ATC SIA2-100 integrated amplifier

For reasons beyond my comprehension, I don’t have any ATC speakers to hand. Well, not totally beyond comprehension, because the last pair I had (SCM150As) were so large that I had to give them up in order to move home. So, the first speakers that fell under the SIA2-100’s command were Bowers & Wilkins 802s: substantial floorstanders with good sensitivity but a difficult load, requiring a goodly amount of power to be kept in check where the bass is concerned. I hooked up a Melco N10 music server to the USB input on the ATC and gave it a spin, which turned into a session quite rapidly, so entertaining were the results. ATC has a strong foothold in the pro audio world and its products have a sound that reflects this. I’d call it firm but fair, others might say warts and all. In essence you get a lot of detail in a very neutral fashion with no apparent ‘voicing’ involved. A few manufacturers rely on measurements alone but most tune their products to some extent, which is to say they select components that sound good to their ears in their systems. The more experienced among them do a very good job of this but few leave amplifiers sounding as lacking in apparent tuning as ATC. This means you hear both the good and the bad in any recording. Any other approach would be useless in a studio that makes acoustic recordings.

The balance is not as open as some amplifiers, but it is highly coherent and appealingly solid: you can hear an awful lot through its detail rich presentation. I enjoyed the muscularity of bass delivered by the amp through the 802s. This gives the music a solidity and drive that draws you in and gets your foot tapping. Power is clearly a strength. I doubt there are any integrateds that have as much grip at the price, and if you like to play low notes and higher levels, this is well worth having. The flip side to this is that the midrange could be sweeter, but this is something that could be balanced by a more sensible choice of speaker than the highly revealing B&Ws. ATC’s own would be the obvious choice of course; something like an SCM19 would be perfect but the SCM40 floorstander would be better still.

Abdullah Ibrahim’s piano playing never sounds soft, it has a metallic solidity to it that the SIA2-100 makes palpably clear. Keith Jarrett’s piano recordings on ECM are a lot more refined, the measured nature of his playing on Testament: London and Paris being very well presented, as was the scale of the venue, which was further defined by the low thud of his foot stomping on the stage. ATC founder Billy Woodman was a professional keyboard player back in the day and that must help. Jarrett’s playing on the Carnegie Hall Concert recording is more delicate with lovely flourishes, the instrument/venue being a little softer in character. All of this and more is easy to discern with this amplifier.

With a twenty5.26i floorstanding speaker from PMC, a company that shares ATC’s involvement in the pro side, results were once again very engaging but with a much more open perspective. This speaker works really well in my room and can sit very close to the wall, which also helps. This, combined with a relatively easy to drive load meant that the fireworks really started to kick in. Especially in imaging terms. The way it places a saxophone front and centre with real stereo solidity on Herbie Hancock’s version of ‘It Ain’t Necessarily So’ [Gershwin’s World, Verve] is inspiring. This is embellished by the rest of the band having a similar presence, underpinned by a strong bass line that keeps the groove onside and imbues the performance with a realistic verve.