I quite admire their steadfast refusal to innovate, I suppose there is no real reason why they can’t continue to make the exact same design for another fifty years as long as they can sell them.
Keith
Keith
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ATC speakers / Monitors
- Thread starter Pearljam5000
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For that reason, I have my ATC speakers backward tilted a little bit so that the midrange dome is pointing directly at ear level at the listening position, this is done by leveling the spikes under the speakers and a small adjustment of just about 3 degrees is enough for the job.
The adjustment makes an audible difference for me as my speakers are positioned fairly close at just 2,04 meters from meat the listening position, for longer distances it may not make a huge difference.
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Their own tweeter, in fifty years well that’s alright then.
Keith
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Don't be so harsh, from the reports it's at least not worse than the 20€ one they were using before lol
Do you think ATC should search for more expensive components instead of going for the components that meet their performance target?
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I don't think ATC should do anything, they do well enough for what they are and there's nothing more they can do for such conservative designs
I don't see the "conservative design" approach as a negative thing, quite the opposite actually as that helps with the important factor of being easily serviceable, which is high on the list for their main market.
I just measured different pairs of speakers at the same location in my room...
DSJR
Major Contributor
Keith, can you PLEASE take off your 'dealer' hat for a moment? ATC appear to be a far smaller concern than they were 'in my day' and just maybe, the money is no longer there for hugely advanced new product development, no matter what their young designer chap wants. Billy's gone now so it remains to be seen how long they continue as they are. The 'new' 25A version looks interesting as the tweeter's been upgraded and the box is slightly taller when used sideways as intended. I don't know the previous one, so no idea how this new one compares with say, the KH310's which at least one person mentioned weren't too good on piano for some reason...
To @goat76 - Unless you sit a metre or so away, the angle of vertical spread (10 degrees or so?) should allow some reasonable listening height allowance, so no real need for tilting of the speakers - if they're passive 40's it really won't make a huge difference I'd have thought, for reasons discussed long ago. if you can accept the odd look of a speaker tilted back, then that's fine, but 3mm isn't much I have to say.
DSJR
Major Contributor
My pre SL 100A's were measured (one of them twice) in the space of four years or so and came out differently to that, the 'shape' basically flat but with an admitted triple-hump which was no more than 2dB on mine. Got to say I'd have liked mid and tweet level adjustments to help my cramped positioning situation, but like (hopefully) all good monitors, the quality of the bass didn't suffer apart from a slight lift, where overly porty 'BBC' designs boomed like eff in the same spot. The red grilles were fun (previous was red lacquer 20's with black grilles) but I had and subsequently fitted the stock black ones after a few garish months
Shown are the custom stands which were 1.5" or so taller than the originals they came with, later dumped as nobody wanted them and we were moving and the new owner wanted the stock C type stands they came with 
F*CK I miss them!
The good news is if you get another pair they will sound exactly the same.
Keith
Keith
Whoops, I meant to write that my speakers are tilted with 3 degrees, not 3mm. I have changed that now in my previous post.
I didn't expect to hear a difference at all but it is clearly audible, believe it or not. The tilt can be seen but not enough to make look odd at all, and the relatively small change with 3 degrees makes a bigger difference at 2 meters away than what someone might initially think, and the midrange dome is now "beaming" at the ears instead of the chest.
I know, it probably seems a bit anal, but remember that I have a short listening distance and the room has some acoustic treatments, so with the high ratio of direct sound I got at the listening position, small changes like that are likely more easily heard. But it's obviously part of the fine-tuning.
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That's more on the tweeter being flat baffle, it matches it nicely enough down around the woofer/mid cross. On older versions ATC used the Seas T25CF-001 or similar as the tweeter, which has a deeper almost waveguide-like flange.
DSJR
Major Contributor
No Keith, they'd sound better, as they cope with lower volumes without the sound collapsing into the boxes as they did then (they weren't designed for low level domestic volumes - they do it far better now).
Those days are long gone now and sadly confined to my history in my late single days, some very happy musical memories and a small pile of pictures. Got to deal with it, but after a lifetime, it's damned hard to all but give it up.
smooth or not, we will ended up some nice data to support, there are plenty of speakers out there with a waveguide but merge horribly, and some with minimal waveguide/flange like Dyn LYD-5 and KRK PR5 G4 doing okish horizontal directivity, no data on the ATC design though
I think any half decent speaker, even those as wonky as ATC, can sound good in a fully treated room with compensation for their frequency response anomalies... But in that case you're hearing a great room helping out an okay/average speaker.
Curious what measurements would show with an ATC studio vs a Genelec studio vs a Dutch & Dutch setup in a treated room. Maybe the differences would be small?
Doesn't seem like ATC has the engineering to keep up with the state of the art that moved on some time ago.
Curious what measurements would show with an ATC studio vs a Genelec studio vs a Dutch & Dutch setup in a treated room. Maybe the differences would be small?
Doesn't seem like ATC has the engineering to keep up with the state of the art that moved on some time ago.
I'd be curious too but I can say this much, the ATCs I've used do a thing in the mids that the Dutches don't. They're not mid forward, not really - they're just insanely detailed. The Neumanns do something largely similar, I think it has something to do with an exceptionally low distortion mid driver.
Could it be that they are straight up boosted in the mids? Do you recall the model? Based on this from ASR for one of their bookshelves, it could be a simple case of boosted mids if their purposeful engineering issues bleed into their larger models.
