ATC Loudspeakers

ATC Active Speakers

If you truly want the most LIFELIKE performance from your hi-fi, it’s time to face facts. You can only attain state of the art performance with ACTIVE speakers, done right, with AB amplifiers.

Regular speakers have passive crossovers built in. These crossovers have resistors, capacitors and inductors. All they can do is cut / diminish signal quality as they set crossover frequencies. The components and lengthy wire within passive crossovers quash dynamic range and clarity. All of these parts come after your amplifier, so your amp has to fight its way through this web of electronic parts.

ATC Actives have an electronic crossover on board. The crossover frequencies, contours and phase alignment circuits can be much more specific in their implementation. Then ATC dedicates an amp, per driver, AFTER the crossover. ATC Active 3-way are TRI-AMPED!

With ATC Actives there is much more control. Drivers start and stop much faster. This allows music to have significantly superior dynamic range and clarity. With ATC Actives, the drivers see precise frequency and phase alignment so they work ideally within their range. They start and stop faster. There is no passive crossover in the musical road for your amp to fight through.

ATC of England

ATC Active speakers feature electronic crossovers working at low level- before the amps in the speakers. That’s right, AMPS, plural. There are three amps in each ATC 3-way. Your speakers are TRI-AMPED and driven by vice grip control vs the relatively soggy noodle your amp sees after fighting through an extensive passive crossover.

ATC designers can precisely control crossover frequencies and phase accuracy via the electronic crossover. You simply cannot set values and phase nearly as accurately with a boatload of passive parts. With an electronic crossover, signals can be boosted, cut and very specifically contoured. The amps then directly power the drivers.

Traditional speakers use passive crossovers. All the crossover can do is debase signal levels while routing frequencies- in comparatively wide swaths. The music has to fight its way through the plethora of constrictive passive parts (resistors/caps/inductors).

Think of strong water pressure (full range info) coming from your amp and then going into the passive crossover of your speakers to be divided up per driver. The crossover parts introduce hundreds of feet of wire, or even thousands (check out the monster coils in the crossover photos below) with large speakers, trying to set frequency contours and phase precisely. In short, the water pressure is much diminished by the time it gets to your drivers. Control is lost. Drivers can’t start and stop as immediately. Definition is limited and dynamics are thwarted.

No matter how expensive the speakers and crossover, it’s just a fact. Actually, the bigger and more expensive a speaker is, you can count on more crossover intrusion tamping down the sound. When you see humongo towers in stores or magazines, being driven by brontosaurus sized amplifiers- they’re still constrained right out of the batter’s box.

Passive Crossovers

Here’s an example of some very good passive crossovers. You can see what your music has to wrestle through. There are zillions of feet of wire and many components in the bumpy road. With ATC Actives you simply don’t have all this wire and obfuscation in the path to dull dynamic range, reduce definition and suck power dry.

You know not to buy hundreds or even thousands of feet of speaker wire. Yet that’s what is inside your speakers with passive networks. It’s far better simply NOT to run your music through passive crossovers and speaker wire from your amp to the speakers.

Yep, I’m saying ATC Actives are a smarter buy than any enormous speaker with passive crossover- connected to some beasty amp with expensive speaker cables.

Dynamism & Speed

ATC Active speakers achieve superior DYNAMIC and detailed musical performance. You end up hearing the music without distortion or dynamic hampering. Distortion exhibits itself by clouding clarity and limiting dynamics. It’s the equivalent of dulling colors / details of an exquisite photograph.

I’m first and foremost a fan of pianos and acoustic instruments. The ultimate acoustic instrument is the human voice. With ATC Actives you’ll hear this music more clearly and without murkiness or artifacts. Further, you can’t miss the improvement in dynamic contrast- which makes the music sound more live in your room.

ATC Actives give you bass control to lust for. The lower register of a piano, stand up bass or drum kits sounds more real and lively. The traditional method of running big speakers with big amps delivers more muddy bass. They can’t help it.

Passive systems, even the best of them, driven by megabuck power amps- are still saddled with stifling passive crossovers in the roadway. All speakers with passive networks are handicapped by them. Invariably, the bigger the speaker, the more intrusive and music obscuring its passive crossover is. Take another look above to see what comes after your power amp- and before your drivers. If you can swing an ATC Active, there’s no reason to go the traditional route.

My point is, rather than buying “those” speakers for $30k / 50k / 100k on up, it’s a lot smarter to buy an ATC SCM50 ASLT for $27k. Remember, the amps are built in and deliver control that simply isn’t possible with behemoth speakers and amplifiers priced like sports cars.

Active Done Right

The only way you can beat this passive problem is to do exactly what ATC does. It requires paying attention to a million details, which ATC has been refining since 1974. It starts by going active.

By the way, ACTIVE is different from POWERED. Active means you’re dedicating one amp per driver. Powered just means there is amplification in the speaker. With powered, it’s almost always D class and there is usually a passive crossover after the on board amp. Active is the right way to fly.

It also means you have to be open minded to accepting this active solution. No combination of crazy expensive speakers, amps, cables/connectors can achieve what the ATC Actives can. Consider your musical signal and what it has to fight through to get to your speakers’ drivers.

When you’ve had enough of trying to match this amp to that speaker to try to improve things, please consider a smarter solution. Buy an ATC Active system and you’ll hear within a minute that you could never have achieved this level of accuracy with some brand of amp, tied to some other brand of speakers, and speaker wire- that use a constricting passive crossover in the road. Nor will you need speaker wires- another component in the road.

Further, running D class chip amps in powered speakers won’t cut it. They sound thinner and brighter. ATC is achieving excellence by doing it right.

ATC SCM-50 ASLT, $27,000 Per Pair {39.49h, 11.97w, 18.5d, 113 lbs}

ATC SCM50 ASLT speakers will sound more DYNAMIC, resolving and convincingly REAL, than competitors with passive crossovers built in.

This ATC system is much less expensive than the audiophile stacks you read about in the hi-fi mags every month. Every month the mags write about $50k plus speakers with similarly priced amps. The ATC Actives will clearly reveal more information, especially in terms of dynamic range, fine detailing and singing emotion. ATC Actives provide a much superior grip on the drivers and eliminate noise that masks detail in any passive speaker.

This ATC Active system has class shattering dynamic contrast. It will redefine how good recorded music can sound at your house. ATC Actives are ubiquitous in state of the art recording studios world wide. They’re an invaluable tool for engineers that want to give us the most realistic sound to the live experience they just heard.

There are many reasons why ATC Actives outperform price no object competitors, but it all starts by getting rid of the passive crossover.

It takes some money to get there, but when you consider you’ve taken care of the speaker and amplifiers, and don’t need expensive speaker wire- it’s worth the investment. There’s simply no other way to attain this level of performance.

We all have bought various amps and speakers over the years. They can sound pretty good and it allows you to grow in price stratas that you’re comfortable with. It’s more “normal” and comfortable. But it’s not the best way to get the most lifelike performance in your house.

If you’re ready to go after the MOST realism a hi-fi can achieve, we’ve got to flush the passive crossovers. They’re blatant impediments to what can be achieved. Keep in mind, passive crossovers operate AFTER your amplifier. With ATC Actives, your amp drives the speakers directly, after the electronic crossover’s precision work- with the utmost definition.

I’m well aware the “everybody” wants to sell you MASSIVE Magicos or Wilsons with crazy expensive d’Agostino or Scandinavian amps. The ATC Actives cost dramatically less and outperform them. You simply can’t beat ELIMINATING boatloads of wire and passive components. Considering dynamic range alone- you’ll be able to appreciate the improvement ATC Actives provide instantly.

Drivers

ATC makes its own drivers in England. They don’t buy them from an OEM vendor as most companies do. ATC makes its drivers by hand instead of mass production machines.

As you take the ATC factory tour via Youtube, I suspect you’ll be surprised by how many women, with exquisite small motor skills, are involved in the precision construction of these drivers. ATC manufacturing is craft, rather than automation based.

These drivers are hand constructed in England. They use sturdy cast frame construction and have enormous motors (magnet structures) to keep them under control. The motors are conspicuously bigger and more powerful than what you’ll see from “the other guys.”

ATC tweeters and midrange drivers both use their patented DUAL SUSPENSION voice coil technology. The double suspension technique keeps the drivers moving in a linear motion, even when worked hard. ATC has proven that the more common single suspension system isn’t as linear.

There’s a good DRIVER video online posted by Lone Mountain, the ATC importer, to show this. You’ll see that the dual suspension drivers stay linear under load. Single suspension drivers lose their pistonic pattern of movement when driven hard.

No TIZZ

The ATC tweeter is a 1” soft dome of their own design. ATC voices it to be smooth and neutral. Every passive speaker you’ll hear sounds brighter and edgier. ATC has superior clarity without the tizz. The tizz manifests itself as brightness. When you hear music without it, you’ll learn quickly that the tizz is distortion, not part of the music. When you notice the tizz is gone- and then go back to hear it- you’ll recognize that it’s an annoying artifact. It’s not in the music. It’s something extra in the road.

ATC DOME MIDRANGE DRIVER

The ATC midrange driver is a 3” DOME (vs cone). It is a game changer and to my taste, the most accurate midrange driver in the industry. I want the ATC Actives that feature the dome midrange, as opposed to the models that do not. The dome mid creates a LARGE, expansive image. It is fast enough to help that leading edge of the transient on piano or guitar sound more real. Perhaps most specifically, the dome helps give texture to instruments better than any other speakers I’ve heard.

The dome midrange has a number of advantages over cones. Its dispersion is significantly wider than a cone handling the same frequencies. As the signal moves higher, the dome midrange absolutely steps away from cones in terms of smoothness and spaciousness. With this midrange specifically in mind, I would encourage you to buy ATCs with this midrange driver- vs those that work with cones only.

Further, ATC mates the dome mid and dome tweeter for cohesive linearity and imaging. It’s far tougher to blend a dome tweet and cone mid in ideal balance and dispersion.

The woofer features ATC’s SL (Super Linear) construction technology. ATC employs unique concentric magnetic rings to quash hysteresis- which lowers distortion. This model employs a 9” woof which will bowl you over with deep bass- while maintaining taut control.

Amps

ATC makes its own AB amps in house. They use MOSFET output devices.

• The woofer is driven by a 200w amp.

• The midrange is driven by a 100w amp.

• The tweeter is driven by a 50w amp.

Some of you may be thinking, gee, these don’t sound powerful enough. Well, they ARE. That’s because… when you run an ACTIVE system, your amps don’t have to fight through, again, constricting crossovers. You drive the drivers directly instead of having power stripped away through passive components and hundreds/thousands of feet of wire within them. You don’t need as much power when each amp drives its own driver directly, with no passive components to fight their way through.

Towers Vs Stand Mounts

I recommend buying the ATC TOWER speakers, vs the equivalent model in a stand mount. The stand mount is a little cheaper. But given the size and weight of each model, it’s just too difficult to handle. The stand mounts don’t screw on to the stand. They just sit atop. I can’t see taking a 90 pound speaker off its stand, moving the stand a bit, and then lifting that 90 pound speaker back into place. Over and over…for ideal placement. We audiophiles are always looking for the ideal placement.

The tower gives you more stability and is a breeze to wiggle into any position.