ATC Active 20s

Has anyone had a pair of ATC active 20s or has heard them.Ive just broke the golden rule when buying hi-fi and have ordered a pair of these without listening first,after reading a couple of good reviews.At present im using sonus Faber concertos fed from a WAD KAT 6550 with mods and want a more dynamic better controlled sound with improved bass focus.actualy i have the ATCs on sale or return so i have four weeks to make up my mind...thanx guys
By the way as my log in says im new to this forum but i have been into Hi-FI for about 15 years ......

 

Dunkyboy has them and is reportedly very happy with them.... they played a big part in the Edinburgh bake off last weekend which I sadly missed.
They need a pre-amp with XLR outs, or some kind of conversion from RCA to XLR - have you got this?
I'm sure he'll be along soon to let you know 1st hand.

 

Thanx

Well thanx i just would like to know how other people find them ,ill be running them from a musical fidelity a308 pre and have a audiosource single ended to balance lead on its way....

 

don't worry, auditioning is for wimps.

 

I got some ATC passives and luv 'em. The actives are even better apparently so I will be surprised if you are not impressed. I bought my ATC's without an audition, so join the club. I can only assume that like me, you have no dealers nearby.

I read all the reviews raving about low distortion, good bass control, blah, blah and they are true in practice. Mine are sealed enclosures (so are the SCM20's I think) and this appears to make them less fussy with regards to room placement vs. room mode control. Keep us posted on your impressions when they arrive.

Anyway, Dunkyboy will give you his full appraisal of the SCM20's when he clocks your post.

You may have seen this already but check out this link with loads of ATC reviews.

http://canadianhifi.com/products/reviews.htm

 

Thanx

Thanx Andyoz ,found the reviews to be of great interest ...your a star!!

 

did you buy the pair on hififorsale? I saw those, and having heard Dunkyboy's with my AS Dax Decade really should have snapped them up!

 

Okay, time I weighed in... [Warning: it's quite late and I'm at the bleary-eyed-with-exhaustion stage so please don't hate me if this post is hopelessly ponderous and completely unintelligible! I'm also a BIG fan of ATC actives, so this post will most likely gush a smidgen - you have been warned...]

I have a pair of 20s, having traded in my Active 10s and sub (and then some...) for them nearly a year ago. Put simply, they're great. To my tastes, they're some of the very best speakers I've ever had the pleasure of listening to. There are one or two models I've heard that can do some aspect of the sound better than the 20s (e.g. the Leema Xens "disappear" better than just about any speaker I've ever heard, and I seem to remember the Neat Ultima standmounts sounding exceedingly sweet on the end of some mind-bogglingly expensive electronics at a hifi show once), and of course bigger speakers will punch harder and deeper in the bass arena, but short of the bigger ATC actives I don't believe any speaker I've heard does everything (or even more than just one or two things...) better than these puppies.

My biggest turn-on in hifi is realism. I love it when I can close my eyes and not have to try hard to pretend that the sound coming out of the pair of boxes in front of me is really Duke Ellington and his band, or the Wiener Philharminic, or The Zep. I really love it when the suspension of disbelief is effortless. As such, my favourite hifi tends to be the stuff that "messes" with the signal the least. I'm a fan of "hifi" in the old school sense - high fidelity to the recording. If it's not on the recording I don't want to hear it. (Hifi geeks like to fire up the old argument about how can the listener possibly know that their system is truly faithful to the recording, but in my experience, you can just hear it - it's blindingly obvious, a breath of fresh air. That was how I felt upon my first exposure to ATC actives, the 10s, about 3 years ago, after going through speaker after speaker, in every hifi shop in Edinburgh and Glasgow.)

ATC Actives just tell it like it is. They're designed as monitoring tools for the studio, but are also aimed at hifi users, following the somewhat controversial principle (with which I wholeheartedly agree) that a system that is accurate will be just as enjoyable, romantic, touching and beautiful as what you put into it. Some people (a lot of people) like their hifi to add a little something - spice things up, or whatever. ATCs don't do that. They have a balance that's about as neutral as anything and they don't smooth over any flaws in the upstream components or the recording.

They're big (for standmounts), chunky, and exceedingly heavy (says he of the 3rd floor flat...) They have one of the best 6" bass/mid drivers known to man, which is a 13kg (?) beast that can put out a lot of volume and take a lot of punishment without ever (IME) sounding distressed, or anything short of clean as a whistle. The tweeter is a fantastic number from SEAS (one thing that really puts the 20 several leagues above the 10 despite the family resemblance). The cabinet is very, very solid and heavy, and has very little influence on the sound. And this is of course topped off by a very serious, very high quality pair of largely Class A monobloc power amps that control the drivers perfectly and allow them to perform to the very limits of their capability.

The end result is very open, revealing, dynamic, fast, natural, clear, solid, 3-dimensional, and above all, realistic. The combination of meaty-ass bass driver, high class tweeter, inert cabinet, and active design, give the 20s a wonderful sense of ease and poise with all types of music, no matter how loud you like it. They never sound strained - if you have a particularly large room you might be able to push them to their limits but in my 13' x 18' room my ears give out long before the speakers do.

One brief word of warning: it took me an awful long time to find just the right positioning (including angle of tilt of the stands...) for them in my room - I'm not exaggerating when I say that a centimeter or two can mean the difference between "okay, but something's not right" frustration, and audio bliss. That said, my room is a bit of a nightmare acoustically and my recent experience with the 20s in a decent room (which I will get around to writing about eventually, honest Ditton!) seemed to indicate that the speakers are not necessarily the source of my positioning-related grief!

Anyway, I need to go to bed so I'll stop here (otherwise I could go on... and on and on and on...) Suffice it to say that in terms of the criteria you mentioned - dynamics, control of sound, and bass focus - I can't imagine you'll be anything short of delighted. They do sound quite a bit different from Sonus Fabers, so it's possible you may not like them (speaker preference is about as personal and varied as anything). But TBH I'm willing to bet you'll fall in love with them, and never look back.

Do let us know what you think of them.

Dunc

 

Duncan,

Interested too.
Can you say a word, are they still good at low volumes (relatively) ?

Thx, Omer.

 

I try to avoid suggesting these to everyone who wants a good stand-mount so I don't seem like a broken record player but.. If you are looking at the active 20's also have a look at the PMC AML1. They cost a bit more but are f*cking awesome. http://www.pmcloudspeaker.com/aml1.html

I have the grey ones..wish I had the blue ones..

Check out the specs - Flat to 33hz anholic, Bryston 3BSST and 2BSST amps in the back, X-over at 1khz rather than the usual 3khz...

BTW, what's the difference between the 'Active 20' and the 'SCM20A' ??

 

Mmm, would love to hear the AML1s - by all accounts a stunning speaker. A head-to-head with the 20s would be most interesting (and certainly entertaining I'm sure!)

The SCM 20A is the old style version of the Active 20 (SCM stands for Studio Control monitor I believe) - the new model has the product code SCM 20A-2. The only difference I believe are the cabinets (standard veneered box on the old ones, swoopy shininess on the new ones) and a power reduction on the bass amp from 250 watts to 200 watts (still the same 50 watts for the tweeter).

And omers, the 20s are excellent at low volumes - there certainly isn't any deterioration in sound quality at low volumes. That said, the 20s (as with all ATCs) luuuurve to play loud. I find that at least with real instruments/vocals, anything less than near-realistic volumes sounds a bit dissatisfying, but that's just me (and I feel this way no matter the speaker - the only difference with the ATCs being that you're not afraid to crank the volume because you know the sound won't change or compress or get shrieky or harsh or thin, as with most speakers - and you damn well know the speakers can take the punishment!)

Dunc

 

Thanx

THANX GUYS, Especialy Dunkyboy, superb write up you should consider a job in the hifi press !!
Well i have shipped off my sonus fabers and should be getting the ATC 20s
early next week .Cant wait now after such good praise,ill write back to you guys after then ,once ive had a good listen...thanx again ..james

 

Ive had a good listen

hi chaps well i now have my ATC active 20s.....
Heres my pennys worth, they certany sound alot clearer and more detailed than my sonus faber concertos,they seem to realy open up the sound so you can see right into the mix,treble is very smooth if not quite as detailed as some but very good .Bass at first seems quite lean ,but after playing lots of discs you realise its just so very clean with impresive power and fantastic leading edge definition.You can here the stike of the drum the body then the reverb,very good at this .Now the midrange ,very very open and i find just a touch to hard abit glassy ,i suppose im used to a very silky smooth mid having used a vale power amp with my fabers.I have been told by my dealer to let my new semi-balanced interconect burn in for at least 40 hours maybee things will start to gell then.Im using a Musical Fidelity A308 pre ,maybe a switch to a Valve Pre amp with proper balaced output would sweeten the midrange up a tad.Anyway i have 4 weeks sale or return and i realy love them just need to tweek them a bit and find some better stands as mine are 20 inch tall and i need some sturdier 15s .Like to here anyones thoughts please .............

 

They're great speakers. The best way to tweak the sound so it's exactly to your liking is to try a selection of preamps. When I had Active 10s, I used them with an EAR 834 valve pre, a Naim NAC82/hicap, and ATC's own CA2. I ended up preferring the CA2, but they do work very well with a good valve pre if you're looking to add a touch of midrange warmth.

-- Ian

 

Woudln't that make them somehow less forensically accurate?

 

Newguy, how far away is your listening position from the 20s? If you're relatively close (or even if you're not) I suggest you try angling the speakers back so that the tweeter fires over your head. They're intended to be used such that the midpoint of the tweeter and the centre of the woofer is at ear height (unlike many/most speakers which recommend the tweeter be at ear height). It made a HUGE difference to the sound for me (I sit relatively close to them - maybe 1.8m away) and cleared up any issues with the upper mids/treble being too thin and forward.

Also, unlike a lot of studio monitors they don't like being pointed straight at the listening position. I find they're best with a bit of toe-in from perpendicular (about 10 degrees maybe?) but this will be a matter of personal preference and room configuration.

It's also important to have a play with their position relative to the wall behind them, and to the side walls. Great gains can be had from getting this right.

What you really want to do is take a good few hours - or better yet, a whole day - and play round with all different positions and configurations until you get it just right. I didn't have the time and energy to do this (they're not exactly light!) when I first got them and I ended up greatly frustrated with the performance until I did the above - really sat down and took the time to get it right. [This applies to all speakers BTW, but I know it to be particlarly important with the ATCs.]

Also, it's worth remembering that with the ATCs, a bad recording will sound just as bad as it really is. A lot of recordings, particularly modern pop, and just about anything on CD from the early/mid-80s, will sound thin and forward in the treble/upper-mids because that's just how they're mixed. Make sure you try out a number of varied recordings before you put any particular characteristic down to the speakers.

Good luck, and have fun with your new toys.

Dunc

 

Are the ATC's staying Newguy??

 

I Cant Let These Go !!! No Way

YES these babies are staying for good, i wasnt sure at first .thing is they are so dam reveling that they change with every recording ,more than any other speaker or come to mention it any other component ive ever used .Never mind like a window into the recording,its like theres no bloody glass in the window either !!!!! i now have a whole new record collection ,yes they are that good.I just need to find some realy good stands as these are realy ,30 kg, heavy speakers ...any ideas please.....thanx for all your help so far.

 

Newguy, you hit the nail slap bang on the head regarding how different each recording sounds on ATC actives.

As for stands, I'd recommend you get something as solid and heavy as you can find. I'm using mine on some old Target R6s, great big heavy things (25kg each) with four solid pillars filled with some kind of resonance-damping resin (or so I'm told). They're pretty serious, costing upwards of 250 quid in their day. Surprised me no end to hear the improvement they made over my old Atacama SE24s. A real eye/ear opener.

On the other hand, SideshowBob among others suggest using ATC actives on open-frame stands in the Linn vein, and I've been trying for some time now to get my hands on a pair of Linn Sara stands and see what difference it makes, sadly to no avail. You could try that route (and report back what you discover, as I'm quite curious).

Dunc

 

I always wonder if the differences we hear is really due to the mass of the stands or due to something else like the frame causing reflection of the loudspeaker sound wave. I would guess open frame made from thin skinny legs will have less of this effect as oppose to thick leg with a large nice surface nearby to disturb sound wave. This is just a thought and it come without influence by alcohol or anything funny.