A classic ATC
Soft Dome Monitoring -
Friends around the world (special limited edition print) poster 66/100 signed by ATC's founder and chief engineer
Billy Woodman on display here at Musicraft (Derby).
Mastering engineer extraordinaire Barry Grint gets
ATC's P2 PRO in on the Alchemy act.
“I was very happy with my monitor speakers, but they seemed to lack bass extension; Matt Colton has active ATC SCM150 ASL PROs in his room, so I thought that an ATC amp might give me more bass… the difference wasn’t subtle with the P2 PRO.” – Alchemy Mastering Founder & Director Barry Grint, 2017.
Generating twice the power of its smaller
P1 sibling, the
P2 will drive the most challenging loudspeakers with
ATC’s signature virtues of wide bandwidth and ultra-low distortion…
ATC's P2 300w/ch dual mono power stereo power amplifier is at Musicraft (Derby)
LONDON, UK: specialist British loudspeaker drive unit and complete sound reproduction system manufacturer
ATC is proud to announce that mastering engineer extraordinaire Barry ‘Bazza’ Grint has acquired a
P2 PRO Dual Mono Power Amplifier — a true dual mono design delivering 300W of continuous power simultaneously from both channels to drive the most challenging loudspeaker loads with
ATC’s signature virtues of wide bandwidth and ultra-low distortion — to enhance the full range monitoring system in his room at Alchemy Mastering, one of the world’s leading lights in half-speed and pure analogue vinyl mastering…
Mastering engineer extraordinaire Barry Grint’s ‘lifelong’ love affair with The Dark Art Of Audio Mastering — to paraphrase the appropriate website wording for Alchemy Mastering (
http://www.alchemymastering.com), the company he founded in 1998, having previously worked at Abbey Road, Porky’s Mastering, Tape One, and the legendary Trident Studios — led him to a life less ordinary that has been truly extraordinary. “I always wanted to work in a recording studio, but getting in has always been difficult,” he notes. “I had many jobs beforehand, but eventually I started as a tea boy at Trident Studios. Seeing first-hand what being a studio engineer actually entailed, I felt that it wasn’t quite right for me. On the third floor there was disc cutting — vinyl and cassette being the only formats at the time. I immediately felt at home, starting in the tape and cassette copy room, before moving up to vinyl mastering in 1984.”
The bright-eared Barry Grint was quick off the mark in making his mastering mark. 1984 alone saw his mastering mojo working wonderfully on classic vinyl singles for Duran Duran (‘The Wilds Boys’), Foreigner (‘I Want To Know What Love Is’), Madonna (‘Like A Virgin’), Van Halen (‘Jump’), and ZZ Top (‘Gimme All Your Lovin’’). Thereafter, things went seriously stratospheric as Barry Grint went on to work with a roll call of rock and pop greats such as Bon Jovi, David Bowie, Paul McCartney, Oasis, Prince, The Beatles, and The Rolling Stones, to list but a few notable names. Speaking of names, the master(ing) craftsman identified his vinyl work by etching ‘Bazza’ in the run out-groove with various incarnations including Bazza @ Abbey Road, Bazza @ Tape One, Bazza @ Porky’s putting in an appearance throughout the years.
Yet Barry Grint has witnessed a lot of industry changes — technological or otherwise — in a celebrated career spanning five distinctive decades. Given his mastering pedigree, perhaps it was inevitable that he would one day become a master of his own destiny at Alchemy Mastering in Soho, which went on to become one of the UK’s foremost mastering facilities before leasing issues at its ‘high-flying’ Centre Point office tower London location left its founder rethinking and, ultimately, relocating somewhat closer to terra firma. Its current location in an elegant West London mews houses three acoustically-tuned studios with natural daylight designed by the three ‘Alchemists’ — Barry Grint and fellow Directors Matt Colton and Phil Kinrade — themselves, each equipped with full-range monitoring systems and a wide range of vintage and cutting-edge high-end analogue and digital hardware and software processors, perfect for pursuing their sought-after craft. “We all react to what’s coming out of the speakers, and we make our judgements based on how that sounds in the room,” Matt Colton claimed, soon after receiving the coveted Music Producers Guild Mastering Engineer of the Year award in 2013.
As a full member, Barry Grint is no stranger to the MPG (Music Producers Guild) himself, representing them when working with the EBU (European Broadcasting Union) to create a standard for embedding the ISRC (International Standard Recording Code) within BWF (Broadcast Wave Format) audio, adopted by the main manufacturers of mastering software internationally. But back in the mastering hot seat within Mastering Two — Barry Grint’s mastering studio for digital, CD, and vinyl mastering at Alchemy Mastering — things get more personal. “The choice of equipment is a very personal thing,” its owner-occupier opines. “I was very happy with my monitor speakers, but they seemed to lack bass extension; Matt Colton has active
ATC SCM150ASL PROs in his room, so I thought that an
ATC amp might give me more bass.”
Cue delivery of a
P2 PRO Dual Mono Power Amplifier — a true dual mono design delivering 300W of continuous power simultaneously from both channels to drive the most challenging loudspeaker loads with
ATC’s signature virtues of wide bandwidth and ultra-low distortion — on trial. The result? “The bass extension was great, but there was also a noticeable improvement overall — a smoothness that gave improved detail and clarity,” continues the seriously impressed Barry Grint. “The difference wasn’t subtle with the
P2 PRO. I called Ben Lilly, Technical Sales Manager at
ATC, and told him he couldn’t have the demo unit back until he had sent me the one I bought!”
Beneficiaries of this latest acquisition already encompasses a lengthening list of current and established artists alike, as Barry Grint reveals: “Remastering Jeff Wayne’s War Of The Worlds, The Stranglers, Declan McKenna, Tom Odell, Sean Paul, Roger Waters; vinyl mastering for All Tvvins, Gorillaz, Laura Mvula, Little Mix, Radiohead, Rag’n’Bone Man, The Libertines, The Rolling Stones…”
So, yes, Barry Grint has witnessed a lot of industry changes in a celebrated career spanning five distinctive decades — not least the putative passing of vinyl into the annals of reproductive audio history only for it to triumphantly return relatively recently, as evidenced by Alchemy Mastering making a name for itself as one of the world’s leading lights in half-speed and pure analogue vinyl mastering: “When I started, people recorded in recording studios and mobile studios were big articulated lorries loaded with massive Neve, Cadac, or Trident desks and multitrack tape machines. Today, digital recording has made available amazing recording spaces. Sometimes this means that for some projects the mastering room is the only controlled listening environment, one where a good speaker/amp combination is vital. This is why we went with
ATC.”
Alchemy Mastering
ATC P2 RRP £3375
(ATC's 40th Anniversary Celebration video)
http://atcforums.co.uk/pdf/ATC CORP BROCHURE.pdf (ATC Corporate brochure)
ATC Transducer. The sound of accuracy. Naturally.
http://www.the-ear.net/review-hardware/atc-p2-stereo-power-amplifier
The Ear reviews ATC's P2 300w/ch dual mono power stereo power amplifier
"I suspect that the P2 will drive just about everything out there, it’s just a question of taste as to whether you will like the result. ATC make no nonsense, down to earth amplifiers and loudspeakers based on decades of experience in the pro and consumer markets, and they make them in Gloucestershire, England in an unprepossessing building. This combined with a singularly indifferent attitude to advertising means that ATC products offer better value than most, in fact there aren’t many companies that compete on that front and even fewer who have such a solid track record. In other words this is not only a very capable amplifier it has pedigree and it’s sensibly priced. What more do you want?"
http://atcloudspeakers.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/HFN_Mar17_ATC_P2_Reprint-LOW.pdf
Hi-Fi News (March 2017) reviews ATC's P2 300w/ch dual mono power stereo power amplifier
“the P2 is one of those subtle components that quietly works its magic on you, until you suddenly realise that it is doing everything brilliantly but without any fuss or melodrama. Put simply, it just sounds ‘right’.”
“In terms of detail, the P2 struck gold once again. Instruments were lifelike and beautifully atmospheric, no matter whether a recording featured a soft solo acoustic ensemble or a grand orchestral bombardment.”
Adam Smith, Hi-Fi News, March 2017
ATC's P2 300w/ch dual mono power stereo power amplifier is at Musicraft (Derby)
ATC's P2 300w/ch dual mono power stereo power amplifier is at Musicraft (Derby)
ATC's P2 300w/ch dual mono power stereo power amplifier is at Musicraft (Derby)
Hand-built by ATC in the UK, the
P2 class A/B stereo power amplifier is designed to complement the brand’s range of hi-fi preamplifiers, both aesthetically and operationally. Rated at 300W continuous power per channel and developed in tandem with the
P2 Pro studio amplifier, the ATC
P2 is a Dual Mono design, keeping the power supplies, signal and return paths discreet. This approach ensures that the amplifier will achieve the maximum signal separation with minimal crosstalk, and that intermodulation between channels via the power supplies is reduced to an absolute minimum across a frequency range of 400kHz. It also means that the power delivery from one channel cannot affect the specified power available from the other.
Within a new low-vibration chassis design featuring a precision machined 12.7mm brushed aluminium front panel, the
P2’s layout includes a massive, custom-made 400 VA low-noise transformer for each channel and an output stage involving 3 pairs of MOSFET devices per channel to achieve peak current output of over 15 amps. ATC’s unique “grounded source” output stage ensures smooth power delivery and extremely low harmonic distortion. The gain of the
P2 matches that of the lower power
P1 (150W/ch) so that they can be used together in bi-amp or tri-amp systems, connected via the amplifier ‘Link’ phono inputs/outputs.
The ATC
P2 offers balanced XLR and unbalanced phono inputs, ‘link’ phono outputs, proprietary 4mm speaker terminals, and IR remote control.
ATC P2 Features -
• Latest ATC discrete MOSFET grounded source output stage.
• Class A/B topology.
• 300W into 8 ohm continuous power O/P capability
• Dual mono-design ensures minimal crosstalk and inter-channel modulation.
• Entirely separate power supplies for high voltage audio, low voltage audio and logic/control.
• 400kHz bandwidth to ensure best possible transient reproduction.
• Vanishingly low distortion.
• Custom low noise toroidal transformers.
• New chassis design for reduced vibration and a more striking visual appearance.
ATC P2 Specifications -
• Max Continuous Output Power : 300W (8Ω, 1% THD)
• Input Sensitivity : 2V rms (ref. 150W out)
• Input Impedance : 10kΩ/leg
• Frequency Response : <2Hz – >400kHz (-3dB)
• Signal to Noise Ratio : >110dB (DIN)
• Crosstalk : >100dB
• THD : >0.002%/-95dB
• Dimensions (HxWxD) : 141x448x337mm (5.6˝x17.6˝x13.3˝)
• Weight : 30kg / 66lbs
• 6 year warranty
ATC SCM100ASL Professional Monitors used here at Musicraft (Derby)
ATC SCM100ASL Professional Monitors used here at Musicraft (Derby)
ATC SCM100ASL Professional monitors
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