Any high WAF speaker with ATC sound?

Kinn, the revels would match your aesthetix goal and are pretty good speakers. I would not say the are the same as the active ATC's higher models. Another consideration would be the Wilson speakers, much closer to ATC in my experience in many ways. You could go with some silver Sophias or W/P (but not sure if you like the look, I do).

Of course if you want to stretch your budget you will get more into both performance and cosmetics. But your statement that they need to sound like ATC take a lot of contenders out, like MBL for example. They look like a piece of art to some, very industrial and interesting - many people may not even guess they are speakers.

As for Martin Logans. . . as long as you can still get the replacement panels from ML (which I would automatically do for any ML speaker that is 8 years old or more), I wouldn't worry about that too much. Just remember, anytime you buy an ML speaker and the seller doesn't have a receipt for new panels from the last few years, you really need to expect to replace them yourself (easy to do). Sure 8 year old MLs may still sound decent, but your mind will change once you put in new panels and run em for about 100 hours. You will realize the 8+ year old panels have lost their "magic".

Guys, thanks for the awesome advice!

Wilson audio design are awesome! Quite expensive too, I heard several of their models, but they all sound different every time i heard them. Even with the same model, but in different settings and electronics, they either sound real good or real bad. The sophia 1 & 2 are more in my price range. For the most part, from what i can remmeber, their bass slam is amazing, especially with classical music.

As for MBL, only heard them once, and only with "techno" music, no idea why the dealer put that as a demo disc for me. It was well known that the MBL are holograhic, but that disc did not show its strength. I losted interest thereafter as I was there to demo speakers under 1K (I was a freshman in college then). Gotta admit, they look sharp! I like them physically!

As for the revels, I heard it twice, once in Hong Kong and once at a dealer in MD. Both times they sounded as they were holding back, and viel, but both times they were driven with Mark Levinson. Yet everytime I heard things through Levinson gear, it always sound "polite". So I was wondering if revel will sound robust with more aggressive and meatier sounding gear. I'm just in love with the way it looks, and now i can afford it, it kills me. In addition i heard them in high school, long before my ears were even trained.

http://www.canuckaudiomart.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=13986

wow, I guess I am sticking with ATC. I was lucky to pick up a pair of SCM20 original for 1.2K... Maybe i be lucky enough to pick up a pair of EL150 for under 7-8K. Hey, a man can dream right?!

Stick with the ATCs. They may not be high on WAF levels but sound pretty incredible. The ATCs are the least colored speakers when compared to many exotic designs out there, and I believe it will be difficult to find another speaker that can surpass the level of performance from a well set-up SCM20s. ATC usually have a very loyal following as most owners strive to improve their systems with upgrades and tweaks rather than looking at other speaker lines.

Although the S&K Nano monitors won't peel the paint off your walls Tim does mention that they are more than suitable for any room under 34x20 and I currently have a pair on order. I guess it all comes down to how hard you want to "rock the joint". Are yours done breaking in yet Chris?