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54 MAY 2004 SOUND & VISION www.soundandvisionmag.com
the left and slightly behind the front left
speaker.
The 4200 LR front speakers are true sat-
ellites, not intended for use without a sub-
woofer, so I began with plain stereo, but
with the subwoofer hooked up, too. What I
initially heard was a “close,” dry sound
with a hint of male-voice chestiness — that
gave me a chance to start trying out those
C.O.R.E. controls.
A bit of experimentation told me that the
4200 LRs are sensitive to vertical place-
ment. I adjusted the stands so that their
tweeters were about even with my seated
ear height and switched on the Boundary
Compensation switches, since they stood
only 18 inches to either side of my TV. The
midrange became more open and relaxed,
while the treble added significant air and
life to the mix. And that touch of “hoo”
caused by reflections from the screen dis-
appeared almost entirely.
The Atlantic Tech system punched out
multichannel music with finesse and im-
pressive impact. The DVD-Audio mix of
Donald Fagen’s Kamakiriad solo album is
an amazingly pristine production in both
its recording and performance (almost an-
tiseptic), and the System 4200 showed its
virtues to a tee: preternatural clarity — es-
pecially noticeable on drums and guitars
— and huge dynamic range.
The System 4200 also proved to be one
of those speaker systems that sounds better
the louder you play it. I found myself lis-
tening to Fagen’s “Snowbound” repeatedly
at ever-increasing volumes, reaching a lev-
el that audibly sweated the front-speaker
trio some 10 dB above THX reference lev-
el — and that’s loud.
One advantage of a system that’s prop-
erly designed as a sub/sat layout from the
ground up is that you don’t have to fuss
with crossover and level settings. I set the
642 SB subwoofer’s Lowpass switch to
Bypass, skipping its onboard crossover in
favor of my preamp/processor’s, which I
set to 80 Hz. After I balanced levels, the
system sounded perfectly integrated. The
languid, but incredibly solid bass on “Snow-
bound” was deliciously rich and punchy,
yet with the superb definition and “quick-
ness” that only an excellent sub and an ex-
pertly matched sub/sat system can achieve.
The Fagen DVD also provided perfect
test material for comparing the 4200 SR’s
bipole and dipole modes. The verdict: bi-
pole wins. I still prefer dipole surrounds for
movie sound and naturalistically recorded
music, but with mixes that put discrete ma-
terial in the surround channels — like a
hand-percussion shaker in the right rear —
bipole clearly sounded better.
With this musical introduction, I expect-
ed nothing short of great movie sound
from the System 4200, and I wasn’t disap-
pointed. Playback was about as seamlessly
integrated, solidly spatial, and colorful and
dynamic as I could want.
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Se-
crets is a first-rate 5.1-channel production
with just about every surround sound vir-
tue. Through the sequence of the flying car
catching up to the train, I was struck by
how little the timbre of the engine’s pop-
pop-popping changed as it swooped from
channel to channel and position to posi-
tion. The quidditch match a bit later might
as well have been designed as a home the-
ater demo: the whizzing balls and brooms,
crashes and impacts were all spectacularly
present and three-dimensional. And in the
PLUS
Outstanding multichannel performance.
Impressive bass, full-range dynamics.
Bipole/dipole-selectable surrounds.
Changeable side panels.
MINUS
Big subwoofer.
Center-speaker base a little too high.
TEST REPORT
Harry Potter and the Chamber of
Secrets could have been designed as
a home theater demo disc, and the
Atlantic Technology System 4200 met
every wizardly challenge.
4200 LR 4200 C 4200 SR 642 SB
(front L/R) (center) (surround) (subwoofer)
TWEETER 1-inch dome 1-inch dome two 1-inch domes —
MIDRANGE two 5
1
⁄
4
-inch cones two 5
1
⁄
4
-inch cones two 4
1
⁄
2
-inch cones —
WOOFER ———12-inch cone
ENCLOSURE sealed sealed sealed sealed
POWER ———300 watts
INPUTS/ gold-plated gold-plated gold-plated RCA line-level I/O;
OUTPUTS multiway binding multiway binding multiway binding level, low-pass
AND posts; Boundary posts; Boundary posts; Bipole/ controls; normal/
CONTROLS Compensation Compensation Dipole switch bypass, phase-
and treble and treble invert, and auto-
switches switches power switches
DIMENSIONS 8 x 15 x 9
7
⁄
8
18
1
⁄
2
x 8
1
⁄
2
x 8 11 x 12
3
⁄
8
x 7
3
⁄
4
19 x 21 x 18
1
⁄
2
(WxHxD) inches inches inches inches
WEIGHT 14 pounds 16 pounds 11 pounds 65 pounds
FINISH maple, gloss maple, gloss black or white; maple, gloss
black, or matte black, or matte metal-screen grille black, or matte
silver side panels; silver side panels; silver side panels;
metal-screen grille metal-screen grille black cloth grille
PRICE $930 a pair (plus $550 (plus side $900 a pair $920 (plus side
Total: $3,500 in side panels; $70 panels; $50 in panels; $80 in
maple, $3,600 in in maple, $105 in maple, $75 in maple, $120 in
black or silver black or silver) black or silver) black or silver)
MANUFACTURER Atlantic Technology, www.atlantictechnology.com; 617-762-6300
fast facts