From your perspective, how do “hi-fi” manufacturers with some professional monitor pedigree fare in comparison with ATC/PMC, for example Focal and Wilson Audio?
If you are talking dynamic Hi-Fi speakers and panels They are generally extremely competitive for high quality sound - depending on your tastes a Hi-Fi speaker may sound better or worse than ATC/PMC. So like all speakers it is a matter of choice/taste.
What they generally all cannot do is to handle SPL's much above 100 db SPL at the listening position (2 meters back) - peaks get compressed and transients are tamed - if you push them then most will tend to sound dull, boomy, congested or strained.
As I mentioned - if you want the "live factor" (which I take to mean as you defined it - live sound from a rock band with a drummer from a bar) then you need big horns or you need to be extremely selective in terms of dynamic speakers.
Anyway I don't expect many people get it - it isn't often you hear live kind of sound from home speakers - so most people are used to accepting that you can never achieve this realism at home. Some call this kind of sound "PA sound" to distinguish it from the rich, refined and often warm sound you get from many excellent Hi-Fi speakers. These people positively dislike this kind of sound and will say it is fatiguing and unpleasant and makes their ears bleed. So it is not for everyone.
I would add that it takes a good uncompressed recording and, unfortunately, many modern hypercompressed CD's will be terribly fatiguing at loud levels - this is because of "CD Loudness Wars".
I think you should check out some good horns - it might be the ticket. ATC and PMC are NOT the only option but there are only very limited "dynamic speakers" that will do what you seem to be looking for (live band in a bar levels).
If you can - please check out the first track from Shefield Labs drum track CD with a radioshack meter at your listening position and let me know at what SPL they start to sound strained. As I said before - I'm not really sure that you can really benefit much from a change - only you can decide if need to go a bit louder effortlessly - although it would help me to know what you are getting on drum crescendos and on peak hard hits before your PMC's sound strained. (If you can get 112 to 115 db SPL on the hardest hits and everything sounds fine and clean then for me that would be enough as an acoustic drum set cannot do more than this if you were to stand close to it)
Undoubtedly, some people will take my comments out of context to imply there are no other dynamic speakers that sound good - that was not my intention - perhaps this post will clarify - I mean't what most people would call extremely loud "the live factor" - the reason you can hear the band playing from the other side of the street from inside the bar.
