HiFi Subjectivist ¦ Audio Forum ¦ NVA User Group

Some of you chaps had any experience with ATC amplification? Do they have good reliability?

S.

Hello again Shane,

I once owned the original 'big' pre and power (SCA2 and SC-150? can't remember the exact model numbers now) and rather liked them. The pre did seem a bit too complicated - all those buffer stages - and to me, sounded like it needed an ATC equivalent of a 'SuperCap' multi-power supply to give it a kick up the backside. I'm reliably informed the far cheaper and simpler SC2 was better in this respect but never tried one.

The power amp was a bit of a monster in a sort-of big US car kind of way. Smooth and comfy and sort-of valve-like in presentation (no grain or hardness) and all but unburstable, mine had a dreadful time driving Linn Keilidhs for a while, followed by Wilson Benesch ACT1's (what the fugg was I thinking of - sublime to ridiculous) and punished me by drifting its bias settings off in the space of five years - the thing refused to start as the protection was seeing excessive DC on the output. By this time I'd gone the little ATC active route and the power amp was serviced (hellish carriage charge to and from the factory to Suffolk) and sold via a local dealer (not my mate who's known to you).

The later stuff looks to be very over-engineered as are their speakers generally, but having seen the boards of old being hand assembled (may be robot-assembled by now, I don't know) using good quality standard components and the lavish casing used, I doubt they're cheap to make so possibly worth the money..

I've had nothing to do with ATC for around ten years now and as they've shrunk compared to the early 90's when I visited almost every other month, the prices have rocketed in my opinion. Coming back to whether they'd be good used buys, I'd say definitely 'YES' if that's allowed.

Nice to hear about something I've not come across. Nice also to see you over here, Dave. People don't seem to part with ATC stuff that readily.

I do think my current ancient 'legacy' system is better at low volumes, but the old 100A's I had twenty years ago were something else and a refreshing change from the bleached and anaemic stuff I was selling at the time (no Linn by then and Naim was on the way out for us as well)

The best thing ATC ever did was get rid of Ashley James.

Actually Richard and in fairness to AJ, ATC was the friendliest I've known it when Ash was there - he was usually held on a fairly tight leash when at the factory by Billy & Tim (the engineer/director/designers there) and I and prospective clients were royally treated back then. Obviously now, he says what he likes and doesn't care