ATC studio monitors

yeah .....

speakers you can't live with them ....
what was the west ham score ?
the meyers are the very best studio monitors i have heard although the big tad was wicked.
atc are pretty fine speakers compared to most but we are not debating most.
who likes quad esl (not els).... :JOEL:

 

Okay folks,

The consensus seems that those who have heard a range of different large format, high quality monitors agree that the ATC's can be bettered.

It seems that the "Devil" contends they are the best in absolute terms no matter what and it is only poor setuyp if they are not. As he has not heard any of the competitors to ATC in the large format studio monitor market, that places his claims comfortably wityh those of *edited by moderator* and we can dismiss them.

Ciao T

 

Do you bore for Britain?

We have got the message.

 

James, maybe Thorsen, felt it was time you had some of your own medicene.
Irony don't you just love it

 

Thanks for explaining his motives.

He's certainly impressed me with his closely-argued and cogent case, and no mistake.

I agree with James Guthrie's opinion. I don't have the time or the inclination to follow up any of 3DSonics favourites, because he seems such a prat, and I have achieved the sound I want..

 

I do - I love 'em. The Quad ESL 57 and the big IMF 'Pro Monitor' TLs were the speakers that I listened to in my 20s and which most influenced my current preferences.

Peter Walker and Bud Fried - great pioneers of our industry, both.

 

James, such understanding & compassion towards your fellow humans. I'm deeply touched sir

 

Prat?

As in Naim?

 

Hi,

That's great.

But IF Yyou indeed have, then why not just sit back smugly and ingnore the man behind the curtain? Why that evangelic fervor that must insist that every word of ATC's marketing propaganda is God's own hoinest truth and nothing better must exist?

Moreover, I repeat, the argument was not one if you (or anyone else) should like the sound ATC's speakers make or not, but the contention especially from you that "ATC hand builds the most accurate professional reference loudspeakers in the world.".

A professional monitor is a tool, it is a sonic straightedge (or at least it should be) and on that account I find ATC (and most other professional monitors) wanting on that account.

A domestoc speaker should allow me to enjoy my music and for me personally give me the emotional connection to the music (eg. I want to hear WHY the musicians play the music, not how they do it) and I find ATC (and practically all commercially available generic technology speakers VERY WANTING on these accounts.

And the above is also the reason why I feel that for me personally at least Pro-Monitors are not ideal in domestic settings, as the job at hand is a different one. Considering my background I will likely listen a lot more analytical than most music lovers, so I suspect my own system will still be too intellectual and clinical for most.

As a result of all this I am unwilling to declare anything "the best" for doemstic listening, as taste and expectation play a huge role. For Professional Monitor duties however a certain behaviour is absolutely implied, as straightedge that is not straight and a level that is not level lead to wrong results elsewhere. Having compared many of these supposed straightedges I find most of them quite crooked, with obvious results for the product (music recording).

Ciao T

 

I bet my system is better than yours.

 

Hi,

Define "better".

BTW, I know I'm unlikely to like your system, but that does not make mine better, except for me personally.

Ciao T

 

FFS who cares? Now let it rest guys, will you? This is simply childish.

 

What a load of patronising and pretentious guff!

So your system is “too intellectual†for mere hi-fi mortals? Meaning those without similar technical insight as yourself would not be able to appreciate the music making abilities of said system?

I'd suggest you try listening to the music 3D rather analysing to the n'th degree every technical aspect. As your doctor I'd recommend two weeks in isolation with a Denon micro system and a selection of favourite CD's!

 

Hi,

Nope, but it emphasises certain aspects of the recording, as to me the recording techniques are of interest.

In thechnicalities of recording or what technicalities are you refering to?

Hmmm, what would you expect an ex sound engineer to do? To me the analytical side is very important.

All my favourite music is on LP I'm afraid (and much of it not available on CD) and that largely because of the recording quality.

Ciao T

 

Just to add my ha'porth, I had the scm50 actives.

I was expecting deep deep bass and massive insight.

I could BARELY lift them up the stairs, they were SERIOUS heavy, shudder to think what the 100s and bigger are like.

Even the magnet on the bass unit is heavier than most speakers. together with 350 watt mosfet amps, active xovers and that midrange unit, my lips were watering.

I was a bit dismayed, again as a result of wild wacky claims, they were quite good, not ruthlessle clinical as I was led to believe, but in a way that some analytical kit is, with the detail, you still get a bit of emotion.(carfully avoiding words like musicality, flow, swell, accurate) strangely directional too, you had to sit in a certain place, took a while to adjust to the balance.

but no deep bass, in fact quite disappointing, after modelling the thiele small parameters of the bass unit in a program, I found they only goto 40 hz flat, and the 100 wooofers in a 100 litre cabinet the same.

No punch, no thwack, god knows how hard you need to drive them to get them to smack in the bass. I think these are usually speakers which are thrashed.

I don't know what that big magnet is for with all that B times voice coil length....that's a lot of magnetic force, too much and you lose bass.I suppose these are designed around linearity, ie little distortion at high spl's. in other words, engineers accuracy.


Ok speakers, great value for what you get, by todays standards active xovers and amps build in, but to sum it all up, datas law still has been found to apply: the most fun in hifi lies at the cheaper end of the scale, conversely, the more you pay, the more pain you get.

There are now, numerous competitors, ATC was traditionally, 20 yrs ago king, but now we have, genelec, quested, meyersound, pmc, some big harbeth 40s,all recognised world class names, with definite traditions.

any more...have I missed any?

Thorsten, I have asked James (devil) many times for a definition of accurate, I have never had a satisfactory one.
The fact that there may be 10 speaker monitor companies using different amplifiers, cones, magnets, cabinets, each getting a flat frequency response( that is mostly what accurate means BTW, its an engineers goal of zero amplitude deviation across the frequency band)
and claiming theirs is accurate, they all are, but they are still different.

There is no such thing as accurate definitively. James...(bangs head against a brick wall, bangs James head, too...)....that's all accurate means, it measures flattish frequency wise, no more. ps mixing engineers are a rather anonymous bunch, btw, apart from the american hard sell sales technique of.....(american twangy accent here) randall j thomas III has used ATC all his life, he aint' 'bout to change now.....

There are tons of accurate measuring speakers. All will give accurate results.
i don't question the validity of your being loyal to ATC ( I do to MANA) having just ATC is like having a grand prix with just ferrari, it would be bloody dull eh? vive varite

I 'm glad you like ATC's, but I don't want to listen to the sound of a dry control room myself, I want a concert hall, euphony, emotion, music.

 

This thread is really similar to a recent one about preamps, somewhere else.

3DFamousHi-FiReviewerAndSoundEngineerWhoNo-oneHasEverHeardOf doesn't like ATCs, but prefers OtherSpeakersWhichNo-oneHasEverHeardOfEither.

Many other people, who people have actually heard of, choose ATCs. Go figure...

 

Hi,

Actually, in my opinion (and that of the IRT and the people behind the technical specs underpinning THX propper) there additional measurements that need to be fulfilled to claim accuracy, past flat response.

My own definifion of accuracy would be "Squarewave in - Squarewave with only modestly altered waveshape out" and also "impulse in - impulse out (not several seperate impulses with resonant sinewave trains)" and both of these in the farfield, in the operating conditions.

And I doubt anyone would argue that a speaker that provides both of my requirements can be anything but accurate. It will require to have inherent linearity as well as a reasonably flat frequency response as a matter of course.

Ciao T

 

Hi,

I am not sure who claimed fame. I merely mentioned that I have been around a lot and for a long while in Pro Audio, have written enough reviews not to want read them and do the occsaional little bit of design and consulatncy for a HiFi Distributor. And I mention this when people ask me about my experiences or views (like on Reviews), I prefer normally to keep a low profile.

Hmmm, MEG has been in the busines of making serious studio monitors since the 80's, K+H since the 60's. If no-one had ever heard of them I doubt they would still be in business somehow.

Of course, it seems your definition of "WhichNo-oneHasEverHeardOf" seems to equate yourself with "no-one", a rather fatal error of judgement IMHO.

And even more who did choose other manufatcurers products. The very fact that ATC is one of fairly substantial number of makers oh high performance monitors and that ATC monitors are likely to be even in the minority comnpared to the big guns in the branche (like JBL) when you consider the world wide situation in studios.There are probably 3 Genelecs, 10 JBL's, 1 - 2 Westlakes a handfull of Dynaudio & KRK Monitors in studio's for every ATC one and most of the really big names do not select ATC. If you make popularity the prime criteria then ATC must be worse than even I think (BTW, I'd probably take ATC most days over most Genelec's and JBL's and definitly over ANY Dynaudio as a monitor). This suggests that MAJORITY of studio owners and sound engineers actually do not like ATC enough to part with their own money.

You do of course and so be it, but stop arguing the old flat earth adage of "the only sound", just shifted from the Linn/Naim paradigm to ATC.

Ciao T

 

Data,

spot on sir

 

Hi 3D,

What is it that you don't like about Dynaudio monitors?

Thanks,
Erik