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Your thoughts about ATC loudspeakers

I’m interested in the ATC SCM-40 from their HiFi series and would like to hear from people who have owned or spent a lot of time with ATC speakers. This is a fairly new model and may be a bit of a departure from their classic sound.

At the show in Newport last weekend, I was quite taken by these speakers. I went back the next day and heard the same things that I liked about them, but a couple of red flags also went up:

Microdynamics – not sure these speakers do them well and microdynamics are critical to communicating inflection and nuance and to making music sound alive

Imaging, specifically wrt depth. Nothing much outside of the plane of the speakers, so recording venue info is not there and even instrument and vocal body may suffer a bit.

Were these shortcomings of setup or associated gear, or is this what ATC does?
drubin

Showing 2 responses by lonemountain

lonemountain
472 posts
 
I really don't know where this information comes from, "not easy to drive".  ATC has a very consistent impedance curve, does not drop down to super low impedance like many other systems do.  Efficiency in the full range sealed box category, say BBC monitor type where 82dB was acceptable, 85-86dB seems rather good.  I see a lot of misinformation about ATC in the hi fi forums, not sure why.   Probably because the factory never posts!

Brad     
lonemountain
472 posts
 
itzhak1969
I guess you could say ATC speakers like power, as greater dynamic range with low end = the need for higher system gain. However, last I looked, there are plenty of used Brystons and used PASS Labs and other excellent larger amplifiers available at very nice prices.

At low SPL levels they can function just fine on a smaller amplifier. Your perception of efficiency depends on the expected playback SPL level plus the amp you already own?

A small amp drives driver/horns quite loud but then there are the off axis response problems of this design as frequency goes up-a clear trade offs. Horns can have 90 degrees horizontal dispersion at 1.5K but collapse to 2 degrees or less horizontal at 15K. This makes for some very different reflections compared to the direct (on axis) sound and this can present some real challenges to imaging.

12/octave rolloff below useable LF is the preferred "performance goal" of an ATC loudspeaker design. If rolloff starts at 80Hz, its down -12 at 40Hz- (this is roughly what a SCM 19 does). Many bass reflex or other bass boost designs can have a big boost at 80Hz- which sounds like lots of bass- but then be down - 48dB at 40Hz. So the deep bass trade off is clearly obvious in this case.

So perhaps the awareness of the trade off is sufficient and then we get to choose the trade off we prefer?  It's not all good one way and not good the other as we all have different "wants".   

Brad
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