Active Speakers Better? No, per Michael Borresen

ATC speakers do not even provide frequency response measurements on their website. You'd think they would give you plenty of measurements to look at given that they brag about how accurate their speakers are. The are just overpriced overrated speakers that have achieved success based on rave reviews by so called industry professionals that know nothing about speaker design. 

ATC are a driver manufacturer that have no expertise in speaker design. You would think a high end speaker would be far more advanced than just a wooden box with drivers in 'em but thats exactly what ATC are.

@lonemountain I could tell you were not a typical customer, now I get it. I checked your profile and you don't have a system posted. Would you mine sharing? Do you know how the virtual system page works? Thanks

@lonemountain

Some people want it to sound like it’s supposed to, the way Fleetwood Mac decided or Tom Petty or Lenny Kravitz. ATC enables you to get that, and you cannot get that with passives.

I set up my home theater with the intention of replicating to the degree that is practical what the mixing engineer of a movie or album heard on the soundstage. I exchanged emails with the owner of the Dub Stage and Galaxy Studios. Both were very helpful in advising me on how to treat my room. Wilfred Van Balen from Galaxy Studios and founder of Auro 3D emphasized treating the ceiling and suggested bass traps. I am using a combo of absorption panels and Geofusers from Auralex which are diffusors that can be backfilled with rockwool or polyfil to double as bass traps. Both studios use active monitors and while I am sure they sound much better than my home theater, active speakers gave me the ability to bi-amp each speaker AND have that power go to the driver, not just excess heat. With 13 speakers that is roughly 26 channels of amplification. Even if I had that many amplifiers in a biamp configuration it still wouldn’t be as efficient. If you listen to acoustic music at low to medium levels, no worries. If you listen to concerts and action movies at reference level like I do, totally different animal. Look at these specs:

http://www.cain.cainslair.com/Paradigm%20Reference%20Active%20Series%20Specifications.htm

Hey Kota1 

Nice post on your system.  Yes Galaxy has been one of the top players in "good sounding" studios in the EU for a long time.  Check out the latest from MIraval, the revival of an old room.  Also British Grove in the UK is spectacular. 

Reference level, I'm not sure what that boils down to for you in SPL, but I know Dolby likes systems to have reference ATMOS rooms somewhere around 118dB capability.  Not easy without distortion but we have several rooms that function at that level: Blackbird in Nashville and Ben Walfisch's Mix Lab room in Santa Monica.  I cannot listen to anything that loud, it hurts! 

We have quite a number of guys using our stuff in film composing/scoring world, such as Alan Meyerson at Remote Control for Hans Zimmer, or Shawn Murphy.  They are both A level players in that community. 

All the gear used by these guys is all active, typically ATC SCM100A for scoring or SCM150A or SC 300 A for Atmos mixing.

I wouldn't mind at all posting what I have at home, but i have not tried to figure out how to do that on Audiogon.  To be fair, my system changes all the time as I bring samples home from my office or take samples back to sell off.  I have a ATMOS rig at home and at work, both similar, based around ATC HTS 40s, and HTS 11 for sides (7.2.4) and HTS 7 for overheads.  I use two ATC C1s for subs at work and 2 Subwoofer Pros 12s at home. 

Brad         

@lonemountain , that would be awesome, you run in some high profile circles and I would appreciate checking it out. There is a "Virtual Systems" area here, you just go to the page and their is a link to Create System to start your system, you can list components, add comments and add pics. If you are able to upload measurements that would be a plus.

I notice you use 7 channel bed layer, have you tried adding wide channels at 60 degrees before for 9 channels? I find it much better for music in immersive audio.