Atohm Speakers From France

We started dealing with Atoll Electronique of France a few months back and have been BLOWN AWAY by how good the line is for such reasonable money!

The same American importer, Emilios Mandalios, told me I HAD to audition an amazing line of French speakers- Atohm. I definitely wasn’t shopping for speakers, but Emilios earned his credibility with Atoll. So I said OK, prove it to me.

He did! What differentiates Atohm from all the other attractive, nice sounding Euro speakers is that Atohm has class defying bass performance and the ability to play loudly- that the other guys in the same category SIMPLY DON’T.

We’ve had a nice run with Amphion of Finland. But they raised prices over a third during covid. Their speakers sound lovely. But they don’t play loudly enough for our more boisterous customers. Atohm has no such limitations!

Atohm

Atohm speakers are made in their own house in France. They don’t just buy parts from vendors and assemble them.

Most of the speakers you see on the market are made in China by one of a thousand job houses. They’re building widgets and slap one brand name or another on them, like labeling golf shirts.

Most of the rest of the speakers out there are assemblers. They buy drivers from China, Europe or where ever, screw them into boxes- and call it high science. Neither of the above business models are what Atohm does.

Atohm’s Formula

Atohm makes speakers that are manageable in size, sound and look gorgeous, and play with majestic gusto! This is a unique combination of talents. Plenty of speakers out there of modest size, look and sound good. But when it comes to kicking fanny, they fall short. Atohm does not.

Atohm is a welcome exception to Euro speakers that sound good, but have lightweight bass and can’t fill American living rooms.

Atohm has exquisite detail and fabulous imaging characteristics. Atohm can provide a locked in center image that doesn’t drift. Even more impressive is their ability to image beyond the bounds of where the cabinets sit. You’ll be impressed with the deep and wide soundstage. It’s almost spooky hearing music from the space in front of you- NOT limited to where the speaker cabinets are.

What makes Atohm different, and I’ll argue BETTER than the other guys, is that they produce a BIG sound and WILL play to very strong volume levels. Further, they do this with cabinets that are small to moderate in size. Few people in Europe have a living room as big as yours.

There are a thousand and one boxes Atohm checks to deliver this level of sonic excellence, with outstanding power. We’ll list a few here and then link you to Atohm’s impressive Technical Book.

GT Series

Atohm’s GT Series is its top line of speakers. The finish work features elegant walnut, piano black or piano white. Atohm provides two grill options with each speaker system. They include both with every purchase because they’re equally popular. These speakers will look gorgeous in your house!

Atohm speakers start with their own 1” silk dome technology with ferrofluid. It uses a copper ring to linearize and reduce inductance. The coil itself is made of Copper Clad Aluminum, which provides great conductivity with light weight. Atohm uses a unique inner hang design which allows shorter winding lengths than what is traditional. This insures lower distortion than a more traditional

design. The tweeter baffle is constructed of injected aluminum which eliminates interfering vibrations. The rear wave is channeled through the core and then damped in the rear chamber. All this techno talk results is a fast, detailed, powerful NON BRIGHT sounding high end.

Atohm mid-bass and woofer drivers are comprised of a metal alloy design. The coil former is made of Kapton/Nomex. The peripheral suspension features a special profile for linear performance. Atohm makes extensive use of laser interferometry to optimize the movements and interactions among its parts. By using rigid materials and stable adhesives, the drivers maintain a high degree of precision- which cannot be said for paper or woven cone diaphragms.

Atohm cabinets are constructed with audio and aesthetic considerations in mind. The cabinets don’t run parallel walls to avoid standing waves. The speakers have internal braces and absorptive foam on all walls. The towers offer a chamber that can be filled with sand for superior rigidity and further damping. Atohm uses a laser vibrometer to dial in its cabinet nuances. They use a unique PDS double plinth decoupling isolation system at the base of their enclosures. This all but eliminates vibration to the floor and is cherry on top of being sure the cabinet’s energy is controlled optimally for deep and powerful base. The PDS eliminates any proclivity for the cabinet to boom.

The imaging of Atohm speakers can best be described by Seinfeld’s girlfriend, THEY’RE SPECTACULAR! It’s uncanny how they can place a vocal dead center in your room and it doesn’t wander. Even more impressive is their ability to cast an image well beyond the confines of the cabinets in width and depth. Please visit so we can prove it. The bass is solid and all of these models play plenty loudly despite the modest footprint in your room.

Models

GT-1 $4500 Per Pair

13h, 7.87w, 10.43d, 27 lbs, 89dB, 6 ohms

6” Bass/Mid & Tweeter

Tweeter level control

GT 1.0 is a luscious, high end stand mount with more bass and power capability than you would dream- given the traditional performance of speakers this size. Its imaging is astonishing. I don’t just mean center vocal, but its ability to project images well beyond the positions of the cabinets will shock you.

GT-2 $7500 Per Pair

42.71h, 7.87w, 10.43d, 58 lbs, 90dB, 6 ohms

Two 6” Bass/Mids in 2.5 way configuration & Tweeter

Tweeter & Midrange level controls

GT-2 is just what you would expect, an even more powerful sibling to its smaller brother. It maintains the imaging advantages of GT-1, but adds depth and power in a gorgeous, surprisingly lean tower.

GT-3 $13,000 Per Pair

46.85h, 9.45w, 17.12d, 83 lbs, 92dB, 6 ohms

7” Woofer, 6” Midrange & Tweeter

Tweeter & Midrange level controls

GT-3 is the culmination of all things Atohm. While it uses the same tweeter as its brothers above, it uses a specific, dedicated 6” midrange driver and a prodigious 7” woofer was well. It’s bigger as well as being more clear and powerful.

Seong-Jin Cho – Pianist

Born 1994 in S Korea, Cho was learning the piano and violin. He played many sports and was what he describes as a pretty normal S Korean kid from in a single child family. He was far from a Little Emperor.

What were you doing at age 10? My parents had Peter, Paul & Mary on LP. I had a few 45s by then, Beach Boys & Martha and The Vandellas. All I did was play baseball all summer and hockey all winter. That was more than enough for me.

Cho, at age 10, got the competitive spirit and decided he HAD to raise his game on piano. He went from easy youth pieces into the deep end of Chopin Scherzos- never to look back. By age 14 he was winning international competitions and even won the prestigious Chopin Competition at 21. His career took off and he’s recorded for DG ever since. His recordings include probably my favorite version of the Chopin scherzi, recorded in 2021. So again, what were you doing at age 10?

Atoll Electronique

Just in, straight from France, is Atoll Electronique. Yes, Atoll is made in France, not China, and comes with a THREE year warranty.

Atoll was founded in 1997 by brothers Stephane and Emmanuel Dubreuil. You’ll see that Atoll is barely more money than the Chinese imports- yet the performance is astonishingly more dynamic, rich and smooth sounding.

The line is so good, and so reasonable in price, that you have to ask why nobody else is doing this. Ultimately, Atoll is SMART and efficient. They use a short menu of chassis sizes. Their base units use a generous array of large components. As you go up in the family, let’s say integrated amps for example, you get more and larger transformers, filter caps, output devices etc. The formula is unbeatable.

Because Atoll has created a wise building block platform, you end up getting a big slug of hardware at each price jump. I’ve been in the biz since the early 70s and never seen a LINE of gear better planned and implemented!

Do any of you remember Audire? Atoll is even better at it than Audire was. The result is that YOU get remarkable, true audiophile performance, hand made from France, for not much more money than a boatload of chips and widgets from China. In China, dozens of brands can come from the same house with a plethora of brand names on the boxes- just like labeling baseball hats.

To massage this further, let me use a boxing analogy. With most companies, their entry level unit is a flyweight, then bantamweight, then middleweight, then cruiserweight, then heavyweight. With Atoll, its entry level integrated amp, IN50 Signature, is a hard punching middleweight. Atoll is so efficacious that they don’t have a flimsy starter piece. As you go up the ladder you get more beef. With most companies, the entry level piece is a sissy, and often the top level piece gets hot and bothered when you kick it in the tail. With Atoll’s sage strategy all models in the line benefit- even the kid brother.

Atoll’s electronics are dual-mono in design. Their double sided circuit boards with through hole construction are like art work. Through hole design allows a more secure installation and dissipates heat better than surface mount components. Atoll PCBs are built symmetrically with actual French humans wiring and soldering boards in their factory in Normandy. The symmetrical design pays off far more than aesthetically. The PCBs allow Atoll to run short wires and use a star alignment system to achieve a black background floor.

Atoll uses metal chassis, front panels and knobs. They’re built for stability and longevity.

Atoll’s muscular bass performance in particular, puts it a step above similarly priced Chinese gear. Atoll designs with massive power supplies- large transformers and filter caps. Atoll even has custom power supply caps made for them in Japan. These caps use a steel shield and implement a resin material to eliminate transformer humming. The result is low ESR and an indiscernible noise floor.

Atoll integrated amps and preamps come stock in line stage designs. You can create your own pizza with Atoll. You can add a DAC board and/or phono board, based on your needs. The pricing of these boards is downright CHEAP. Atoll has planned for these and we can customize your unit in our shop. This game plan allows high efficiency in manufacturing.

Atoll is especially adept at delivering human and instrumental voices with lifelike grit and character. Atoll uses MATCHED MOSFET output devices for optimal clarity and push. Atoll has designed an electronic card with microcontroller which measures each transistor. It’s their own secret sauce. When you hear even the modest Atoll integrateds on some fine speakers, you’ll be as shocked as we were by their sophistication and brute strength.

In fact, Atoll’s power is so formidable, you will infer double the muscle you’d expect from

their rated power. That’s correct. Even Atoll’s entry level integrated amp. IN50 Signature ($1200, 50×2) will impress you with great speakers like Magnepans or Brystons.

While Atoll is probably most well known for its scintillating integrated amp values, they also make separates, CD players and a myriad of other product categories. The quality, sage choices and efficiency run line wide. Atoll gear sounds so clean, quiet and SOLID, that you would do well to plan your electronics with Atoll and keep your powder dry for great speakers. We have those too by the way.

Miracle of miracles, Atoll also makes a real CATALOG. Can you imagine?! We’ll link you to it. Remember the good old days when companies spelled out the nuts and bolts of each piece in the line? It’s great fun to study the minutia of what is offered, and understand what you’re getting. Of course there’s no substitute for an in person audition- which we’d like to do for you.

Please Buy N American or Euro!

Atoll’s line of integrated amps in particular, should move the needle away from buying Chinese products. Even if you don’t care about the politics of the matter, just look (& listen!) to what you get from Atoll at a given price point. You get bigger/better transformers, filter caps and superior MOSFET transistors in matched pairs. You’ll be happily surprised at how GUTSY the integrateds sound. Again, even the lower level models will drive hungry speakers to your pleasure. NAD has made among the best affordable integrateds on the market for years. Atoll’s power leaves them in the weeds. Considering Atoll’s pricing is in a the same ballpark as the imports from Asia, please buy Atoll- hand made in France.

RIP Maurizio Pollini (1942-2024)

The GREAT Italian pianist Maurizio Pollini died on March 23, 2024 at age 82. Pollini recorded prolifically for DG. If you buy his monster CD box, it could be said you have covered most of the important bases of classical piano literature. In his book The Great Pianists (1963), NY Times’ Harold Schonberg ranked Pollini #1 of current pianists. I had the pleasure of seeing Pollini in Chicago about 2010. He sounded lyrical and still had his A game on my favorite Schubert sonatas. Pollini’s son, Daniele, a pianist and conductor, survives his dad.