Lindisfarne is absolutely correct. Lots of really good power otherwise you are wasting your time and lots of money. I've not listened to this exact model, but have listened to much of the line and it is quite consistent with needing very exacting preamp/power. Very revealing of any flaws in the system to include cabling. Most I listened to loved British class A such as Sugden and LFD.
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?