ATC SCM150 Amp and Preamp recommendations

@ei001h  : I pretty much did the same thing as you: auditioned the active and passive version of ATCs and preferred the final system sound with a Moon North amp driving the passives (same exact front end, which included the insanely phenomenal ATC SCA2 Preamp). Based on your descriptions of what you like, I strongly feel you would love the Simaudio Moon 861; maybe just get the a single stereo amp and if you find you still crave extra drive or something (hard to imagine as the 861 is an absolute beast of an amp) you can always add the 2nd and go mono. You might find, however that while you gain authority/maximum headroom you loose something in the process of monos. Only know by trying though, eh?
@yyzsantabarbara I have a Playback Designs USB-X4 on the way for a home demo. I think this is the one that is around 3K msrp. The other playback streamers that I know of are much more expensive.

@dpac996 I was reading a post by someone who got the $3k streamer from PBD and also owned the more expensive PBD one. The person said they kept the cheaper one and sold the uber streamer.

BTW - Nagra licensees the streamer tech from the PBD USB-X4 and sells it for $5k. They do something similar with their $50k DAC which uses the 3rd-tier PBF FGPA  boards.

@ei001h 

Sounds like your journey ended up in the right place.  Ultimately the thing that makes ATC the MOST different is the low distortion drivers.  This is is something both passive ad active users can appreciate when it helps them hear things they otherwise wouldn't.   

Funny how distortion in drivers appears to our ears: not necessarily as a change in tone or audible distortion, but as masking, the veil obscurring information.  Remove that and a world opens up!

The only negative to low distortion is the recods you loved for the music can sometimes soumnd rather awful.  I remember the first time I heard Genesis "Selling England By the Pound" on a pair of ATCs and I was quite disappointed: NO bass at all, almost like it had been rolled off at 400 Hz!  This was likely caused by the mix monitors or mastering monitors having too much bass in the studio and therefore the engineers thought they had ait rght when they didn't.  This was common until they finally realized that a flat speaker or one with less bass was best to mix on.  Getting your monitors right is important to make sure that your fans get to ehar what they expect. 

Brad   

@onhwy61 

ATC actually did make an active crossover years ago, before they made the "amp packs" with everything built in.  I’ve asked about making another one over the years, but calibrating a system properly is not easy.  I use an Audio Precision here in our shop (10K piece of test equiipment) plus an expensive calibration microphone and a treated room; this is almost impossible at home.    This calibration is critical to the entire active idea.  Asking end users to do this at home sucessfully sounds like a lot of complaint phone calls coming in to me!  Its a complex process to correctly calibrate and check your work, especially when trying to stereo match a pair of speakers in different locations in the room.  A 1/2dB level difference across an entire band is quite audible.  Its nearly impossible to measure correctly in a living room with all the irregular surfaces and 1st reflections., windows, etc.  Using a DIRAC or REW or other such method makes it very diffeicult as all these systems look at a single point in space so it doesn apply to the entire room.  Trinnov is better, a lot of advantages in that mic they developed.     

Brad

Thank you for your response.

No disrespect to the OP, but I couldn't imagine not getting the powered ATCs.  It would be comparable to getting the big MBL Radials and not using matching MBL amps.  Both are designed as loudspeaker systems.  But others clearly disagree.  It's possible that the details of calibration might actually appeal to those looking to achieve their desired sound profile.  Probably a very niche market.