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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?
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Showing 1 response by oranfoster

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oranfoster
72 posts
 
I own a pair of the SCM 19's and am in love with the gorgeous sound. My system is posted here in the Virtual Systems, but since then I've hooked them up directly to a Luxman L-550ax integrated that is rated at only 20 watts/channel. Yeah, the Lux has plenty of headroom, but the supposedly power-hungry ATC's still sound magical. And, YES, they sure are accurate! Don't expect any artificial lushness with anything made by ATC; they tell it like it is.
I did hear the 40's at this years AXPONA. Powered by ATC electronics they were great and really held their own compared to some of the outrageous gear featured in many of the rooms!
Regards,
Oran.
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