nearly as well". There's also "I stopped working with B&W, GENELEC, PMC etc because they all have (sometimes major) issues", without further details so no clue what to make of it.
to quote:
Very fatiguing, high distortion levels for a pro monitor. Amp settings creating weird phase issues. Port noises. Too high discrepancies between drivers response from one unit to another making L/R drivers calibration very difficult.
 

Lieglein

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ATC (and Northward) are relied upon by a huge number of absolutely top-level studios, and have been for a very very long time. There’s a reason for that....
Of course. It's always very important to define this reason to come to a conclusion. :)
 
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thewas

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What issues did he point out? I'm only aware of one opinion he gave: "in my experience they don't translate nearly as well". There's also "I stopped working with B&W, GENELEC, PMC etc because they all have (sometimes major) issues", without further details so no clue what to make of it.
I had asked him and he said would also show measurements of his which show the supposed problems of Genelecs and am still waiting...
 
D

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I didn't realize until now that ATC were creating such hysteria in here. That's quite surprising. It's like Genelec's on Gearslutz but in reverse.
 

Ilkless

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I didn't realize until now that ATC were creating such hysteria in here. That's quite surprising. It's like Genelec's on Gearslutz but in reverse.

Hysteria by definition is not substantiated with evidence. Much, much empirical evidence and detailed, clear explanations of what this evidence means was given to the ATC fetishists that they refuse to engage with.

Also on the point of unit to unit variation, I don't believe that ATC can even come close to this curve, showing variations for 2500 set

1678413060970.png


Per SOS:

"The graph shows that, between 40Hz and 12kHz, 50 percent of the 2500 tested KH monitors are within ±0.2dB of the median (cyan), and 80 percent are between ±0.35dB (blue). These are astonishing results of precision and consistency. Even the remaining ‘wayward’ 10 percent of production units are still within ±0.9dB (magenta)."

And Northward wants us to believe his anecdotal experience of a brand contradicts a 2500-speaker sample taken from the production line, or that his British cottage industry boxes are secretly built to levels of consistency beyond this. We aren't taken by sweeping claims from gurus without verifiable evidence here.
 
D

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I don't have a horse in this race yet but you proved my point by going as far as name calling an industry standard work tool. Hysteria was the correct noun. I was not pointing at anyone but accept who's shoes fit. That was an observation of the whole conversation.

I'm sure you're rational enough to realize that this type of behaviour underline a lack of confidence and that it is misplaced in a rational conversation.

I worked with them a few times and love them. It is a great tool to get the job done. Hopefully I'll be one of those enlisted fetishist soon enough.
 

badspeakerdesigner

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Nice post from Thomas at Northward Acoustics on ATC over at the blue place today:


I got removed from the thread and banned for providing my opinions on the product, which questioned things like it's price and some design choices. I knew gearspace as a junkhole but that one surprised me. Oh well nothing of value was lost. I didn't violate any rules, yet others did such as personal attacks and their posts stay up. You will also experience the same thing if you provide negative feedback or opinions about UAD products (some of their business practices are illegal in the EU, don't talk about it there though or you'll get banned). When you receive infractions at gearspace it's always accompanied by a reason, but the ones I got for ATC and UAD threads had no reason listed.... I speculate that both companies may be giving a decent sum of cash to the site for advertising. What a dumpster fire that site and it's users are.
 
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