ATC studio monitors

Well, perhaps. But he does say that his gear sounds pretty idiosyncratic and is not for everyone. So he has odd taste.

I have no taste, just want to hear the recording as best I can.

 

I have wired up a set of car stereo speakers with Valhalla cable. Mounted on Mana, they will blow any speaker up to and including £10k out of the water.

 

As with all mega-threads that Ive not read before I read the first and last page only. I must say Im quite impressed how this has stayed on topic for 11 pages.

 

Tenson,
I feel you should go and listen to some PROPERLY SET UP Merlins for yourself before passing comment.

 

Hi,

First, my comments that time/impulse coherence, lack of excessive phaseshift and groupdelay (also at low frequencies), controlled (narrow) dispersion, low distortion and low compression are a requirement for accurate sound reproduction is an opinion.

However it is one commenly shared by the majority of people who understand the basics of electronic reproduction and acoustics.

Secondly, the Meyer X-10 will not make you deaf quicker than ATC, it will actually play for a given sound pressure level with much less distortion and compression than a speaker with lower maximum spl.

That BTW is fact and not opinion, as is that ALL speakers ATC makes use reflex LF alignment, use no directivity control, use no time alignment and thus are neither minimummphase or phaselinear and compared to actual state of the art monitors the distortion and compression levels are not competetive, even if they are arguably better than most average hifi speakers.

Now if you want to like ATC in spite of their obvious failings, be welcome to them, but do not fly off the handle anytime somone contends that ATC's marketing propaganda is pure and unadulterated spin on new labour levels for a product that is fairly average in the worl of high quality monitors.

I do not expect my opinions to carry any weight. I do however mostly presented facts in this thread.

You instead presented a completely unqualified insistence that there are OBJECTIVELY no better speakers than ATC, a sentiment open to extreme doubt.

Ciao T

 

No, if you are correct about the Meyers having less distortion - and we have no independent measurements to back that up - then the Meyers are more likely to make you deaf, since our ears tend to hear distortion as loudness. Speakers with very low levels of distortion are dangerous to your hearing because you will not realise how loudly you are listening.

Edit: your implicit assumption that speakers which are capable of higher SPLs are less distorted at low volumes than speakers that are only capable of lower maximum SPLs is frankly silly, as a brief acquaintance with some cheap PA speakers should make clear.

ATC speakers do have directivity control in the form of waveguides as well of course in the fact that they make their own mid and bass drivers which are specifically engineered for the applications. And the phase response is actually very impressive, as you might see if you bothered to download that article I referred to several pages back.

I don't know where you are getting your independent stats on the distortion and "compression" (!) levels so that you can make your statements of "fact"...

They sound like opinions to me. But as I said this thread is going nowhere. Even though we can be proud that it is going nowhere in quite a tightly focused manner!

One last question before I depart, have you ever heard big active ATCs and compared them to the other speakers you mention?

A

 

Hi,

Any self respecting studio will have calibrated the listening levels to a sensible reference to full scale. If you turn up any monitor past these, your call and hearing.

Actually, you may find that at a given SPL Level the "cheap PA Speaker will still have lower distortion. But at anmy extent, the X-10 is designed as low distortion device. the compression driver/horn combo does this as a amtter of fact, the woofer uses feedback to accomplish the same. For some background on the Meyer X-10 and why it actually embodies in certqain areas the "state of the art" you might enjoy some reading:

http://www.meyersound.com/news/press/sos_x10_800.htm

I have had the chance to hear them on two occasions and they are genuinely "one step beyond", try have a listen yourself.

Their waveguide is not only very shallow, but also of small diameter. This implies that it operates only over a fraction of the range covered by the driver (boty the tweeters and midranges). In order to retain any sensible radiation pattern control at 380 Hz (the crossover frequency) the waveguild would have to be around 1/2m (> 18") in diameter. Basic physics. Look at the O500 to see the kind of waveguide that provides SOME directivity control (directivity control on the O500C rates as barely adequate IMHO).

By now this is pretty much standard. Non of the systems I suggested use off the shelf drivers.

Not particulary, if you want to see a "state of the art" phaseresponse compare to Meyer's X-10 or the K+H O500C, the MEG is not QUITE AS GOOD, but still essentially flat.

As it so happens, in my times in Pro Sound (actively up to the mid 90's) I have heard about any common monitor on the planet, most of those ranged between adequate and real bad (and I'm only talking about the mains here) approximating the situation in HiFi Speakers at that.

I have heard a number of the larger ATC's installed (including SCM300) and felt them to be comprehensively outclssed by the UREI Passives which where common at the same time. These where arguably pre "SL" ATC's but from what I have heard since at dealers, studios and tradeshows the SL's are very much alike to the earlier ones. As I said, for a "quality control" monitor barely par for the course.

As for direct comparisons, nope, I merely got frustrated quite often by all sorts of monitors when attempting to hear what I was actually recording. And ATC where no less frustrating than big old JBL's and at the same time Urei, tannoy, MEG and the like where not (BTW, MEG's Monitirs have been made virtually unchanged since the mid 1980's!).

Ciao T

 

From an external view - ie never heard ATC, if I was to read this thread and make a decision, I would go with the 'audio equipment engineers' (3dsonic) view over the enthusiasts view.

Not that it makes any difference whatsoever. I just feel that ownership of $$$ kit includes a bit of protective pride if the crown jewels are viewed in a slightly less than perfect light.

sorry, carry on

 

Absolutely agree.

Its hard to take criticism of a prized possession sometimes.


This quote seems relevant:

" what doesn't matter?
what anyone else thinks,or say they can hear,or indeed what their opinion is,on anything "

 

Nail head hit

 

I have to agree with 3D regarding the Meyer X-10.

A consultancy where I last worked rented out their conference room to Meyer for a 2 day seminar and during my lunch breaks I was able to sample their products. Came away thinking that they are truely obsessed with pushing the boundaries and their R&D is truely staggering. This is a company full of guys with very, very big brains, trust me!

One problem, can anyone of us really imagine having them in a domestic situation? I think that ATC's let us sample some reasonably good high resolution monitoring while still maintaining WAF.

 

Hi,

the subject of debate was never the suitability or likability of ATC Speakers at home, but the claims that they where the "most accurate" Speaker availble or indeed that they (compared to some 1970's era Hartleys) would provide "some real bass and high fidelity", a sentiment open to much doubt.

There is no accounting for taste, at home I prefer to listen to SE Valve Amplifiers and Single Cone, Fieldcoil magnet fullrange Drivers in open baffles, about as leftfield as it gets....

Ciao T

 

ear ear

I agree with the above 3D, but although this is slightly beside the point, I'd like to suggest that it is often possible to overcome certain theoretical limitations of a particular technology by careful application and ingenuity. The most obvious (to me) example of this is the Porsche 911. Starting in theory from such a disadvantage of carrying a heavy lump in the rear to become such a great handling beast (allegedly), by careful engineering, albeit over 4 decades. So ATC might not use the best of everything, but that doesn't mean the end results aren't excellent. I realise you never suggested that ATC were bad speakers.

 

Fair enough then....just trying to make a point though as this forum is mostly about domestic hifi.

 

Couldn't resist posting this given some forumites reliance on similar lists from their loudspeaker manufacturer ;-)

 

I note Yamaha use the westlakes interesting
And the much vaulted Abbey road, I believe they use B & W's yes?

 

And of course the world famous Air Studios use primarily Dynaudio (although they do list a pair of SCM20's alongside the NS10's for nearfields as noted here ;-)

 

Abbey use B&W for one of their mastering rooms yes, I have also seen some Adam near fields there, the S3 I think. Of course they have many more.

I knew someone who used to work as an engineer at Air studios and even though as you say, they use Dynaudio a lot, he was very fond of PMC! So just because a studio uses so and so doesn't mean the engineers like it!

 

It's obvious that you've never heard them set-up obsessionally.

 

This is a pointless debate really as we all know the most accurate speakers in the world are Resolution's