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?
Ag insider logo xs@2xdrubin
Post removed 
"ATC are Power Hungry Speakers due to the crossover they use."
dragon_vibe

It’s true.ATC are excellent speakers which I considered in the past but needs a lots of quality power to perform properly this fact convinced me to buy Proac speakers which are more easy to drive and in MHO are as good as ATC .

However I don’t agree with the statement that ATC speakers are fatiguing, maybe your system was not good enough for 
This speakers.
I find them Over Analytical, which is an excellent character for Studio requirements not sure if everyone would appreciate this whilst listening to music. In anycase, I said before ATC are excellent, So are PMC.

Out of all 3 Quested was something i preferred, simply becuase it worked better for me, it was easy to drive and I experience no forms of fatiqge.

Other users on the forum may disagree that’s perfectly fine but please do not twist words by claiming one is superior than the other.
Post removed 
@audiotroy 

The Quested and PMC don't quite have the level of detail of the ATC mid but for listening they both sound great. They also have more bass than ATC but again not quite as precise and tight as ATC. I think dragon_vibe finds the less clinical presentation to be more pleasant and less fatiguing. All three speakers are very good. All three have their fan base.