AV News 190 - Novembert 2012
Sounds Exceptional !
Jenny Gee & Malcolm Gee LRPS
Yet again, at the Royal Photographic Societies International Audio Visual
Festival the stage was graced by a pair of ATC loudspeakers, kindly loaned for
the event by Loudspeaker Technology Limited (trading as ATC). The company
is local to Cirencester, their factory being situated in nearby Stroud.
ATC (Acoustic Transducer Company) was founded in 1974 by Billy Woodman
to manufacture custom drive units for the professional sound industry, and by
1978 was producing its first speaker systems. By 1985 the company had
established itself in a big way in the professional sector, the growth forcing a
move to the company's current premises in Gloucestershire. The BBC, Abbey
Road Studios, Pink Floyd, Nimbus, Peter Gabriel, Sony Music Studios, Sydney
Opera House, Convent Garden Opera House, Paramount and Warner Bros are
but a few of the clients ATC has attracted over the years. Other areas of
excellence include the equipping of large concert halls with studio-type
equipment, one of the most important of these being the Disney Concert Hall in
Los Angeles, home of the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra.
However with such an eminent clientele don't think that ATC doesn't cater for
the domestic Hi-fi market. When we decided to replace the loudspeakers used
in our lounge Hi-fi set up, having being so impressed when we heard the ATC
SCM 150 ASL Pro: 3-way active speakers at Cirencester at the 2010 RPS AV
Festival, we set about exploring the ATC website. Fortunately we managed to
find a local dealer who was able to demonstrate the
entry series of ATC loudspeakers, and we liked them
so much, we decided to purchase a pair of SCM 19: 2
way units just under two years ago. Working our way
through our collection of LPs and CDs since then has
been a revelation. We have found that we have some
amazing high fidelity recordings on both media,
however in some cases we've come to realize that the
recording engineers haven't done such a good job!
After contacting ATC, to say how pleased we were
with our choice of loudspeakers, we were invited to tour
the factory, if we were ever in the Stroud area.
Consequently on the Thursday prior to the 2012 RPS
AV Festival we spent a couple of hours being shown the skill and care that goes
into producing ATC speakers. They build all their own drive units, and then
assemble them into the enclosure. During our tour with Richard Newman, who
is employed in the Research and Design department at ATC, we received a
comprehensive grounding in what is required in the basic design of loudspeaker
drive units. We much enjoyed our visit and thank ATC very much for the
opportunity to tour their production facilities.
It was Richard who also delivered and installed the loudspeaker system used
during the most recent RPS AV Festival and, on behalf of all the participants, we
would like say a big thank you to ATC for providing a loudspeaker system that
gave us all the opportunity to fully appreciate the soundtracks in our AV
sequences. The sound qu