atc 40/ nap 300 in 20m2

Is your room square ?

what is the l & w

lyndon

lyndon posted:

Is your room square ?

what is the l & w

lyndon

 

Room square?   20m2 , rectangle room.  It was your question?

1&w:  I don’t understand, sorry 

How long is your room.  And how wide?   20msq could be 5x4 or 10x2.  

Definitely, yes - I have ATC 40A (active version) and have no issues whatsoever in a room far smaller than 30m2.

A room that size, is pretty large and would probably equate to 6m x 5m (20ft x 16ft) .... which is perhaps, far larger than most people have the pleasure of listening in.

I previously used ATC 50A in a much smaller room and had no issues at all, with excessive bass etc.

Not sure why the dealer suggests that the ATC's require such a huge room.

You could always drop an email to ATC and ask their advice and considering that they build monitors for recording studios, ATC know exactly what they are talking about.

Interestingly, ATC are often thought to have less bass ... when in fact, it is all there but the quality of the sound, means that it doesn't boom like some speakers ....... as such, I don't know what the dealer is referring to.

I suspect that (for whatever unknown reason), the dealer simply wasn't keen to sell you the 40's, so tried to put you off ... which isn't fair, since you will be missing out on such a fantastic sound experience.

Your dealer is probably right; speakers like the ATC40 might need either a larger room or an efficient acoustic treatment.

In your 20m2 room, you’ll probably need speakers that do not move to much air. This often means small drivers. The more air is moved by the speakers through the room, the more the room impacts your hearing experience.

The golden rule is to choose the speakers relatively to you room.

I have the same problem as yours, a small listening room. I solved the problem choosing speakers with small drivers (13 cm) and gradually treated the room.

The acoustic treatment made a huge difference in sound quality: detail, balance, soundstage etc. The difference was really amazing.

I started a thread related to acoustic treatment:
https://forums.naimaudio.com/t...tep-in-sound-quality

So do not underestimated the room acoustic and the fact that you always listen to your system+room.

Nope ... ATC's are fine in small rooms 

I use SCM40Mk2 in ~21m2 room and drive them with SN2 + upgrade PSU. Yes, in corners and next to wall the bass gets too strong but in the sweet spot the bass is just right. I've had many audiophile visitors here also and none of them thought the bass is too much here. Closed enclosure design makes ATC speakers easy to fit in a room (mine are only 10-15cm from rear wall, but at the same time it demands more power from the amplifier to make them truly sing. I would probably benefit from a beefier amp but SN2 does surprisingly good job with these. Upgrade PSU is a must with SN2 though. 

How about scm 19 ?

Basically why do you choose a hard to drive speaker when it can lead to component changes at a later stage  ??

Mpw, indeed I use 19mk2 in my listening room not so different in size to Patu’s room.. and I get a lovely balanced sound.. yes the bass increases in corners, but in most of the listening areas it sounds tight and clear with good definition.. and when there is true bass you hear it, albeit as ATC say for all their consumer Infinite baffle speakers the bass attenuates away between 45 to 50 Hz and so recommend their subwoofers..if you need to feel 20 to 30 Hz ..

But the point is the I have driven my 19s from a Nait XS2, NAP200, NAP250.2 and Cyrus Mono blocks, and the speakers have always sang letting through the character of the amp... they are not particularly hard to run, and sound good low and high volume (within constraints of amp) alike if set up well in your room.

Patu posted:

I use SCM40Mk2 in ~21m2 room and drive them with SN2 + upgrade PSU. Yes, in corners and next to wall the bass gets too strong but in the sweet spot the bass is just right. I've had many audiophile visitors here also and none of them thought the bass is too much here. Closed enclosure design makes ATC speakers easy to fit in a room (mine are only 10-15cm from rear wall, but at the same time it demands more power from the amplifier to make them truly sing. I would probably benefit from a beefier amp but SN2 does surprisingly good job with these. Upgrade PSU is a must with SN2 though. 

With sn2 it seems to work, but perhaps with nap 300, the bass can be too much?

Mr Frog posted:

Definitely, yes - I have ATC 40A (active version) and have no issues whatsoever in a room far smaller than 30m2.

A room that size, is pretty large and would probably equate to 6m x 5m (20ft x 16ft) .... which is perhaps, far larger than most people have the pleasure of listening in.

I previously used ATC 50A in a much smaller room and had no issues at all, with excessive bass etc.

Not sure why the dealer suggests that the ATC's require such a huge room.

You could always drop an email to ATC and ask their advice and considering that they build monitors for recording studios, ATC know exactly what they are talking about.

Interestingly, ATC are often thought to have less bass ... when in fact, it is all there but the quality of the sound, means that it doesn't boom like some speakers ....... as such, I don't know what the dealer is referring to.

I suspect that (for whatever unknown reason), the dealer simply wasn't keen to sell you the 40's, so tried to put you off ... which isn't fair, since you will be missing out on such a fantastic sound experience.

So your room is more 20m2 than 30 and all works correctly. Thanks for your sharing.

French Rooster posted:

Patu posted:

I use SCM40Mk2 in ~21m2 room and drive them with SN2 + upgrade PSU. Yes, in corners and next to wall the bass gets too strong but in the sweet spot the bass is just right. I've had many audiophile visitors here also and none of them thought the bass is too much here. Closed enclosure design makes ATC speakers easy to fit in a room (mine are only 10-15cm from rear wall, but at the same time it demands more power from the amplifier to make them truly sing. I would probably benefit from a beefier amp but SN2 does surprisingly good job with these. Upgrade PSU is a must with SN2 though. 

With sn2 it seems to work, but perhaps with nap 300, the bass can be too much?

If possible, try both SCM19 and SCM40 in your room. I've never heard NAP300 but I think the bass might hit slightly stronger with more powerful amp. But it should hit deeper and with more control, not so that it's all over the place and out of control suddenly. If that's the case then there's nothing to worry about. 

TomSer posted:

Your dealer is probably right; speakers like the ATC40 might need either a larger room or an efficient acoustic treatment.

In your 20m2 room, you’ll probably need speakers that do not move to much air. This often means small drivers. The more air is moved by the speakers through the room, the more the room impacts your hearing experience.

The golden rule is to choose the speakers relatively to you room.

I have the same problem as yours, a small listening room. I solved the problem choosing speakers with small drivers (13 cm) and gradually treated the room.

The acoustic treatment made a huge difference in sound quality: detail, balance, soundstage etc. The difference was really amazing.

I started a thread related to acoustic treatment:
https://forums.naimaudio.com/t...tep-in-sound-quality

So do not underestimated the room acoustic and the fact that you always listen to your system+room.

Not true. 

I heard DBL, Isobarik, Keltik and Komri in 10-15m2 rooms.

Just great.

Currently I'm using huge JBL's (15" bass element), with a 18" sub in a 16m2 room. Careful tuning is the KEY

JanÅ posted:

Not true. 

I heard DBL, Isobarik, Keltik and Komri in 10-15m2 rooms.

Just great.

Currently I'm using huge JBL's (15" bass element), with a 18" sub in a 16m2 room. Careful tuning is the KEY

Well, I’ll politely disagree.

Physics are what they are. I carefully did the math.

The difference is both objective (measurements) and subjective (listening tests).

Of course, personal preferences is what matters, eventually.

TomSer posted:

JanÅ posted:

Not true. 

I heard DBL, Isobarik, Keltik and Komri in 10-15m2 rooms.

Just great.

Currently I'm using huge JBL's (15" bass element), with a 18" sub in a 16m2 room. Careful tuning is the KEY

Well, I’ll politely disagree.

Physics are what they are. I carefully did the math.

So tell me, what physics dictate you cant have big speakers in a small room?

JanÅ posted:

So tell me, what physics dictate you cant have big speakers in a small room?

Just a hint regarding the basics: sound is to be considered as a pressure wave, or mechanical wave causing energy displacement. For the rest Google and/or a local library are good friends 

Personally I know that I am in a bass limit capacity of my room.  I had to put finite elemente cerabases under the speakers, a bass trap in one corner and a little rack with cds on another corner.  Before the bass was not controlled and my windows were sometimes shaking.

So I believe in room/ size/ speakers correlation.

TomSer posted:

JanÅ posted:

So tell me, what physics dictate you cant have big speakers in a small room?

Just a hint regarding the basics: sound is to be considered as a pressure wave, or mechanical wave causing energy displacement. For the rest Google and/or a local library are good friends 

I have biggish Dynaudio Contour s3.4's in a 12m sq room and it sounds fantastic Physics or not.

TomSer posted:

Your dealer is probably right; speakers like the ATC40 might need either a larger room or an efficient acoustic treatment.

In your 20m2 room, you’ll probably need speakers that do not move to much air. This often means small drivers. The more air is moved by the speakers through the room, the more the room impacts your hearing experience.

The golden rule is to choose the speakers relatively to you room.

I have the same problem as yours, a small listening room. I solved the problem choosing speakers with small drivers (13 cm) and gradually treated the room.

The acoustic treatment made a huge difference in sound quality: detail, balance, soundstage etc. The difference was really amazing.

I started a thread related to acoustic treatment:
https://forums.naimaudio.com/t...tep-in-sound-quality

So do not underestimated the room acoustic and the fact that you always listen to your system+room.

What has the size of the drivers got to do with it? They may help define the limiting lower frequency, but not in themselves whether a speaker will sound good in a large or small room. The amount of air moved equates to sound level, which for any given loudness is achieved by a small cone moving further in and out, or a large cone moving a smaller amount (hence matters of distortion, and inertia and acceleration related to ‘speed’ of bass etc). You can play large and small coned speakers equally softly, while for high listening levels smaller cones tend ti be more limiting than larger ones.

However, I agree that room acoustics could be very significant in how good any speaker my sound, and related to it the shape of the room - a square room worse than rectangular, and also the positioning both of speakers and listener. 

Also of significance for the OP is how he likes his bass - in my view a lot of people seem to be shy of bass (maybe because they haven’t had good experience) while others like to feel as well as hear the low notes fully, and all the way down. I haven’t heard the SCM40, but given its specs I think it is likely to need some room reinforcement to achieve as much as some at the very bottom end, so driven by a good powerful amp I rather expect it not to have overwhelming bass in a medium sized room as 20m is.

I recently had a pair of ATC SCM50s for a home demo. My room is just under 20m2 (nineteen point something) and I did not find the bass to be a problem, so I expect that the SCM40s would also be OK. There are a lot of variables involved in the speaker/room interaction of course.... trying them in the specific room is the only way to know if they work to your liking.

I think that ATC speakers generally have a slow, gradual roll off at low frequencies which does make their bass performance different to some other speakers, e.g. those with a strong bass port output. I suspect that this helps the ATC speakers to be a little less prone to room bass boom problems. Also to the original comment that SCM40s won't work well in less than 30m2, that is quite a large room, and so if it is correct ATC wouldn't be selling very many of them.

SPE posted:

I recently had a pair of ATC SCM50s for a home demo. My room is just under 20m2 (nineteen point something) and I did not find the bass to be a problem, so I expect that the SCM40s would also be OK. There are a lot of variables involved in the speaker/room interaction of course.... trying them in the specific room is the only way to know if they work to your liking.

I think that ATC speakers generally have a slow, gradual roll off at low frequencies which does make their bass performance different to some other speakers, e.g. those with a strong bass port output. I suspect that this helps the ATC speakers to be a little less prone to room bass boom problems. Also to the original comment that SCM40s won't work well in less than 30m2, that is quite a large room, and so if it is correct ATC wouldn't be selling very many of them.

May you say what was the amp driving the atc 50 in your home demo?   The active model?

Yes it was the active model; the system was NAC-N 272 + XPS-DR + SCM50ASL. I was happy with the speakers and have ordered a pair.

I have heard passive versions of a few ATC speakers on various occasions, but I only tried the active versions at home. I was looking to buy a new power amp at the same time as a new pair of speakers, so the active ATCs were a good alternative option.

The answers seem to go more in a compatibility between 20m2 room and atc 40/ nap 300dr.  But only one member has really experimented it (atc 50 active).  The other member was driving the atc 40 with a superuniti.  2 dealers in Paris don’t recommend atc 40 in smaller than 25/30m2 room.

My thread is more on curiosity object than wanting to buy now new speakers.   But one day I will upgrade my speakers, so I am curious.

French Rooster posted:

The answers seem to go more in a compatibility between 20m2 room and atc 40/ nap 300dr.  But only one member has really experimented it (atc 50 active).  The other member was driving the atc 40 with a superuniti.  2 dealers in Paris don’t recommend atc 40 in smaller than 25/30m2 room.

My thread is more on curiosity object than wanting to buy now new speakers.   But one day I will upgrade my speakers, so I am curious.

I guess you're talking about me in this message. It's SuperNait2 with external psu, not SuperUniti which I'm using. Wouldn't go for SCM40 with SuperUniti. Also ATC always recommends their active models vs passive models. If I'd build a system from scratch now, I'd definitely check the active versions first. 

Patu posted:

French Rooster posted:

The answers seem to go more in a compatibility between 20m2 room and atc 40/ nap 300dr.  But only one member has really experimented it (atc 50 active).  The other member was driving the atc 40 with a superuniti.  2 dealers in Paris don’t recommend atc 40 in smaller than 25/30m2 room.

My thread is more on curiosity object than wanting to buy now new speakers.   But one day I will upgrade my speakers, so I am curious.

I guess you're talking about me in this message. It's SuperNait2 with external psu, not SuperUniti which I'm using. Wouldn't go for SCM40 with SuperUniti. Also ATC always recommends their active models vs passive models. If I'd build a system from scratch now, I'd definitely check the active versions first. 

Sorry Patu, I should have name the persons I am talking about.  It is more polite.  And sorry too for the mistake, it was not superuniti but supernait.

In a different actual thread” nap 300 introduced too much bass”, the op is running a superuniti with a nap300 and atc 40, in a less than 20m2 .  He is experimenting too much bass.   So this thread and my curiosity for atc 40 speakers have opened the present thread.  ( I have also the nap 300dr ).