ATC 19's modified using Gr Research kit

Personally I would not modify any ATC speaker.....   

They sell upgrades for some legendary brands, what does Danny know that the engineers at ATC, B&W , Dali, Focal, and others don't?     Some of his kits are close in price to these speakers used prices.   I dont see the value . 

Danny knows that the engineers of those brands are required to build those speakers to a certain price point. Danny is offering upgrades for the components of those speakers that were used to meet a certain price point. 

I spoke to the American distributor of ATC, Lone Mountain Audio in Vegas the other day about mods to the speaker, hoping someone else had called them about it, and to my surprise, no one else had.  They did not know what I was talking about which suggests to me that maybe GR Research isn't getting as many requests about this as they kind of/sort of imply in their videos.  Because you think a brand of cap is better doesn't make it necessarily better in all situations.   Case in point: I purchased what I thought would be some rather expensive Mundorf Supremes ($300.00/4.7uF ) to replace some older Hovlands in a tweeter circuit that to my surprise were sonically terrible.  When mentioning this to GR, Danny right away pointed out the issues with the  Mundorfs and suggested Sonic Caps.  I later spoke to Sonic Caps, an engineer there.  He tells me to put the Hovland's back and said his capacitors would be a lateral move in that situation, and why the Mundorfs didn't work in that situation, basically what Danny told me.  I loved his candor about his own product and why some things work or do not work in every situation.  I did purchase some Dueland Silver .01 bypass caps that everyone seems to agree would improve most speakers, even at ATC.

phastm3

I only want to add that ATC is not price motivated when it comes to engineering. Those of us in the business of making things and selling them call a company "engineering driven" meaning they pay no attention to cost until after its built and the back figure out how much it costs to build and what they need to make to pay their bills. Genuinely, ATC works this way, which is not always ideal when you want things to be more affordable.

ATC is one of the few that has their own passive crossover parts made for them, a particular way, and uses very large high copper content air core inductors in the LF portion of the crossover. Their passive crossovers are some of the very best. I have no doubt that one could "change" the sound of the ATC with cap switching, but the potential to change it and not universally make it better is the biggest reason to avoid swapping parts out. Once one starts modding crossover boards, it easy to damage traces and other nearby parts, causing expensive fixes. ATC would say if you want to improve the 19, the next logical step is active- which IS an audible improvement that also fits ATC’s engineering principles.

Brad

Lone Mountain Audio