Help chossing a good speaker. $ 3-5 K

Do you think I will need to crank the ATC's volume up to more than an average of 75-80 db to get them to sound good?

Sincs you have a sub you will be able to compensate for teh lean bass response of ATC at low volume levels. However, I think that ATC 40 will be overkill if used this way. Why pay for something with typically less than 1% THD at very high SPL levels if you only ever need to listen at modest levels. I'd go with Harbeth's for your application.

FWIW - your concern about congestion might be related to your room (most any speakers perform quite well at such modest SPL levels). Unless heavily treated with acoustic panels, a small reflective room will tend to sound congested with most any speaker...you get a "claustrophobic" of cluttered kind of soundfield. So it might not be a speaker issue at all...

Musicfile: Yes check out John's KCS SEAS for the money...

Website, specs, reviews? Thanks.

The Proac D2s should be considered, amazing sound, very transparent with great bass. Must be heard! There is a review in Absolute sound you can check out.

Spendor S8e. Great speaker. Very very clear with excellent imaging. I've had mine for about four years and they're the one component I've never considered upgrading. They like juice, so your MC352 ought to pair well.

Thanks again for all the good advise. Shadone I agree, I think the room has a lot to do with the "congestion". I think I may go Harbeth at the end. I wish I could listen to these speakers but even if I could, it would be at the dealer's room where they may sound better or worse. Elctronics, room dimensions, room treatments, etc will be different. I'm not sure how valuable it would be. Ideally one would be ablt to test them in ones room and decide but not very many dealers will agree to that. On the other hand I want to buy used and it would not be fair to them.