The transporter is ideal for the ATC's cos it has the balanced outputs and a better DAC than the SB. It is a huge amount more expensive tho , but for what it can do it's worth it.
The only caveat I can think of is that the ATC's are particularily revealing speakers and the transporter and it's inbuilt dac DAC are also no holds barred accurate ..... so the pairing, if you aint using a Pre that is "musical" , will show off bad recordings etc warts and all. If you buy the SB , then you need an offboard dac and a pre cos it only has RCA analog and digital out, You would then use the SB in digital only mode. That will become as expensive as the Transporter. ATC themselves have some upgrades available , I spoke to em about 3-4 months ago about my SCM 50's which are old models, they reckon my mids can be upgraded , tho yours might be the upgraded models , but they also said they have a new tweeter in the works which will apply to all models , I still have the old tweeter and am thinking of upgrading to either the new model or the SEAS millennium they used on the newer ATC's. I find the ATC to perform best at really high levels and despite being biggish speakers , their sound is very "small" in terms of the all enveloping sound of my meridians. One of the reasons I bought the transporter is that it now has a "foldback" facilitiy , ie it can use its own digital out into its dac and thus I can connect my TACT room correction unit in the mix and correct the speakers. The SB andf the Transporter can use an EQ plugin that is pretty much user configurable , so you can tune to taste , however I find the EQ plugin a pain , cos it doesnt change stuff instantly and it applys so me sort of attenuation if you use it. I have a Z-sys RDP-1 parametric digital eq that I use with my meridian speakers (the main set) As to what sounds better well the sound of the ATC's compared to meridians is so totally different its impossible to say , the ATC's shine on well recorded music and the bass is far tighter than the meridians , I find the ATC's "forward" in the mids but very nice in the treble , the meridians bass in my setup is much deeper but a little looser , the midrange is just wonderful , but treble is a little recessed. The meridians give a "big" type sound compared to ATC's, the ATCs are more focussed. Very nice for vocals etc , but orchestral is too narrow. However it's really difficult for me to state anything categorically in terms of how the speakers sound , they are all in very different places and give me good sound for where they are. I can state this categorically tho , the transporter is a no brainer buy for you. It will replace any front end you have with a sort of "straight wire with gain" type. On my headphone system , im slightly less enthusaistic about the Transporter , I was using a Jolida valve CDP into a Valve based headphone amp , the Musical fidelity X-cans V3 with Siemens CCa's and I also used a SET hp amp. Phones are Senheissers hd600's and 650's. I find the transporter less musical than the Jolida , the transporter does everything right and as a front end has more detail etc in that setup , but the jolida's sound was more involving , but thats my personal preference. Tho only gripe I REALLY have is the schlep of ripping a 2000+ cd collection to disc. Im up to 270 now!!!!!! -- Rodney_Gold ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Rodney_Gold's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=14618 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=44164 _______________________________________________ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
