Best active speaker

how does genelec compare to atc?

Put it this way, when George Massenburg built his latest studio (after 30 years as a renown recording engineer, equipment designer and university lecturer) he installed BOTH.

Ninety tons of MDF were cut and milled to a final cut weight of 40 tons. Beginning with a room footprint of 36' x 25' x 27', the one-inch square MDF pegs come out of the walls and ceiling in lengths that vary from 6 to 40 inches — and no two of the hundreds of thousands of “tines” are the same length.

Somehow, I don't think he cut corners on the speakers - personal preferences may lean one way or the other but both are good.

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S.G.R.speakers are winning over some really serious audiophiles.
I have not heard them but when people with a long history of good equipment like B&W 802Ds and Krell amps sell them to buy SGRs and claim they give a vast leap in performance it makes you sit up and take notice.

Wow thanks for the great find! Jtgofish. I never heard of S.G.R before. It seems like the land from down under is particularly fond of the active approach.

When I look at the specs on the ATC 150s, I'm a little suprised. The 2 dB roll-off is at 60 Hz. The speaker is 4' high and 2' wide. Why don't they have better specs for their size? For comparison I have a pair of Aerial 5B bookshelf speakers with the exact same 2 dB point. Yes, the 6 dB point difference is notable (25 Hz vs. 50 Hz) but the Aerials are 1' by 8" wide.

ATC specs are conservative (freestanding in open space). You certainly do not get "quantity" from ATC bass - their design is only about quality and approaching the performance of electronics in terms of distortion. The 150's are probably around 0.3% THD from 30 Hz upwards at live concert levels in a moderate room whereas most speakers have about at least 10% and often approaching 50% THD in the LF range - even when played at modest SPL's.

Most people are very surprised at the "lack of bass" from such as large speaker. As you don't get all the LF harmonic distortion that is normal for most other designs and increases the perceptive loudness of the bass - it takes a while to get used to the clean sound of 150's.