ATC's large 50 loudspeaker is probably what would be called an industry stalwart, after so long in production. At Bristol ATC launched a special version, the EL50 at 50k GBP. They promoted this as an evolution, but really that might be just terminology to protect the existing product.
This new iteration actually uses the same drivers as the "standard" 50. What is a major change is the cabinet - rather than a rather angular and utilitarian look, the EL50 has gone all curvaceous. This is one of the first outputs of their new cabinet facility - now next door to the main manufacturing buildings.
There are more changes to the electronics too - this is an active loudspeaker so it has analogue electronic crossovers before 3x amplifiers, one for each driver, built into a module in the back of each cabinet. Today the system comprised a dCS digital front end, ATC pre-amp and the active EL50 speakers. On Friday this system sounded good, certainly better than many in the rest of the show, but not outstanding. But come Saturday they were really singing. Its possible that some set up changes were made overnight, or it was just these speakers running in if they were particularly new build. Perhaps a bit of both.
On Saturday, except when partnered with the Technics turntable, they were exceptionally good. For me the standard 50 seems a bit bass light, almost as if things are too stiffly sprung between the driver and the cabinet - here that reservation had completely disappeared - maybe the big room was letting them breathe more. Another improvement was to imaging - this probably being attributable to the centring of the driver complement and the gently curving edges of the baffle - its probably sensible to not even call them edges as the curves are continuous from front to the back panel. Overall this system provided excitement without irritating edges, good lateral and front to back imaging (with one proviso, common to quite a few larger loudspeakers - vocals and instruments can come across as larger than life), superbly articulated vocals and a real feel for the meaning in a track.
Not cheap, but somewhat magnificent and significantly better than the product that they have evolved from.
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