Atlantic Technology owner's thread. - Page 2

I was trying to get out to the dealer in my area today to listen to them but that didn't work out. Maybe tomorrow.

You're right about the subtle part. I was looking at the review from Sound & Vision and they claim the boundary switch cuts the low frequency output by about 1.5 dB in the 4200 L&R. They also say that the HF Energy switch can either boost the HF by about 1 dB or cut it by about 1dB. One dB isn't much, I think it qualifies as just barely noticeable.

I just ordered the FS3200 LR and Center with the 642e sub, I should be picking it up Monday cant wait to set it up, I heard this system today and it sounded great. Thanks for the input Bassbone57.

I ordered the system 4200e and will be in my family room in a week and a half.
It will sit there probably for the months to come since I am waiting for the pioneer to come up with hdmi 1.3 av receiver. For the moment, i will cherish my system 2200 in my loft until i have all the gears to keep 4200e running. Reason for me buying this in advance is because prices keep on increasing!

Bassbone, how come you are so well-versed with the chronicles of AT?

I'm deciding between the 4200e or possibly going to the 8200 series however I'm going to be putting these into a cabinet and was concerned if there would be sound issues in doing this. I will have a 110 inch screen and really want to make the speakers disappear. I think I'm going to go with the Definitive Tech Super Cube Reference subs with this setup and use two of them. I would love to hear your comments on this setup and any drawback on having these speakers in a cabinet.

Thanks
Steve

There is a problem putting any speaker in a cabinet. Cup your hands around your mouth and hear the change in your voice. Or put your cheek against a wall and hear how this changes the sound of your voice. This is what happens when you put speakers inside a cabinet.

There are solutions for speakers mounted in cabinets. You must surround the space around and behind the speaker with foam to absorb the reflections that color the sound. A minimum of four inches (preferabbly more) of foam on top, bottom, sides and back is needed. You can put some acoustically transparent cloth (speaker cloth) over the front of that particular section of the cabinet to hide the speaker and the foam.

We don't deal with Def Tech so I can't comment on them. But , I would go with two subs. We use AT and both models are excellent. I think the 4200e is one of the best values in that price range. I'd only step up to the 8200e for larger spaces if I needed the extra headroom. I wouldn't use the pedestal subs for the 8200. I'd rather have the placement flexibility of separate subs.

Hope this helps.

Bob

Bob,
Thanks Bob for the advise. I knew I was going to need to do something with the inside of the space for the speakers but I wasn't sure just yet what to do. I will have my cabinet guy build the enclosure out of MDF and than line the enclosure with foam.

After one has done that is there much of a difference sound quality wise between floor standing and having them in a cabinet.

Thanks for the recommendation on the 4200's. I have a pair of Reference Monitors from Paradigm that I really like and with a good sub they sound great so I'm not afraid to go with a smaller speaker.

One question for you though, I checked the weight on the 4200's and their light compared to some of the other high end so called bookshelf speakers and I'm curious as to why that is?

Thanks again for everthing
Steve

I already have my Ascends set up, and the only thing that annoys me is the light from the screen shining off the speakers.
So I've been looking at In-Walls, and I notice that Atlantic Tech has a very nice looking surround set (5 speakers) for a little over $2K. Most inwalls I've found look pretty cheezy, but these Atlantics look like quality stuff. Anyone worked with their in-walls?

Steve,

Once you treat the cabinets there is not a big difference in sound. There is a difference if your speakers are placed into the room because of the area behind the speakers can add to the "ambience" of the sound. Especially, if the reflections behind the floor standing speakers aren't treated.

Most high end recording studios "baffle mount" (mount speakers in the wall) their speakers to combat the effect that floorstanders and reflections create. You will get excellent sound treating the cabinet as prescibed.

As far as the weight, I'm not sure what you are comparing them to but they are very solid feeling. For brands I can think of off hand that we carry. Triad Bronze LCRs are more solid and better built but more $$$, probably weigh a little more. Tannoy Sensys DC1 about the same weight but not as solid feeling. Polk LSi9 considerably heavier but I would take the Tannoy, AT or Triad over them for sound and build quality. So unlike receivers or amps where buying by the pound is a pretty safe guideline, I'm not sure it applies to speakers. Never thought about it actually.

S Range,

For quality inwalls I would look for brands that are built into enclosures and not the open back type. Even if the open back type have an optional "back box" I would avoid it. The only one with that design that we have used is the AT system 20. But, it is designed for that enclosure and not ideal to use as an open back. And its enclosure is big at ~4 feet tall. So I only recommend it for new construction or retrofit knowing you'll have to repair the wall.

In general I'm a big fan of Triad and my number one choice for inwalls but the new AT stuff is also very nice. We have only used the new models once. Other good inwall companies are Snell and James off the top of my head.

Hope this helps.

Bob

Bob,

I appreciate your advice and guidance. I think I'm gong to stick with the 4200's and use them inside the cabinet.

I posted prior to reading your reply a thread in the construction section on how I should build the enclosure to accommodate the speakers. I should have read your response first.

Does one have to build the box to the exact measurements plus the foam insulation or can they build it a little bigger in case at some point they want to go with a different speaker and just remove more foam?

I got to thinking about this whole idea and it occurred to me that my current setup in my family room has the Left, Center and Right speakers in a large entertainment center which basically means it's in a cabinet.

Thanks again for all your help
Take care
Steve

You can build the cabinet bigger and just add extra foam.

I am pumped that I just acquired a set of the AT 4200e 5.1 system at under 45% of retail. I found a guy who had some overstock he was looking to dump.

My question; what would be a good receiver to push these speakers. My room is about 4,000 cu. ft. I would like a 7.1 receiver but HDMI is not that important to me right now because it will be awhile before I buy a HD DVD or Blue Ray player.

This is my first home theater setup with a Samsung 50in 1080p DLP, sony DVD player, motorola dct6416III dvr from Insight Cable, and currently NAD 2.0 setup with KEF bookshelf speakers.

My budget is about $600 - $800.

Thanks for any sage advice anyone could offer.

Great thread! I installed AV systems for over 10 years and we used AT on over 50% of the jobs. I always thought that AT had by far the cleanest most nuetral dialog during movies over any other speaker I auditioned.... and that's just talking about the old system 270.

Now i've been out of the industry for a few years and need YOUR advise. I have a formal living room with a plasma hanging on the wall. The wife won't allow on-wall LCR, and the stud spacing won't allow for a in-wall LCR, so my only two choices are....

1. FS-4000 LCR mounted directly under the Plasma
2. ICTS-LCR "in ceiling LCR" (I can fish into the attic and lay these out just fine)

So, any input on which of these two systems would be better? I already bought the ICTS 6.3e for in-ceiling surround speakers, but I am torn on the LCR's

Thanks for any thoughts.

Same exact issue I ran into. I decided to go for the ICTS-LCR for my front stage. They sound decent, and look great. You will NEED a subwoofer to round out the system. That being said, the sound will NOT be anywhere near reference quality. The FS 3200 LCR series would probably sound better, however, the install will not look as good. Not sure if I would be happy with the FS4000 3-in-1 speaker. All in all I am pleased with he ICTS-LCR. I was unable to fit back boxes behind the ICTS-LCR due to ceiling/roof pitch issues; however, I bet the sound from the ICTS-LCR could be improved quite a bit with back-boxes.

First post on AVS forums after lots of lurking!

I am putting together a modest system for my (multi-use) family room based around a 46" Mitsubishi LCD, Denon 2807 receiver and Denon 1930 DVD player. I have had an installer recommend the FS-4000 but I cannot get a demo. Physically it is a good solution because I can place it in the centre speaker shelf of the credenza I will use (I need a compact solution for the entire A/V setup).

I have auditioned, and liked the sound of, Paradigm Cinema 110s (good) and NHT Absolute Zeros (better). Does anyone have any opinions about the FS-4000 sound vs the Cinema 110s or NHT Zeros, or know of anywhere I could audition the FS-4000s in Northern VA?


Thanks,
Dave.

I talked to an engineer at Atlantic today for quite some time, and after telling him that I have to either ceiling-mount my speakers or mount all of them horizontally below the Plasma he recommended either the FS-4000 or FS-5000. He said that since I was using the system for movies, either of those two speakers would provide plenty of sound width for creating a realistic image, and spreading out a seperate LCR like the FS-3200's would not really be of any benefit.

He went on to say that the new FS-5000 is "a whole different animal" when compared to the FS-4000 and FS-3200, and that the performance of it will blow people away. He talked so highly of the 5000 in fact, that even with limited reviews on the forums I think I am going to pull the trigger...

Thanks for everyones input.

He said the tweeters are the same, but the cabinet volume is larger (50" wide -vs- 40" on the FS-4000) because all 6 mid-woofers are active now, and they are a modified, "beefed-up" version of the 4.5" found in the FS-4000, FS-3200, system 2200..... etc.

The only visual difference I can see (besides the width) is it appears that there are three independent grilles on the 5000 with a small divider between each chamber.

Legacy Audio/Video shows the 5000 on their website as a new item, so I have an email in to them for pricing and availability, and i'll post the results once I hear back.

Well, after two days of trying to find a dealer in my state (there isn't one) for the FS-5000, I had to resort to internet purchase. I contacted Legacy Audio Video several times because the FS-5000 just shows "new" on their website, and never got a call back.

I ended up ordering the FS-4000 from Amazon.com (authorized dealer) wich was on sale for $800 with free shipping. This is almost 1/2 the price of the FS-5000 ($1500 retail), so hopefully it works well for my situation. If not, i'll upgrade later once the 5000 has some market presence.

I'll post a review once I have some 'seat time'.

Really pleased with the quality and performance of my 4200e speakers.

Surprised at the low number of AT owners, too bad as these are nice.

peerless seems to only make on tv sort of mount for the atlactic technology 3200 series of speakers. much are these anyways?

I dunt expect these to be great speakers i have my audio only 2 channel set up for that.. but since i am doing the walls etc I was hoping to run the speaker wires at all the same time.. are there any other options for mounting speakers ON the TV ? I need something that move along with the tv and not mounted to the wall etc. Thanks

Hello all,

So I just bought a new house and a new set of speakers. My wife convinced me to leave behind my old T-70s to save us some work when we moved by encouraging me to do the upgrade I had been wanting. I decided to go with a set of the 4200es. The problem is how to arrange and mount them. My new living room is 21' wide by 17' deep. The only solid wall is one of the wide ones. It is where the display will be. The narrow walls are not great for speaker placement. One wall has three windows the other has two and a fireplace. The ceiling is a pan ceiling, but the outside is lower than my old place. The problems that I am running into:

1. What to do with the LR mains? I was trying to avoid stands because I am afraid that they would not be safe with my 17-month old running around. I am eventually going to build a entertainment center. I guess I could build it big enough to also mount the speakers, but what to do in the meantime?

2. Finding a place for the surrounds is going to be a pain. Where they need to go is a fireplace on one side and a window on the other. I can go deeper, but it puts them far back and near the corner. In addition, they would be right up against the short part of the ceiling.

3. Everything is an outside wall making the runs more difficult.

Thoughts?

If you could post a couple pictures or a rough sketch of your room, I could probably give you a few hints... right now i'm having a hard time invisioning your room in my mind.