ATC EL50 Anniversary

ATC EL50 Anniversary

• It is one of those rare companies to straddle the hi-fi and pro audio camps. Indeed, ATC’s client list includes the Walt Disney Concert Hall in LA, The Royal Opera House, the BBC, and a very long and impressive list of other users, including a crop of studios for which many manufacturers would commit murder!
• ATC... believes that the active solution gives the speaker designer ultimate control over how and when the drive units function and is the pathway to superior sound... The absence of intermodulation distortion is readily apparent on listening.
• Intelligent approach to active power – it’s possible to achieve that minimalist elegance without sonic compromise. Pair these loudspeakers with a product such as the company’s CDA2 Mk 2 CD/DAC/Preamp, and you have a complete reference-grade audio system in an extremely simple layout.
• ne of the more obvious points about active speakers is that they combine the functions of a power amplifier and a speaker... they are cheaper than buying a separate amplifier, and this should be factored in when choosing such a speaker.
• Listening to Andris Nelsons’ recording of Strauss’ Rosenkavalier Suite... produced a dynamic, full-bodied sound with plenty of air. Both in the massive orchestral tuttis and in the smaller, more intimate moments, the speakers handled both scenarios with aplomb. The ATCs could generate real weight and the gravitas of this piece, with seemingly effortless power and grip.
• The bass control was outstanding, tight and massive at the same time. The oboe solos were as sweet as I’ve ever heard them, and the speakers confidently reproduced this large and extraordinary orchestra.
• At the end of a phrase in the first movement [Shostakovich’s First Symphony], the bass drum has a solo of a couple of notes. There is just a little more precision in the attack. It must be one of the lowest orchestral notes available, and the ATC’s broadcast this place like no other speaker I’ve had here for review!
• The sound I’m getting on this piece is gutsy and live-sounding, with a really fast attack, precision, and a full-range delivery. There is a lack of distortion and a clarity to the sound which makes things sparkle.
• The ATC EL50 Anniversary treads the balance act carefully between monitor and hi-fi speaker; a true hybrid.
• Read the review online / Download the PDF
  
  

ATC EL50 Anniversary

• The soft dome midrange unit is the latest optimized version of the SM75-150S, which took the industry by storm upon its debut 50 years ago. It completely revolutionized studio monitoring standards at the time and stands as a vital milestone in ATC's history.
• The legendary 'Monster Dome' SM75-150S features a massive 75mm voice coil. To eliminate diaphragm rocking and instability, ATC implemented a specialized dual-spider architecture in the voice coil assembly. This minimizes wobble and substantially raises the accuracy of sound reproduction.
• The SH25-76S tweeter utilizes a unique dual-suspension structure that guides the moving coil assembly in a perfectly linear axial trajectory. This allows the tweeter to deliver effortless high-frequency extension with incredibly low distortion, entirely eliminating the need for ferrofluid in the magnetic gap.
• The SB75-234SL bass driver incorporates Super Linear Magnetic Material (SLMM). This specialized formulation suppresses eddy currents, managing to reduce third-harmonic distortion by an astonishing 15 dB. This dramatically elevates low-frequency clarity.
• To extract the absolute peak performance, the active EL50 Anniversary houses a patented 3-channel active 'Amp-Pack'. Three independent power amplifiers supply continuous power directly to the drivers: 200W for the bass, 100W for the midrange, and 50W for the treble.
• The power supply architecture utilizes independent toroidal transformers for each amplifier channel alongside a separate transformer dedicated to low-voltage control circuits. This topology enhances dynamic headroom under demanding conditions and reduces interchannel intermodulation distortion.
• The striking elliptical cabinet silhouette is explicitly engineered to minimize acoustic diffraction and cabinet-borne distortions in the mid-to-high frequencies. The curved front baffle and smoothly contoured edges allow sound waves to propagate smoothly without harsh edge refractions, yielding a balanced on-axis and off-axis frequency response.
• Throughout its development, the design was continuously refined using Klippel Near Field Scanner robotics to resolve cabinet resonances and dispersion anomalies, ensuring absolute purity and clean, authoritative transient delivery.
• This translates into a perfectly natural, three-dimensional soundstage with pinpoint imaging... ensuring that the acoustic wavefront flows seamlessly from the drive units into the room... yielding a balanced on-axis and off-axis frequency response.s
• Download the PDF (English translation) / Read the review online
  

ATC EL50 Anniversary

• Active speakers have many possible advantages. For example, amplifier power is not consumed by the passive crossover components …The active amps also generally face a less demanding load and will face less impedance variation with output level.
• The fundamental thing with the EL50 is that it sounds big and dynamic without the downsides of technologies that are often used to generate these adjectives.
• The EL50 has a kind of dynamic freedom that I think is closer to the absolute sound than we typically associate with speakers that are called dynamic.
• Real music in real spaces is coherent. The different qualities don’t sound patched together when you’re listening.
• The EL50 can create an image wider than the speakers and it does this with a strong sense of performer placement.
• The EL50 has a kind of dynamic freedom that I think is closer to the absolute sound… with less look-at-me showmanship and more musically realistic coherence.
• Sounds different in fundamental terms than the typical excellent $50,000 speaker and $50,000 amp combination.
• It offers big difference makers with a superb combination of imaging, dynamics, and detail.
• Threads a needle by having a touch more upper bass than many speakers, which can be deficient in this region.
• The overall impression left by the EL50 upper bass is one of higher bass resolution than is typical even on very good speakers.
• See the full review
  

ATC EL50 Anniversary

• The EL50 is an elliptical (EL) section speaker that stands at over 1.4 metres (nearly 56 inches) high and weighs 63 kilos, yet it is only 24cm (9 inches) deep, which makes it relatively easy to accommodate. Its curved sides are created with vacuum formed plywood for maximum stiffness and minimal diffraction. Diffraction is usually produced by sharp cabinet edges, which cause sound to bounce off and diffuse the acoustic image.
• The high frequencies are devoid of fine grain and you don’t feel tired after a long listening session. Instead, you hear a lot more of the signal than is usually the case. When this is combined with the phase accuracy that active operation provides, the results can be shocking.
• Quite a lot of the music I played through the EL50s turned out to have physical dimensions that are rarely hinted at in more conventional high-end amp/speaker pairings.
• The EL50’s phenomenal resolving powers are brought to bear on everything played, including MOR classics like It Keeps You Runnin’ by the Doobie Brothers, complete with the outstanding voice of Michael McDonald and backing vocals that are to die for. Here there’s a huge amount of dimensionality to the various instruments and voices, and acres of depth in the recording. It has a physicality that is beyond expectation, and this is a song I have been playing on big systems since the nineties.
• I expected the transition from the EL50s back to my regular speakers to be difficult, but was not ready for just how vague everything sounded when I did so. The pinpoint position and solidity of Stephen Still’s voice on So Begins the Task (solo on Carry On) that the ATCs produced suddenly became almost flat and blurry. And no amp speaker combo that I could muster got close to the control and definition of the EL50.
• One more thing that really impressed is that while the EL50s are very revealing they don’t highlight the shortcomings of lesser recordings too obviously. There are more than a few starkly revealing speakers that require only the slickest productions and high-res files to make them sound good, but that is not the case here. The wailing of Ian Gillan on Child In Time gets a bit much, but that’s because he sounded like that back in the day. If you love that music you will find nothing to criticise.
• Conclusion
  The ATC EL50 is a fitting celebration of the brand’s first 50 years. It looks spectacular and sounds significantly better than it looks. I would go so far as to say that you would be hard pressed to find a loudspeaker and amplifier combination that could compete on just about any level. Whether you would agree will depend on taste to an extent, but if accuracy is what you are after, if you want to hear precisely what the artists/producer/mastering has achieved, taste should take a back seat: when you exercise your taste in the choice of music, the sound should be as close as possible to that heard on the monitors at the recording.

ATC EL50 Anniversary

• It is a fully active 3 way system with amplification, crossover, and drivers all engineered to work together as a single platform.
• The crossover is handled at line level using a fourth order Linkwitz-Riley active design with crossover points at 380Hz and 3.5kHz...
• Each driver has its own dedicated amplifier channel with 200 watts for the bass, 100 watts for the midrange, and 50 watts for the tweeter...
• Distortion is kept extremely low, with THD around 0.0015 percent just below rated power, and matched pair tolerance is held to ±0.5dB...
• That first transient hit and something locked in. Not exaggerated. Not hyped. Just there—with a sense of presence and control that felt immediate and real.
• If the bass is in the recording, it shows up with authority. If it’s not, the speaker doesn’t invent it.
• The midbass in particular is doing a lot of heavy lifting here—resolute, tight, well defined, and absolutely critical to how this speaker holds everything together.
• There’s no bloom, no excess weight hanging around where it shouldn’t be, and no sense that the room is being pushed past its limits.
• It never overloaded the room... It just scaled naturally with the music, which is harder to pull off than most designers would care to admit.
• Read the review online