Down to 2 speakers & I can't decide, ProAc D48R vs Spendor D9

Whereas ATC is for superficial music.

What does that even mean “serious music”

Spendor is more for serious music.

I just traded in my atcsm40s for spendor d9.   The atc need to be played very loud to hit their stride. D9 I can listen to at a lower  volume and still sound nice.  Soundstage is great

So you've heard the ProAcs and the ATCs, and I assume/hope you listened to them with your own music.  What did you think?  I personally love both these speakers, but for very different reasons.  If I'm looking for dynamics and the feeling of a live performance, I'd go ATC no doubt.  If I'm looking more for "audiophile" characteristics like a deep, 3D soundstage, speakers disappearing, etc. then it's ProAc.  To me, these major speaker strengths and inherent characteristics override the mode of amplification in this particular situation.  Only you can make that final decision, but with your preferred music my strong bias would be for ATC.  And yes, their active speakers are clearly superior to passive, which you've obvious already found.  From what I've heard from you so far, if it's me I'd sell my current amp to help finance active ATCs.  Just my $0.02 and FWIW. 

what about naim loudspeakers? also great speakers on audiogon sell for incredible prices. you can buy way better speakers for the money. just an opinion. 

There seems to be a consensus that active is the way to go with ATC. Was the difference between active ATC SCM40 and passive as big as the price difference? ($7K vs $14K list). What amp was driving the passive?

I was just about to jump onto the ProAc D48R when I had an long demo. of the ATC SCM 40A. My goodness the active version really did beat the passive, and not by a small amount either.

Would / should the ATC SCM 40A beat the D48R/ naim 300DR driving them ?

I heard an active will beat a passive everytime (within reason e.g. similar priced/quality speakers & power amp or even a bit higher).

Buying speakers blind is a big, big risk. However, Spendor is combined with Naim quite a lot. I’ve heard Naim Spendor setups and they sound good to me, but without the Naims behind them, I find Spendors boring af tbh. I run ATCs and they also go well with Naims, but they’re not at all everyone’s cup of tea. Proacs I find a bit bright. I’d really make the effort to find some Naim dealers somewhere and go listen to stuff for yourself.

 I managed to find a dealer who has a traded in pair of D9’s to demo. I then went for another listen to the D48R’s.
Decision made, I’ll be getting the ProAc D48R. 
They just  got me more emotionally connected with the music than the Spendor D9. That and a bit more forgiving of some poorly recorded 80’s music as well.

With what you listen to either would do very nicely and may even open your ears to other types of music.

@seadog77 Do you have access to the Twenty series?  I haven't heard the Twenty5's, but reviews suggest that PMC moved them closer to the Fact series, which is definitely more "neutral".  My Twenty.24's are about "just right" on treble, forgiving enough on treble to accommodate less than ideal recordings, but far from soft.  Worth noting that the Twenty5.26 still uses the SEAS soft dome tweeter.

You really need to hear them.  One I have heard but forget, it's a very "polite" speaker  somewhat soft at the edges . Do You like that? It may match well with Naim I don't know- that's another question?

Thank you all for your advice. I did demo. the PMC 25.26 and thought them excellent, until I put some less than perfect 80’s rock tracks on, and for some reason I found the treble very sibilant and irritating on a lot of vocals. Which was a real let down as they rocked hard and the musical pace and the depth and timing of the bass was magnificent.

ATC comes up a lot in these forums too, but I cannot get a demo. of these local ATM.

Pete,Since you are going to demo the D9, I suggest that you do that and rely on your own experience. I have the ProAcD48R myself and love every bit of it. The D9s are probably good too, but I did not listen to them. I listened to the D7s and liked it. But the D48Rs are a completely different league - full range sound and AWESOME midrange from that ribbon tweeter.PM me if you need more information on the D48R.

Yeah, with your music I'd be looking at ATC SCM40 or 50 or something from PMC like this...

https://www.audiogon.com/listings/lis99760-pmc-mb2s-studio-monitors-with-bryston-4b-sst-pro-amp-mult...

The speakers you're considering are great speakers, but they can't do dynamics like ATC or PMC (or JBL mentioned above), which would serve a lot of your music well.  You should try to give at least one of these a listen with your music.  Best of luck. 

Those two models are designed to compete directly with each other, from companies that compete with each other.  Think Honda Accord vs. Toyota Camry.  D9/D48, D7/D30.  Likewise, Spendor's Classic line is in a similar competitive pairing with Harbeth's offerings.

With your musical tastes maybe you should look for another type of speaker. If possible JBL might be worth an audition!
https://www.musicdirect.com/Search?searchterm=jbl&sort=popularity%7CDESC&page=1&pagesize...

+1 Akg
And, don't forget about Vandersteen...
Bob

You haven’t personally auditioned one of these speakers, so is this a blind purchase distilled down to a coin flip based solely on mag reviews because that’s what it sounds like to me? They are both very fine options, each with its own signature sound.

Regrettably is no substitute for the personal audition trek down the Yellow Brick Road to audio OZ. Without it, all you are going to get here is

(1) a biased anecdotal 50-50 push of what the respondents like, with no correlation to what you like with your own bespoke tastes; and,
(2) just a pure guess as to system synergy with the rest of your system AND the influence of warts invoked by your bespoke listening arena

There are many more terrific options for NAIM pairings, such as NEAT, KUDO, FOCAL, HARBETH, J M RENAUD, Etc. just to highlight a few.