watchnerd
Grand Contributor
I'd been weighing getting some new speakers for the new home, both for the office / mixing room and the living room. My criteria were that I wanted to buy both powered studio monitors for the office and domestic-friendly speakers from the same manufacturer for the living room so that I would have a decent chance of mixes translating between the office and the couch.
This effectively narrowed my choices down to the handful of vertically integrated companies that make their own drivers and have offerings in both the pro and consumer worlds: Focal, JBL, ATC, Dynaudio.
Unfortunately, JBL had to be cut because my wife won't let me have big horny speakers.
Focal, I've never really liked the sound of.
This left ATC and Dynaudio, both of which I've used before (both for mixing and for listening) and liked. I can do good work on both, for extended periods. They do have trade-offs with one another, but they're more similar to each other than either is to JBL.
Ultimately, though, I did not choose ATC for reasons that have nothing to do with their speakers.
It all has to do with communication and information:
Dynaudio has multiple interviews with their engineers on YouTube, lots of explanations for how they engineer their products, product managers who engage in Q&A in forums, they respond to emails, have a Facebook group, active 3rd party community forums, etc, etc.
ATC, on the other hand, is a much smaller company, which seems to rely on its (mostly pro-oriented) dealers to answer questions. There are a few online communities, but for less active. The USA distributor is very engaging, but other than that, the amount of information flow was quite a bit less.
In an era of brick and mortar dealerships disappearing, and customer / audio dealer relationships almost non-existent (at least for me), I felt entirely justified in picking the vendor (Dynaudio) that had a better community as it is likely to be my main avenue of support. I bought my new office studio monitors online.
A friend, on the other hand, thought I was a horrible consumer (and possibly human being) for not being willing to drive 45-60 min each way to go visit the few vendors in the area who carry these products (and only limited selections) and make my decision the old fashioned way.
He practically accused me of stealing money and food from the mouths of their children.
I, on the other hand, feel like community support online + 30 day returns lets me trial in my own home at my own pace, and not under the pressure of making a decision in a short time in an environment I don't know.
So who is right?
This effectively narrowed my choices down to the handful of vertically integrated companies that make their own drivers and have offerings in both the pro and consumer worlds: Focal, JBL, ATC, Dynaudio.
Unfortunately, JBL had to be cut because my wife won't let me have big horny speakers.
Focal, I've never really liked the sound of.
This left ATC and Dynaudio, both of which I've used before (both for mixing and for listening) and liked. I can do good work on both, for extended periods. They do have trade-offs with one another, but they're more similar to each other than either is to JBL.
Ultimately, though, I did not choose ATC for reasons that have nothing to do with their speakers.
It all has to do with communication and information:
Dynaudio has multiple interviews with their engineers on YouTube, lots of explanations for how they engineer their products, product managers who engage in Q&A in forums, they respond to emails, have a Facebook group, active 3rd party community forums, etc, etc.
ATC, on the other hand, is a much smaller company, which seems to rely on its (mostly pro-oriented) dealers to answer questions. There are a few online communities, but for less active. The USA distributor is very engaging, but other than that, the amount of information flow was quite a bit less.
In an era of brick and mortar dealerships disappearing, and customer / audio dealer relationships almost non-existent (at least for me), I felt entirely justified in picking the vendor (Dynaudio) that had a better community as it is likely to be my main avenue of support. I bought my new office studio monitors online.
A friend, on the other hand, thought I was a horrible consumer (and possibly human being) for not being willing to drive 45-60 min each way to go visit the few vendors in the area who carry these products (and only limited selections) and make my decision the old fashioned way.
He practically accused me of stealing money and food from the mouths of their children.
I, on the other hand, feel like community support online + 30 day returns lets me trial in my own home at my own pace, and not under the pressure of making a decision in a short time in an environment I don't know.
So who is right?
