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Puzzling results with ATC SCM50ASLT loudspeakers vs. previous system

Joe said:
I think that it is true to say that the larger ATC's are not great at low ( ish ) volume and do respond to being driven at higher volumes.

But that doesn't suit every room nor every listener.
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As a SCM100ASLT owner I respectfully disagree. They do not need to be played loud at all to produce great sound.

What’s happening here (from the OP’s description) is an untreated, pretty small room is being energised in a way his previous system didn’t/couldn't and its causing a cacophony of noise. Get first reflection points on side walls and behind listening position treated with some absorption panels and things will improve dramatically. Add bass traps and bass response and midrange will come into its own and you’ll get to hear what your 50s are actually doing. It’s most definitely not the hardware, it’s the room!
 
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owl said:
I would be looking firstly at the interaction of speakers and room in terms of how close or not they are to side and rear walls, and any acoustic treatments.

Secondly what sound are you trying to aim for? What are the key parameters? ATCs are very revealing and accurate but I wouldn’t put them in the wide, deep, holographic soundstage category.
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They’re very revealing and accurate, and in an appropriately treated room with speakers properly placed they’re most definitely in the wide, deep holographic soundstage category.

When my home extensions are completed and the hifi is put back into play, anyone that thinks I’m overselling It is welcome to visit, bring along the tracks of their choice and experience it for themselves.
 
gez said:
Because ATC is similarly ancient hi-fi. They haven't introduced a new drive unit design for god knows how long and their basic designs date back to the mid 70's. They're trading on their reputation to be blunt and haven't been at the forefront of speaker design or performance for a long time now.

About the only thing they have going for them is their power handling, which still remains better than the majority of "hifi" speakers, but that's just the result of a pro speaker maker entering the domestic hi-fi market. The same can be said of various other pro studio monitor manufacturers. Power handling in and of itself doesn't make a great speaker.
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what about the in house tweeter.... better than a lot of commercial offerings
 
Joe said:
I think that it is true to say that the larger ATC's are not great at low ( ish ) volume and do respond to being driven at higher volumes.

But that doesn't suit every room nor every listener.
Click to expand...

evand said:
As a SCM100ASLT owner I respectfully disagree. They do not need to be played loud at all to produce great sound.

................................... It’s most definitely not the hardware, it’s the room!
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Respectfully ( as an SCM50 owner ) I nowhere used the word "loud" . I thought that I was being very measured in my response ?

I also said that the room would be my suspect for the OP's opinion of his speakers......that or just his taste in how he likes his sound to 'sound'.
 
evand said:
They’re very revealing and accurate, and in an appropriately treated room with speakers properly placed they’re most definitely in the wide, deep holographic soundstage category.

When my home extensions are completed and the hifi is put back into play, anyone that thinks I’m overselling It is welcome to visit, bring along the tracks of their choice and experience it for themselves.
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I’d love to hear these set up in an actual room!
 
I'd be trying:
Some rugs, on the floor and on reflection points on the walls. Try some corner treatment, just to see if it makes a difference.
A high quality passive pre.
Some digital room eq.
A better dac, possibly additionally using a mains regen or a better low voltage supply. A reclocker might be worth a go too. And try a reclocker after the room eq before going into your dac.
IME reproduction of space and depth, and congestion reduction in complex passages does not come cheap or easily. I think the ATCs are up to it, they just have to get it in the first place to reproduce it. You need to then maximise their output reaching your ears without room boom and reflections, or you lose it.
 
So i have been listening to the ATCs a lot this week, trying dfferent components and loudspeaker positions and whatnot. I'll post some photos of the room at some point.

I really like the overall balance of the ATCs. So many comments about ATCs in general indicate a dry, lean response with light bass. My experience is quite the opposite and not what I might have expected from a studio monitor. I find them to be a touch warm, full and with a meaty and extended bass.

What is also surprising is that they are more tolerant of bad recordings than the R50s, and I have always regarded that as a mark of truly great hifi.

The ATCs probably "fail" a lot in demos because their presentation is quite subtle and listeners do need to spend time with them to appreciate their qualities.

They seem to play fine at lower levels (indicted 78dB on my uncalibrated and unreliable and un-everything smartphone mic). What is odd is that, even after listening at the same levels as I did with the R50s, my ears are ringing. Maybe my ears are faulty!

Clearly the listening room needs a lot of acoustic work and the other components, while adequate, are not sufficient to allow the SCM50s to shine. @John Phillips comment about the music collapsing with a Holo DAC was interesting because they are expensive and well regarded DACs - certainly way better than Chord Qutest and Topping/SMSL DACs.
 
I am glad that no one has suggested I buy an "audiophile network switch" or "audiophile hard disks" 😂

Or audiophile consumer unit MCBs, ethernet cables, isolation supports, room ionisers, mysterious magnets, cable risers etc
😂

We did get close with re-clockers and mains regens though ;)
 
Matthew J said:
I am glad that no one has suggested I buy an "audiophile network switch" or "audiophile hard disks" 😂

Or audiophile consumer unit MCBs, ethernet cables, isolation supports, room ionisers, mysterious magnets, cable risers etc
😂

We did get close with re-clockers and mains regens though ;)
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I can't see why anyone would have suggested you try one to solve a speaker/room challenge...

Once your fundamentals are sorted, you love what the ATCs are doing in your sorted room, etc and you put up a thread about why your streaming isn't as good as CD replay...
:)

Reclockers (in the bitstream world of streamers and DACs and most definitely not in the ethernet space) can make a real difference. I had a Mutec MC-3+ between my pimped Node 2i and my dCS DAC and it really tightened things up.

Isolation support on speakers in particular can also contribute nicely as confirmed by many happy Gaia users amonst others.

Reclockers, isolation support and proper switches are in a completely different (real) world from the room ionisers, mysterious magnets and cable risers which you appear to be lumping into the same category (albeit with a wink, I suspect!).

Anyway, it would appear that you're starting to tune into the ATC's. Not sure what the ringing of your ears is about though!
 
Matthew J said:
I am glad that no one has suggested I buy an "audiophile network switch" or "audiophile hard disks" 😂

Or audiophile consumer unit MCBs, ethernet cables, isolation supports, room ionisers, mysterious magnets, cable risers etc
😂

We did get close with re-clockers and mains regens though ;)
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I was at a bakeoff, @oldius , quite a few years ago. We were swapping in stuff people had brought, including some speaker cables like firehoses which had cost four figures. No one could hear the speaker cables. Then someone brought out a Wyred4Sound remedy, which re clocks and upsamples. Substantial difference heard by all in the room. Swapped in more expensive dacs, up to, I think, a Bryston. It very noticably improved all of them.
As soon as I got home I bought one. It's still in the system, and going nowhere. The largest difference is on the tv optical, where it transforms it from almost unlistenable to excellent. But it still wrings more from my Audiolab CDT too.
Mains regen I don't have, but all the small signal stuff and digital are plugged into a bbc transmitter power supply someone gave me, and it makes a difference.
Bits are bits, mains is mains, and cables are cables is usually the position taken by people who haven't tried the difference these might make, or have a system insufficiently resolving to distinguish differences. IMHO, of course.
 
ATC, in my experience, are pretty unforgiving unless in a perfect room. A few years ago in a vast room at the Munich show ATC had an incredible sound with active 100s I think. But in a domestic situation?…more troublesome I have noticed. A good friend has a pair of passive 40s and they do nothing for me in his room - a little harsh and flat sounding. When you find yourself heading for the volume control to turn it down as it’s uncomfortable to listen to, then you know you have a problem with the speaker/room interaction.

Having a problem room myself I’d always recommend demoing a speaker in situ prior to purchase. Not doing so can be costly.

I know we all rave about whatever speaker we have chosen, but if you like air and space and a holographic sound the Boenicke speakers I ended up with are incredible. And they don’t sound bad on poor recordings!
 
The advantages of room treatment applies to all direct radiating loudspeakers, it isn't a 'problem' specific to ATCs, you can however and I do, achieve very good results in a softly furnished carpeted room- all bets are off if your listening space has hard surfaces and the acoustics of a soho restaurant.
 
I have seen the Boenicke at shows and perhaps heard then but I can't remember. I'll look out for them at the next show.

Regarding re-clockers/re-gens etc, and without going too off topic: when I got the R50s, the sound was almost unlistenable and the only aspect of the system which had not received attention in years was the cabling, so I upgraded to mid-level Chord cables and that transforned the sound. I upgraded again but heard no improvement. I suspect the original cables were either faulty or somehow electrically incompatible.

Since then I have become quite cynical about many of the products for sale, as there is no proper evidence or technical explanation to justify spending money on them. There's so much meaningless BS that yes it's tarred that whole genre with the same brush. At the same time, I find the scientific community's evidence also uncompelling (but I am not a audio engineer or scientist!).

TheFlash said:
Once your fundamentals are sorted, you love what the ATCs are doing in your sorted room, etc and you put up a thread about why your streaming isn't as good as CD replay...
:)
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I am genuinely interested in that comment, as I have read similar comments elsewhere on PFM but without an explanation as to why that would be the case.

Since the 90s I have been ripping my own CDs to hard disk as I buy them, but last year I moved home and my CDs are in storage so I finally sorted out the connection between the NAS and the hifi. I wouldn't go back to CDs, as having the entire music collection so easily accessible seems to mean that I listen to more music and encounter stuff I haven't heard in decades.

Is the inferiority of local streaming from a NAS compared to CD replay generally experienced by folk and what do they do to counter it (apart from going back to CDs)?
 
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ff1d1l said:
I was at a bakeoff, @oldius , quite a few years ago. We were swapping in stuff people had brought, including some speaker cables like firehoses which had cost four figures. No one could hear the speaker cables. Then someone brought out a Wyred4Sound remedy, which re clocks and upsamples. Substantial difference heard by all in the room. Swapped in more expensive dacs, up to, I think, a Bryston. It very noticably improved all of them.
As soon as I got home I bought one. It's still in the system, and going nowhere. The largest difference is on the tv optical, where it transforms it from almost unlistenable to excellent. But it still wrings more from my Audiolab CDT too.
Mains regen I don't have, but all the small signal stuff and digital are plugged into a bbc transmitter power supply someone gave me, and it makes a difference.
Bits are bits, mains is mains, and cables are cables is usually the position taken by people who haven't tried the difference these might make, or have a system insufficiently resolving to distinguish differences. IMHO, of course.
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Yes, and mains cables in sealed steel boxes with certificates of ownership and a £9k price tag each (x3), with no difference discernible.
 
Matthew J said:
I recently purchased a used pair of ATC SCM50ASLT loudspeakers. They were made in 2019 and are in perfect condition.

My pre-ATC system is:

Cambridge Audio R50 loudspeakers with original drive units (as far as I can tell) but Falcon Acoustics crossover
Michel Alecto mk2 monoblocks upgraded to 250w/channel spec
Trichord Orca pre-amp with Never Connected PSU
Chord Qutest DAC
Primare NP5 network streamer hard wired via Ethernet to a NAS
Chord Signature Reference loudspeaker cable
Chord Signature Tuned Array RCA analogue interconnects
Chord optical interconnect
Topping D70 Sabre Pro DAC (on test)
SMSL SU-10 DAC (on test)

The room is 5.58m x 3.63m with hard floor and soft furnishings. No room treatments yet.

The sound from this system is great, with great drive and dynamics and some sound staging and instrument separation. It plays music really well. However, with busy tracks the sound collapses, sound staging and instrument separation could be way better and bad recordings do sound terrible

I bought the ATCs as "end-game" loudspeakers but the results have been baffling. The ATCs fire across the 3.63m width of the room and have been moved around. Cables are balanced Mogami Neglex 2534 with Neutrik XLR connectors.

The improvement in the sound quality is marginal. There is some more detail and air and sound staging, while the bass (to my surprise) is more extended and punchier. However, the improvements do not make anywhere near a compelling case for keeping the ATCs over my previous system. The balance is different for sure and probably more even (but I have no in-room measurements yet) but that can be corrected.

How can this be? Is there something wrong with my ears?! Or is my previous system better than I realised? How can a £16k (RRP) pair of ATCs not blow away my hotch-potch ancient hifi?

Can I emphasise that this is a genuine post and not an anti-ATC post. I am just baffled and grateful for others' insight.

I had plans to build point-to-point external crossovers for the R50s, and that plus room measurements and DSP would I think make the previous system indistinguishable from the ATC system, and at a fraction of the cost of the SCM50ASLT.
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My immediate, and still my main, reaction to this is, so what? Where is the problem? Maybe your existing stereo was good enough for the dominant factor in fluctuation in your musical enjoyment to be something other than your stereo. It's not as though this is apparently really bad, or even worse than your previous system. It's just not as much of an improvement as you had hoped. Nor have you identified anything which would be noticeably better, and anyway what could possibly be wrong with a system that pays music "really well"? Maybe you are just a normal human being who doesn't get that excited about a new pair of speakers.

The only thing pointing the other way* is the apparent collapse of the sound with busy tracks. Makes me wonder whether you really should look at the frequency response in room and check for a room mode problem. FWIW I put my 40s pretty much hard against the wall faced perpendicular to the wall and then dial down the inevitable bass boost with dsp. I can't really see any point doing anything else.

* I mean about there maybe being something wrong with the set up, not about your not being a normal human being.
 
Well, in that case I'd play around with some room correction. I can't really see the harm even if you do ultimately ditch the speakers as it will be of benefit for any system, and might even provide some excitement in itself.
 
Matthew J said:
I have seen the Boenicke at shows and perhaps heard then but I can't remember. I'll look out for them at the next show.

Regarding re-clockers/re-gens etc, and without going too off topic: when I got the R50s, the sound was almost unlistenable and the only aspect of the system which had not received attention in years was the cabling, so I upgraded to mid-level Chord cables and that transforned the sound. I upgraded again but heard no improvement. I suspect the original cables were either faulty or somehow electrically incompatible.

Since then I have become quite cynical about many of the products for sale, as there is no proper evidence or technical explanation to justify spending money on them. There's so much meaningless BS that yes it's tarred that whole genre with the same brush. At the same time, I find the scientific community's evidence also uncompelling (but I am not a audio engineer or scientist!).


I am genuine interested in that comment, as I have read similar comments elsewhere on PFM but without an explanation as to why that would be the case.

Since the 90s I have been ripping my own CDs to hard disk as I buy them, but last year I moved home and my CDs are in storage so I finally sorted out the connection between the NAS and the hifi. I wouldn't go back to CDs, as having the entire music collection so easily accessible seems to mean that I listen to more music and encounter stuff I haven't heard in decades.

Is the interiority of local streaming from a NAS compared to CD replay generally experienced by folk and what do they do to counter it (apart from going back to CDs)?
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Happy to do a call. And, no, I don't want to sell you anything! I can explain far more easily by voice (or by demo) than by typing. NAS vs CD can be easier to sort than streaming from Qobuz or whatever but if your NAS is attached to your router then as far as your streamer is concerned, well bits is bits; that's just part of the story though.

Anyway, speakers first!
 
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