I just listened to the 40's the other day and they sounded very good with a bat amp. Did not care for them with a Mac amp they sounded dead. It was the mc301. I felt the 19 really lacked after hearing the 40's. I also went to two other stores and listened to Monitor Audio Silvers thru a MC9000 and they sounded good. They also sounded good with the primaluna amp and pre. Then I went to one more store and checked out the Harbeth speakers. The 40.2 was great, but way out of my range. 14 thousand for the pair. Then I checked out slh5 plus, since thy are supposedly a great all around speaker, but I found the new super tweeter to bright. Finally the speakers that blew me away were the 7es3 and the M 30.1. Both were excellent and definitely more musical than the Atc speakers. The 7es3 have a little more base and relaxing mods. The M30.1 had less bass but better miss and treble. A sliver more detailed. I'll probably go wth the 7es3, since I focus on live music. The 30.1 supposedly for classical and jazz, but live concerts also sounded great. I think it's just preference in what you like. The Harbeth speakers with all paired with a Cary amp and Cary pre with tubes. The Rogue Cronus integrated wasn't good with Harbeth imo. Even though many like them. The Cary audio was definitely better than the Rogue. Plus the 7es3 is like 2000 dollars less than m30.1 and 2300 cheaper than the Atc40scm. I'm gonna check my friends mac here when I do get the speakers. If I like the Mac sound then I'll probably get a mc152 amp and c2600 pre or a c52. Hopefully this helped!
Your thoughts about ATC loudspeakers
I’m interested in the ATC SCM-40 from their HiFi series and would like to hear from people who have owned or spent a lot of time with ATC speakers. This is a fairly new model and may be a bit of a departure from their classic sound.
At the show in Newport last weekend, I was quite taken by these speakers. I went back the next day and heard the same things that I liked about them, but a couple of red flags also went up:
Microdynamics – not sure these speakers do them well and microdynamics are critical to communicating inflection and nuance and to making music sound alive
Imaging, specifically wrt depth. Nothing much outside of the plane of the speakers, so recording venue info is not there and even instrument and vocal body may suffer a bit.
Were these shortcomings of setup or associated gear, or is this what ATC does?
At the show in Newport last weekend, I was quite taken by these speakers. I went back the next day and heard the same things that I liked about them, but a couple of red flags also went up:
Microdynamics – not sure these speakers do them well and microdynamics are critical to communicating inflection and nuance and to making music sound alive
Imaging, specifically wrt depth. Nothing much outside of the plane of the speakers, so recording venue info is not there and even instrument and vocal body may suffer a bit.
Were these shortcomings of setup or associated gear, or is this what ATC does?