"Pro" Active Monitors

totem beak? i've got the tak, but what's the totem beak?

totem beak? Heck where do I get blue tak! I've got 5 ATC 100's coming on Tuesday arriving from England.

Blu-Tac is made by Bostik and be had at any large office supply store for around $5.95 a pack, or you can buy it from Audioadvisor for $9.95 and pay $6.95 shipping.. "Man what a mark up" !!!!!. Or you can by the same damn stuff called Tac-N-Stik made by Elmer's for a $1.99 a pack
Not sure what totem beak is. Please en-lighten us on this tweek..

Just to give you a different point of reference, I own a pair of Mackie HR-824 active monitors which I have used for a few years now in sound editing and production work. I love them because they are detailed and image beautifully when they are setup right and you sit right in front of them. They are crisp, detailed and the frequency response in-room is amazingly flat, which surprised the fire out of me.

I picked Mackie over JBL, Yamaha, ATC and Tannoy because I liked the imaging of the Mackies best. I could place sounds on them more accurately than on the others.

Oddly enough, the most annoying quality of the Mackies also is their precission. They pretty much play everything on the album, are very unforgiving. In my opinion, they do not make for the best music enjoyment when just enjoying music.

Niels.

Ok, try to help a bit more.

If you can get 2 pairs of Totem Beak, it will be best. Due to size of ATC 50 or 100, 2 pairs really should be necessary, consider that they are about 1% of the price of speakers, and they add 5-8% performance, well worth it! Imagine the top of ATC SCM50 having 4 quadrants, my favorite position is putting the beaks in the inner side front, and outer side back quadrants.

Here's a picture of the Totem Beak:

http://www.totemacoustic.com/NewFiles/beak.html

For those having no Blue Tak around, I find the QuakeHold available in Home Depot a nice alternative. The thing is on some other goos, they will discolor and damage the wood finish, or not pliable. Make sure you roll a big enough ball, I would say, 1 slab of Quake Hold cut into 3 or 4 pieces, and roll up, stick between the factory stands and the bottom of the ATC would be fine.

Quake Hold:
http://www.quakehold.com/quakehold/showdetails/images/88111front.jpg

I used 3 pieces, 1 below the woofer, and 2 behind, in a triangle. Quake Hold or Blue Tak instead of the factory adds a tonne of air, and midrange jumps out instead of hiding. I have been using the solution with SCM20 stand mounted, so when I got the SCM50, I was stunned by the defficiency of factory recommended setup.

ATC owners are welcome to send me e-mail. I have used ATC for so long, will be glad to help.