Atlantic Technology FS-4000 Front Stage Speaker System

If you are looking for a new set of loudspeakers for your home theater, check out the stlyish, and great sounding Atlantic Technology FS-4000 Front Stage Loudspeaker. This unique speaker combines all three front channel speakers (left, center, and right) into one 40-inch long housing that is attractive and can be either table or wall mounted. The design of FS-4000 is intended to complement flat panel LCD and Plasma televisions and can be used alone, or combined with a subwoofer and/or a set of rear surround speakers. However, the most important thing about this loudspeaker design is that it sounds great.

Product Overview

Features and specifications of the FS-4000 include:

1. Single cabinet housing front left, center, and right channel speakers. Magnetically shielded for home theater use.

2. Acoustic suspension 2-way design with 3 1-inch tweeters, 3 4 1/2-inch woofers.

3. 3 4 /12-inch pressure drivers (passive radiators) for extended bass response.

4. FS-4000 Frequency Response 75Hz – 20kHz ±3dB

5. FS-4000 Crossover Frequency 3.75kHz; Speaker sensitvity: Sensitivity 89dB.

6. Power handling 10 – 125 Watts RMS

7. Acoustic Control #1: HF Energy switch adjusts high-frequency rolloff for each channel.

8. Acoustic Control #2: Boundry Compensation adjusts low frequency output for each channel.

9. Includes hardware for table or wall-mounting options.

10. Dimensions (grill on) - 39 3/4-inches (W) x 6 9/16 (H) x 5 1/2 (D). Weight (ea) 27 lbs

Hardware Used

Home Theater Receivers: the Onkyo TX-SR705 7.1 Receiver (used in 5.1 channel mode), Harman Kardon AVR147 (5.1 channels) .

DVD players: OPPO Digital DV-981HD and DV-980H DVD/SACD/DVD-Audio Players.

Blu-ray Disc/HD-DVD Players: Toshiba HD-XA1 HD-DVD player, Sony BDP-S1 Blu-ray Player, and LG BH100 Blu-ray/HD-DVD Combo player.

Camparison Loudspeaker Speaker Setups:

System #1: Klipsch F2s, 2 Klipsch B-3s, Klipsch C-2 Center , Klipsch Synergy Sub10 Powered Subwoofer .

System #2: 2 JBL Balboa 30's, JBL Balboa Center Channel, 2 JBL Venue Series 5-inch Monitor speakers, Polk Audio PSW10 Powered Subwoofer.

TV/Monitors: A Westinghouse Digital LVM-37w3 1080p LCD Monitor, Syntax LT-32HV 32-inch LCD TV.

All Displays were calibrated using SpyderTV Software.

Audio/Video connections were made with Accell, Cobalt, and AR Interconnect cables.

Level checks for speaker setups were done using a Radio Shack Sound Level Meter

Software Used

Movie titles used included scenes from the following:

1. Blu-ray Discs used included: Blood Diamond, Flight Plan, Hostel, The Prestige, Ratatouille, and Shakira: Oral Fixation Tour

2. HD-DVD Discs used included: Bourne Ultimatum, Hot Fuzz, King Kong, Phantom of the Opera, Top Gun, Transformers, and U571

3. Pre-recorded standard DVDs used included scenes from the following: House of the Flying Daggers, Kill Bill - Vol1/2, Moulin Rouge, Master and Commander, and Serenity.

Standard CDs included: HEART - Dreamboat Annie, Nora Jones - Come Away With Me, Blue Man Group -The Complex and Audio, Lisa Loeb: Firecracker (HDCD), Al Stewart - A Beach Full of Shells, Eric Kunzel - 1812 Overture, The Beatles - Love.

DVD-Audio/DTS music discs used included: Queen: Night At The Opera/The Game, Eagles: Hotel California, Sheila Nicholls: Wake, Alan Parsons: On Air. Also included: The Corrs: In Blue (Dolby Digital).

SACD discs used included: Pink Floyd - Dark Side Of The Moon, Steely Dan - Gaucho, The Who - Tommy.

Testing Setup

I listened to the FS-4000 in three different types of setups:

1. As a single, standalone (L,C,R) speaker system.

2. As a standalone speaker system, combined with a separate subwoofer (Klipsch Synergy Sub10).

3. Same as setup #2, but adding two left and right surround speakers (Klipsch Synergy B3).

Proceed to Page 2: Evaluation and Final Take.