Dave,
Well it's flat, 'grey', dynamically-challenged solid-state, innit? Just like your Crowns are (which I've heard, too - awful things, IMO, sorry!) So how could the ATC amp packs be anything but fatally flawed?How do you know with ATC's it's the amps? What's wrong with them? How do you know it isn't the drive units (in pre-SL versions) with too much damping and too much 3rd harmonic distortion? I'f you'd heard the 200A's, I doubt you'd be saying this IMO... The ATC mid-dome went through a sticky (groan) patch with problems as it's used wide open with the crossover problems this can give if the driver isn't exactly to spec - I've discussed this with the ATC guys at the time and they had many headaches ten to twelve years ago with consistancy in manufacture (not in released product I should add).
More seriously, I've heard passive ATCs tri-amped by ECS amplification and the difference compared to the active versions was jaw-dropping, which of course it should be considering the difference in cost, but that doesn't disguise the fact that the built-in amps exist for cost/efficiency purposes rather than out-and-out sonic performance.
Yes you're quite right, the problems I heard could also have been driver related. The fact is, regardless of whatever it was, they certainly don't provide a genuine 'open window' into the music like the Lockwoods do - no way José. Judge for yourself when you come up!
"Proven" how and by whom, Dave? Is it likely to be anyone I know whose ears I trust? If not, then I'm sorry, it has no bearing on my opinion whatsoever. I'm not saying you're 'wrong' - just that unless I've heard the results with my own ears, or someone else whose ears I trust has, then such things for me are completely irrelevant.In comparison with live "acoustic" instruments including voice, it's been proven that "legacy" BBC derived speakers like Spendors and especially the latest Harbeths are in a different league to any Tannoy DC driver (or most other speakers on the market these days).
What I can say quite categorically is that the Lockwoods blow the SP100s away, and any Spendor loudspeaker I've heard, in every conceivable area including lack of coloration. I've also heard quite a few Harbeths (Compact 7s, and the like), and although I rate them highly, the Lockwoods are just in a totally different league.
The difference between you and I, I've noticed, is that you allow yourself to be influenced by lots of things other than solely what your own ears tell you at this present moment in time (i.e. what you've heard in the past and what others have told you, what 'experts' think, etc). I don't!
Honestly, Dave, we could both waffle on here until the cows come home, but the fact is until you actually hear my system, including the Lockwoods, you don't have a clue what kind of results I'm getting or how 'coloured' or not the Lockwoods are. Until then, continue to generalise if you wish, but you're not proving anything to anyone other than you.
You see, there it is again so "I've been told". No offence, but do you believe everything that you're told? Who knows what agendas were held by whoever told you that. Again, I'm not saying you're wrong, I wasn't there, but I suspect there's just a little more to the story than what you've highlighted. Practicality issues, changes of equipment and procedures at the time, all of this I suspect would have had a bearing on events.Of course the Beatles stuff was mixed using Tannoy Lockwoods. That's all they had at the time (and bloody ugly things they were too) and the engineers couldn't wait to be rid of them by the end I've been told, because they were getting in the way...
Ugly? I couldn't give a shit. It's how they sound that matters - and they're bloody stunning!!
LOL. Sorry, that is complete blinkered nonsense! The Monitor Reds I've got do not in any way "shriek and spit at you" - far from it. Do you really think I'd put up with that? Honestly, reading this sort of stuff is just laughable given what I'm hearing from them at the moment - and nor are the tulip wave-guide tweeters "superior"; that is simply a matter of personal taste, as both have their good points.Tannoy had lost their hold on the pro market to JBL and others with screaming horn tweeters (I forget the names). That's one reason why Tannoy set about completely re-thinking the CD driver and crossover and why the modern "Prestige" models don't shriek and spit at you, even those with the old-fashioned pepperpot tweeters, there purely for the far eastern market I understand, instead of the superior (I understand) tulip style wave-guide.
Eh? I think Anthony would have some issues with your comments there regarding the Copper amp!! Again this is nonsense. Everything in hi-fi is a compromise, Dave, but experience tells me that the best vintage stuff, updated with modern components, has got far less compromises than most of the tat made today. It is indeed rather sobering when you realise first-hand how little in some areas hi-fi equipment has advanced since the 1950s!! In fact, out with of convenience and miniaturisation, it's gone more backwards than forwards...Marco, I'm not saying that you have a rotten pair of speakers, far from it (I'd love to try some myself) but you have to understand that your hifi amplification and speakers are currently residing in the early sixties with updated wires and components and with all the compromises of the times.
I've worked very hard (and smart), Dave, to get to the comfortable position I'm in now. When I retire, I'll have plenty to occupy me, such as travelling the world and indulging in my many passions in life. We have a villa in Italy, so I'll be spending more time there soaking up the sun and slurping vino, so doncha worry about me, shweety!I'm glad you have the money to indulge yourself. (but on another tack, you "will" find retirement at 50 a rather boring past-time after a year or so...)
Glad you're having fun, dude. Forums are about sharing our experiences and helping each other - we're all on a learning curve, so I'm glad that some of the info here on AOS has enriched your enjoyment of music. I plan to enrich it even more and dispel some of your deeply-ingrained 'beliefs' when you visit!I'm having fun with my LP's not because I expect them to "sound better" but because I have many decades worth of music on them that I want to hear again. If I get a really good sound from the odd, carefully cut and pressed LP, then I'm really happy, but I don't purely rely on "fidelity" any more to get the music (Linnies and Naimies never did, did they?
Marco.
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How I am going to compete with thermionic amplification and rock being dragged around a piece of plastic 
. I shall just have to bite the bullet, repent and take that Popeye potion of the hifi world...........kondo, Bathe myself in the light of direct drive turntables, then and only then will I have seen the road to Damascus.
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Originally Posted by symon
