Heard both of these at AXPONA this year, in 2 separate rooms. The KEFs were in a HUGE room and sounded alright. But the Atohms were in a normal room. when I entered the room, I thought the floor standers were playing. I was told that the GT1s were playing. I went up to the speakers to make sure. And found out that indeed the GT1s were playing and there was no sub-woofer anywhere. Of the 2 I would pick the Atohms. They sounded like a pair of mid-sized floorstanders and made some impressive music.
Have a look at the Quested H108 its a few steps above both speakers you mentioned above. I have had the Kef for over 3 years and sold it off. The Quested are reasonable priced and perform more like a large 3 way but in a small form size.
@audiotroy would you mind sharing your views on the Atohm GT1 speakers? Do they compare well with other bookshelf speakers in the similar price range. TAS has a review of them and liked them very much but found the low end to be a weakness (of sorts). Is that your experience as well?
We had both speakers side by side same system, and the Athoms smoked the LS 50 in every way.
Really wasn't close, Athom is one of those secret brands in audio that makes surprisingly good loudspeakers.
The Athoms had a bigger sound with a fuller midrange, and more bass.
The question as to value is a different one, The LS 50 is a very special loudspeaker that has a clairty that reminds us of a good electrostatic loudspeaker.
With that being said the Athom was better $3,000.00 better is a tough call these days, as you now have the Elac Adantes at $2,500.00 and that is a lot of performance for twice the price.
I had them partnered with a Devialet and they sounded both were made for each other. I have heard Devialet sounded much worse with even higher end speakers.
I heard the smaller Atohm monitors a couple of years ago and fell quite hard for them. It was the price that kept me from buying them. I know this is not a fair comparison but after hearing the KEF Ls50 monitors some years later, I'd still take the Atohms over the KEFs if money were not a concern. They offer so much more that I like.
I had a chance to audition the Atom GT1 Special Editions (Devialet) and I must say they are absolutely fantastic speakers. I was really impressed with their clarity, sense of space, imaging and their "full" sound in my medium sized room. They really are awesome speakers and I'm very surprised they're not more popular.
I own a pair of the KEF LS50 wireless speakers which I've found to be quite good and which are also supposedly better than the passive ones (though I haven't heard the passives), but the KEFs are not in the same league as the Atohm GT1s. They are much smaller sounding with a thinner sound and much inferior in terms of imaging.
I have a really hard decision on whether to buy the Atohms now or wait and buy a full range floor stander which was my original plan (until I heard the Atohms)!
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