Atom plus speakers - my experiences to date. What are others using ?
Posted by: Cato on 13 December 2017
I've had an Atom now for 4 months or so and pairing it with some Neat Iotas. First of all, despite some market griping about functionality, software etc I must say mine has been performing flawlessly from day one - no glitches or hitches and does exactly what I want it to do - this said, my set-up is very simple and I can imagine there will be users who demand more and who also are infinitely more tech savvy than me and have other requirements . My room is about 30X12 feet and the speakers are placed near the rear wall and fire across - hence I sit probably around 9-10 feet from speakers.
But, this is not about functionality but speaker pairing - When I bought the Atom I listened to a handful of speakers:
Elac 310 - was in a large room and the tiny speakers struggled a bit to fill the space - this said, superb tweeter and high frequency extension and may well have worked better in a smaller room
Neat Motive 2 and 3 - liked the 3 better than the 2s (better definition, slightly crisper and easier to follow individual instruments) but in both cases the sound came across as a bit warm and muffled and didn't really engage me
Neat Iota - bough these; very quick, crisp and engaging sound but ultimately, and obviously given the size of the speaker, rather limited in bass extension. When cranking up the volume they do come alive and give a pretty good facsimile of much bigger speakers. But they do need some welly to get there
Sf Chameleon B - non-descript, pleasant, slightly warm, not particularly detailed or engaging
ATC SC7 - wonderful in many ways but require current and whilst the result was quite decent with the Atom, a Nova would probably deliver the current that these speakers need.
Proac Tablette 10s - I really wanted to like these; I have owned the original Tabs, the 1 SCs, the Response 1.5s etc in the past and always a proac fan. however, I must confess to being somewhat disappointed in the result; could have been the room and probably many other factors but I found the result a bit shut in, imaging strictly between the speakers with restricted soundstage, lack of immediacy and presence - all opposite of what many think the Tab 10s do well... maybe I have simply mislaid my hearing faculties...but end result was that they didn't grab me and I didn't buy
Hence, I have the Iotas but wonder what else is worth listening to - I like the ribbon tweeter and the out of the box sound and disappearing act and last but not least, ability to place close to a rear wall - but sometimes wish for more bottom end, more presence and weight at lower sound levels.
I am keen, but not necessairly dead set, to stick with monitor speakers rather than bulky floorstanders, my budget is very flexible, don't really mind if more expensive than the Atom (mullet approach), say even up to £3k or so, just want to get it right -
What have other Atom owners ended up with ? What else is worth exploring for me ?
Thank you Simon, guess I will try that . 
Freedomsounds posted:Thank you Simon, guess I will try that .
First thing is to get rid on the AQ Rocket with its high C low L & replace it with some simple non-bi-wire pair cables like a Chord, TQ or NACA5, then when you've done the soldering to get the "F" connections to replace the metal links, you will be all set.
I believe your CM6 speakers have a similar angled binding post block as mine.
