ATC buying advice

@n777 - With regard to the difference between pro and consumer models, there are some in consumer that do not exist in pro anc vice versa. SCM40 has no equalivalent in pro, as its a sealed low end cabinet. SCM19 has no equivalent in pro, it is "warmer" than the SCM 20. SCM 7 has no pro equal. SCM 200 and SCM 300 in consumer are towers, no equal in pro as the soffit mount versions in pro use a different tweeter for reliability. There are some pro models that have no equal in consumer as well.

The 50, 100, 150 do have pro and consumer versions; Yes the differences are primarily the veneer, but the monitor versions have grilles (no grille in pro) and the tower versions are unique to consumer plus have grilles. Pro is in housed in the cheapest possible black paint MDF box because pro doesnt care about finish. Some have thought "oh the black is like balck ash or high gloss black- no its rough, has flaws, is not built for looks at all. Studios beat the hell out of them moving them around so a finish like we use in consumer is a waste. However, the consumer version veneer work is all hand done, one at a time, high gloss is literally 10 coats of laquer with sanding in between, veneers are book matched, inside is also veneered for pressure balance (otherwise the wood would bow over time). So this kind of work is very time consuming and expensive. The cabinet shop ATC now owns used to do custom furniture for a hot shot interior design house in London, so they are capable of some very impressive work. The can also do custom work, say a unique wood like European Crown Cut Walnut that is an amazing wood finish. The veneer is worth the money charged. It is not done by machine. Think "Bentley Dashboard" as this part of England is where much of that type of work is done.

(I am the US importer of ATC pro and consumer so I know what the facts are regarding ATC) 

Brad

@soix 

Regarding tube preamps, I don't have any recommendations for I have not listened to nearly enough of them to make a judgement.   I would say ATC active's reveal a lot about what is upstream so it better be a great tube pre!  You will definitely hear color. 

Brad

Jeff explains it well!.  FOr clarification, the "SL" (super linear)  LF driver is in the 50 on up, and the mid and tweeter of the 50 on up are much larger motors for higher SPL, wider dynamic range.  The amps inside the active 50s on up are also much larger for that increased dynamics. 

The SCM 19 passive and active is the one exception, it also has this super linear Mid/LF driver built just for that speaker,   This is a carry ovwer from ueyars ago when Billy developed a smaller SL  and the line was just the 20/50/100/150..   

@mijostyn You are not looking at this right.

Active has zero to do with digital or "digitization". Active can be analog or digital crossovers and all class D amps. Active is simply an electronic crossover (analog or digital) operated at line level before amplifiers, amps hooked directly to drivers and no passive elements in between.

In the brand I work with, ATC, it is 100% analog: analog crossover, Class A/B MOSFET amps, no DSP digital anything inside. Same with older Genelec and many other active systems. You have to research this to know for sure.

Some of these active systems bundle DSP in to do "correction". What that correction is important because it could be "DSP room correction" or "DSP speaker correction".

Room correction attempts to fix an acoustical issue with some kind of EQ. This is controversial as you are now changing a speakers direct output based on the reflections in the room. What’s coming out of the speaker may not be wrong.

Speaker correction looks at correction of the crossover itself and how it affects speaker behavior and driver performance.

TRINNOV and DIRAC are room devices, addressing the acoustic problems in the room. This is still controversial, as fixing a "room" electrically is still something many experts argue about. The brand I work with (ATC) hates it as they say why fix direct sound when its reflections that are messed up? The only thing that may be right is the speaker itself but now you want to change that based on what the room is doing. Purists would say "Fix acoustical problems acoustically and electrical problems electrically".

Whether amps are digital (Class D) or not is not part of the DSP room correction. You could use DSP room correction in front of analog speakers, like your preamp or receiver having DIRAC but used with pure analog speakers. Or using a Trinnov in front of a ATC analog speaker. In the case of DEQX, it is a replacement for crossovers and speaker correction, a very different "problem" compared to room correction.

Brad

@seadog137

ATC is not big on the idea of break in. They heavily QC the drive units and "run them in" at the factory. SO I dont think you’ll find any break in is necessary. In support of that, I have never in 20 years had a customer tell me a replacement driver every sounded different from existing drivers in the speaker. If "break in" with ATC is always part of it, if it was clearly audible, how could all those owners over the years miss it?   Strange isn't it?

@mijostyn

I get you are trying to be progressive, looking at the wonderful opportunites DSP can offer for "room" correction-but it just isn’t the great pancea it is cracked up to be. It can help some users, usually those with room conditions that are so adverse that any change in the right direction is welcome. But the core problem with DSP room correction [so far] is that it cannot distinguish between direct sound and reflected sound. So you are modifying the thing that is not wrong (direct sound) to compensate for the thing that IS wrong (the reflections). Does that sound like a wise move to you?

From a sales perspective, room correction sounds great in principle, to "fix" the room (as this is the problem the user is typcially trying to attack). But at best, you are not only modifying the direct sound, which is a bad idea, you are doing all of this modification /EQ etc for ONE singular location in the room, not everywhere. So great, it sounds good where you put the microphone, which is often NOT where you sit. You ;put the microphone on the floor (more reflections from the floor to the mic), a table (more reflections from the table to the mic) both of which skew the compensation even more, altering the actual sound at that precise location. Some astute users try to get the mic up high, or put a blanket on the floor or blanket on the table, but none of those things work unless the mic is located exactly where your ears are when you sit. A speaker has a specific dispersion pattern that is not symetrical, (low dispersion is different than tweeter dispersion 99% of the time) and where you are located makes a HUGE difference in how the speaker sounds. Where the mic is located makes a HUGE difference in compensation..

If people are rarely willing to even move their speaker to see how it sounds within a room, how are they going to get a mic location right? How are they going to make it sound good over a wider area when the room correction doesnt work like that? Room correction cannot address these issues, unless you have a very advanced real time measurement system feeding the room correction computer real time (which is not what is being discussed here) and have a room that is only minorly messed up so it doesn’t have to make dramatic change to the direct sound of the speaker? And now on top of all that, you want to send all your audio throuogh a digital EQ? Why would you worry about cables or phono stage and then use a $5 digital EQ across everything? And you think you cannot hear that?

Yes, ATC is all analog. No correction. No digital processing. No little cheap software EQ changing the direct sound you spent so much money on. ATC is absolutely ready for the future when we have some of these technical issues addressed!

The only solution at this date is make the room sound better without EQ.

All of the above is NOT about DEQx. Yes they have a very advanced system but they are more focused on speaker correction than room correction. To do speaker correction requires some pretty extensive measurement and modeling, not sometihjng an end user can do at home. I actually do think DEQX is on to something, they may indeed be the future of it all. We are a ways away from that future right now with all this junk being sold to people using misinformation to do so!. .

Brad

@mijostyn 

Wow, you must not be reading my posts or not understanding what I wrote.   

The "room correction" I was referring to above (and most people consider room correction) is software inside a receiver or other piece of home gear that is a single cheapo mic and free software that costs nothing.  Think DIRAC.  It may have some features similar to DEQx, but it aint even close. Ignoring late reflections is not something most of this "room correction" software is capable of.  So you are using a esoteric product (DEQX) as an example of all digital signal processing and that simply is not how it is out there.  Most of this digital processing sucks and does not sound good.. Will it get better?  Of course!  But implying this junk people sell as "room corrective" is great is a diservice to the users.   DEQX is not part of that generalization- DEQX is off on its own technical level that is far far above what most people think of as room correction..      

Are you a DEQX dealer?