ATC's method is to use recording studio quality loudspeakers in slightly greater numbers to give enhanced sound performance and extended listening comfort. "The major advantage in the greatly reduced distortion over a PA-type system," says ATC's R&D engineer, Ben Lilly. "Distortion is the major cause of listener fatigue and discomfort."
"We wanted hi-fi quality but with an element of coarseness. What ATC have done brilliantly is establish a balance between the two," continues Hartley. "When you leave the club you do so without any ringing in your ears. The rumble from the subs through the banquette seating is particularly popular with our customers.
As at Chinawhite, the Umbaba system format is for flown, full-range, active 3-way cabs - with passive subs installed into the club's seating areas. "This has allowed us to maximize the useable floor space, optimize the audio quality in the critical midrange and give excellent coverage," continues Lilly. The flown three-way active cabs are a development of ATC's SCM150ASL active studio monitors. The 499-capacity basement venue in Ganton Street uses ATC's 15" Studio bass driver, popular 3" softdome and a 1" tweeter, driven by the company's 3-channel amp pack - fitted into a smaller trapezoidal enclosure for ease of installation. Each cabinet can be either vertically or horizontally mounted. The subs are all 15" ported designs, downward firing to enable ATC to fit them into the banquette seating found in the club. They are all driven by two large Camco Vortex 3 Quadro four-channel amps (providing eight channels of 750W power). In the areas where high SPL's are not critical, ATC's T16 2-way active monitors have been used. These are small, robust and have very wide dispersion resulting in excellent coverage. Whitaker has programmed two BSS Soundweb 9088 DSP controllers for optimum performance. Hartley couldn't be happier with the result. "I took a fair bit of persuading to consider moving to ATC in the first place because I had a good relationship with our previous supplier; but I'm delighted that I decided to jump ship."
(Lee Baldock)
