Review ATC SCM20PSL monitors 50 hours listening

Bassionado of bop! All right. 

If you strive for the forty-one inches of intonation this might interest you. Enjoy.

https://www.facebook.com/ClassicFM/videos/bach-from-lorraine-campet-string-virtuoso/1067939027022522/

I think everyone should at least hear ATC speakers.  They do midrange unlike any other speaker I’ve heard, in a good way, and as we all know most of music lives in the midrange.  That’s quite a system your wife has put together.  You married well!

@soix +1

m-dB

Wow, that Lorraine Campet link you posted is amazing. What intonation! It was perfect.

One of things with ATC that has always been a goal of Billy Woodman (founder) and the engineering department: realism via low distortion. Distortion starts in the drivers, where ATC invests a LOT of effort and time in designing and building their own. The midrange is so good due to creating a driver that would be far too expensive to sell OEM.

Brad

One of things with ATC that has always been a goal of Billy Woodman (founder) and the engineering department: realism via low distortion. 

It is interesting you say that. I could not see any distortion measurements shown on the ATC website. Audioscience did a review and found horrific distortion and poor response:

Distortion is an interesting thing.  Leaving transducers aside, segue to amplifiers.  It is inarguable that tube gear amplification carries far more distortion than solid state amplification.  Yet, how many swoon, defend and tout the benefits of tangible vacuum tube amplification of music?  And I've owned many quality tube pieces and loved them.

I understand your point of showing discrepancy between claimed low distortion transducers by ATC and actual measurements.  I cannot address that.  I simply know that the ATC 20 passives sound incredible to me when properly amplified and fed decent material and that I've no numbers to support or discredit that perception.  I've never heard the ATC SMC 19.

@kenjit 

Please note that the ASR review is of the older, original SCM19, which used tweeters from another manufacturer. 

The more recent SCM-19v2, which I have, and the SCM20PSL, which the OP has, incorporate ATC's 'new' made-in-house tweeters. I don't know if other changes accompanied the inclusion of the new tweeters, for example modifications to the crossovers, but the ASR review is of a different speaker and is not pertinent.

ATC's are lauded for being highly resolving. This would imply low distortion. 

As I have said before, entering into a world of arguing over specs is not a world ATC wants to be in.

The elephant in the "room" is the fact that a ROOM itself changes every speaker inside it so drastically that factory or ASR measured results elsewhere bear no resemblance to the actual in room measurement. Beyond the room, there are so many source related factors added to the results. The general lack of understanding that a speaker sounds very different "here" than "there" is revealed in the number of people that think buying a new speaker before experimenting with room position is a proper way of pursuing good sound.

Arguing over speaker "specs" as printed or claimed has no bearing on final audio results. If the public ever knew the number of manufacturers who just widen the tolerance to get the number they know will sell speakers, they would not trust any of these specs. Arguing that a factory measurement reveals values relevant to our expected in room performance of a loudspeaker is parallel to arguing the measurement of horsepower of a motor reveals the important values of a sportscar on the road. They might some offer insight, but that insight might not be relevant to our unique expectations. What does horsepower have to do with the handling? Ot the comfort in the drivers seat? Or the reliability and repairability? Same with frequency response or power handling: the say nothing about off axis performance or dynamic range or reliability, values that may be far more important to real life use of the speaker.

ASR misleads people into thinking their measurements are relevant to playback in a listener’s room. Frequency response is LAST spec one should trust. Distortion is another. This "measurement misdirection" is well known by the transducer and speaker engineers that use measurements to make decisions and choices in the endless trade offs in design that balance cost, materials, performance and repeatability. The 20 year old SCM19 review is a great example of this "measurement misdirection" agenda- measurements are really a MARKETING vehicle that directly relates to sales or at the very least, attempts to influence sales. Beware of those that fly this measurement flag.

A loudspeaker is in short a physics puzzle extraordinaire. It really is rocket science. There are so many different sciences involved, it’s daunting. Transducer engineers need extensive schooling, apprentice training and still spend a lifetime trying to master it. Attempts to reduce this engineering effort to a single "spec" or a simple number is just an insult to those that invest their lives chasing this holy grail. It’s not just the factory I import (ATC) that has done great work, there are loads more, past and present. Stromberg Carlson’s 1930s "acoustic labyrinth" and handmade leather coax driver come to mind, Ray Cooke [KEF] his research continues to influence all loudspeakers; Don Keele [EV, JBL] and his horn research and work, John Meyer in live sound and pattern steering, Floyd Toole, on and on.

Brad

The measurements are there to prove whether a claim is correct. ATC sells their wares based on reputability. They rely on rave reviews from so called industry professionals whose opinions are no better than the average person. There are no measurements to prove their superiority. Why dont ATC publish their measurements? 

ATC are favored by studio engineers. But so are every other studio monitor company. Genelec, PMC, Barefoot, Kii audio, dutch and dutch, Adam, Krk the list goes on and on. They all sound different so they are all wrong and there is no justification to claim that ATC are superior. Zero evidence of that. There are fanboys of every speaker brand. ATC is nothing special. Ive personally heard ATC and didnt like them at all.

I’m gonna be sorry I replied to this, but @kenjit what speakers do you actually like? If you’ve never seen an ATC midrange driver out of the box then you’ve no idea what makes them special, and since your ears appear to be failing you maybe you should take a look at an ATC driver.  The magnet structures of their midrange drivers are larger than the woofer drivers in many speakers.  BTW, there are no measurements to prove your superiority either.  I’ll take your uninformed comments for exactly what their worth.  Nada. 

Kenjit

I very much enjoy your posts, they are a visible display of the "buy in" to the marketing effort called "specs". You are a real life Don Quixote!

You realize that manufacturers invest in published measurements to establish their marketability/salability (not their real performance). Any kind of acoustical measurements are relevant only to the space they are taken in, in the conditions they are taken.  I guarantee you that any space you use would not be similar to their space, making their specs meaningless to anything other than comparing their product to each other.

Brad

Thanks for sharing, @celtic66 

Does your wife listen to these near-field?  How big is the room. 

I'm shopping ATC speakers now, and I've always wondered how the pro monitors would sound in a more traditional audiophile configuration.

Room is a decently sized bedroom, so would say 12X20.  I’m on the road currently or I would measure it.  Strongly recommend really solid high current power and respectable front end.  The ATCs will chew up weaker offerings of unstable power. Enjoy.

Does your wife have an identical twin sister with the same interests? 😉

dz13    No.  Same interests in mentioned artists or really good equipment?  I've difficulties meshing the two.

Pro models sonically behave the same as consumer models.  However, pro models are in a different cabinet- an MDF cabinet painted black.  This usually leaves consumers unhappy as it will have multiple visible flaws.   We've had an audiophile try to buy a pro 20 to save money over the classic 20 and sent all three pairs back over a cosmetics (turning them all into B stock although they were all perfectly normal).  Pros don't care about tiny nicks or irregularities in paint.  Pros want the cheapest possible cabinet because it will get banged up anyway after a few years of use.  Most audiophiles do not understand this and think they should all be "assembly line perfect" even though ATC is small production handmade product. 

Consumer product has nice finishes and carefully built cabinets.

Brad   

That was weird.  The ATC SCM20PSL monitors now with 100 hrs.  Better.  Insert Quadraspire SVT equipment stand and quite suddenly huge improvement.  Smearing removed allowing far better instrument/vocal attack, space between the aforementioned and a defined sound stage constructed.  

Definitely a blacker background and foundational bass is better defined, extended. Cannot wait for Sound Anchor speaker stands.  Cheers

ATC SCM20PSL monitors now with 200 hrs. playing time on them, evolving with further help from Sound Anchor stands (thank you Tom from The Big Ear) and Herbie's Fat Dots.  Damn they are heavy!  The stands, not the dots.  The stands and dots cleaned things up further, mostly focusing vocals.

The system is the slightest bass shy so I've invoked the bass control on the Luxman 509X and boosted it a bit.  Is that wrong?

Anyway, if someone told me this would be my endgame system I would willingly accept.  It does so much right and simply breathes life into the performance.

Glad you got sound anchors for them...I tried dots on mine but found that sound anchors blue just sounded more right in my system.My 19v2 give me enough bass and are setup really close to "perfect" for now 😵.Comments from brad are always spot on...he knows the product.I read some were that they do a pre run in/testing drivers at factory so burn in isnt that necessary?The recent price change makes the 19,ect an easy consideration.The 19 v2 is easily the best sounding monitor i have had in system/using zavfino primas/jumpers as well.Is it the "best"...for what they are asking for them now...enjoy celtic66