Just a few words about ATCs in my first genuine post here, since I can write from experience.  I've gone through a number of good speakers, and have heard a good deal more over the years.  I use speakers at home for pleasure as well as, sometimes, for monitoring for sound design in the theater.  About ten years ago now, I got off the speaker carousel with ATCs.  I have ATC active fifties and passive 20s downstairs, a pair of passive ATC monitors for my office upstairs and active ATC 10s for a home theater upstairs.

Obviously, I don't find them sterile; and they are simply not bright.  The passives, however, will reflect pretty accurately the  electronics and front end they see.  And they need current and watts to sound their best.  The actives, I find, are indeed very sensitive to the preamps in front of them.  There are genuine impedance matching issues that rule out some otherwise very good sounding preamps.

At their best, the ATCs are tonally about as accurate as I've heard, and they are--actives and passives with enough horsepower driving them--remarkably dynamic: the best I've heard.  They also throw a very precise, though not huge, soundstage, and they allow for great depth.  Instrument separation is first rate, and voices are remarkably lifelike.  The bass is extraordinarily convincing, for as much as you get, in all the models: no bloat, no reticence.  But, as  physics dictates, the bigger the speaker the more bass you get.  ATC monitors, like the 10s and 20s, will get a remarkably even reinforcement from a wall behind them.

The ATC issues are, primarily, in how they mate with electronics.  (I could go through a list of ten high end preamps that just won't work very well with the active ATCs--including Nagra, Spectral, and Chord.)  The passives are in this respect kinder creatures: they'll sound great, if fed enough power, with various front ends.  ATCs don't throw a very wide soundstage.  The bass is, to my ears, much more like life, a lot less like stereo with--even with expensive stuff--some its boom and bloom: for some folks this is a problem not an asset.  Can they sound sterile?  With an inadequate front end, I imagine so; and they can sound bright, but they also can sound dark. 

Their price seems to me their greatest liability, although I think they are better than almost all much, much more expensive speakers I've heard.  But that's just how I hear things.  I've also loved, and been enticed by, SoundLab panels, the TAD 1s, and crazy MBLs; but I've found the ATCs just more practical--economically as well as ergonomically, and easier to live with.

 

Quote from: omegakitty on January 21, 2013, 03:21:18 AM

Have you ever heard Coincidents?

I know someone I trust that is a huge fan of Living Voice speakers, he pointed me to the Nottingham tables which beat everything else I have heard in its price. I almost heard them one time when I was in Toronto, but ran out of time

The older ones which used that crappy HiVi ribbon tweeter I never liked. The PRE is interesting if ugly, not worth $27K IMO, you can do better for that kind of money. The Super Victory is probably the sweet spot of their line. From what I remember I liked it, but not as much as the OBX or Perspective. I haven't heard the newer Super Victory II, it's possible that it might be more up there with the best in the ~$10K range.

I've heard the Coincident Pure Reference Extreme in a hotel room by myself with my own set of test music. Mids and treble were great. Bass was extremely bloated. It was a bad setup, and even accounting for room size, I didn't think the Coincident amps were doing any favors for the bass (muddy, uncontrolled, etc.) The PRE sounded great with girl+guitar and acoustic guitar.  I suspect the PRE would work better in a huge room with the speakers at least 5' away from any wall. I asked the Coincident guy if the woofers could be turned down (via knob in the back) and unfortunately the answer was no. (I kind of wonder if that Arthur Salvatore isn't just some huge fanboy or shill for Coincident.)

I also have severe doubts on whether the Accuton ceramic drivers are that good. A lot of speakers at T.H.E SHOW seemed to have them, but in many cases, they were implemented poorly (small drivers in narrow cabs asked to drive bass - can ya say distortion?) or they just didn't impress in terms of better resolution or control, etc. I found well executed speakers using traditional drivers but with good crossover tuning to be far superior than the PRE (in similar conditions). The $30K Sony flagship speaker and Wilson Sophia come to mind with the Sony being brighter and the Wilson's being darker. (The Wilson required you to be in the sweet spot, but its imaging precision was by far the best.) Both speakers tended to sound good just a few feet from the wall.

Quote from: sheya on January 22, 2013, 01:43:28 AM

I think that any discussion of speaker preference has to be sorted by the size of the room and the listening distance.

If I had a larger space, I would get larger speakers, and I would do a surround sound setup.  Vandersteens, Magnepans,  Dunlavy, and Alon/Nola would be on my short list.  I would also research larger active monitors and floorstanders.  If I had a slightly larger but still small space, Quad ESL's would be a possibility (and still might be someday, even in this space). 

With less limited funds, I would seriously look at TAD, the larger speakers for a larger space, and the monitor for a smaller room. 

Unquestionably. Big speaker, small room = dumb dumb dumb. In small spaces the money should go towards stand-mounted wide banders like Omegas or compact 2-ways, and diffusors and some traps. I've heard diffusors placed at first reflection points in small spaces in place of traditional traps, and the results can be very effective, making it seem like the room is larger than it actually is.

To me, surround sound is incredibly boring. Almost all high-end preamps don't support it first of all, so you're stuck with a significantly inferior SSP, or worse, a terrible sounding A/V receiver. Then there's the legitimately compelling surround sound material..... uh........ where's that again?

If you're looking for accuracy, Vandersteen ain't it, and I'm pretty sure Dunlavy went with Jim. Duntech is still around though I think. I shudder to think about how small the sweetspot would be with Dunlavy's in surround as well. I don't get that TAD hype, not my thing.

I should also add, I've been to some of the best concert halls in the world including Vienna's. None have ever sounded like surround sound. Nobody is playing behind you. Proper room setup and a pair of speakers is all you need, honestly. Plus most of the best sound is on vinyl anyway, and I would hate to imagine that somebody would run a turntable through a SSP using something horrible like DPL-II Music or DTS Neo:6. Yech.