Joseph audio perspectives, magico a3, ATC scm40 v2

@djones51 Definitely! Thanks for sharing your experiences. Now I am intrigued even more by the perspectives! Do you know how much it will cost for upgrading the perspectives to perspectives 2 graphene? I emailed joseph audio but have not heard back yet.   

I just auditioned the magico a3 today. It is less clinical sounding than the s1/3. I think the imaging is still very good as of the s1 and s3 but not as much detailed as them. The presentation of mids are similar for sure. Very good speed and transients. I don't know if it is the room set up or not, but the midbass and vocals sometimes are not separated enough and I almost feel it is a boomed bass mixed into the vocals at time. I started to miss the mids of ATC 40s.

For now I want to say I am narrowing down to joseph perspectives and atc scm40 v2, or atc scm40 actives. 

I hope I can audition the Joseph perspectives somewhere. Do you know if they have a dealer near bay area, CA? 

The Perspectives have among the most engaging, fun bass of any speaker I've heard.  It just has this beautiful combination of richness, tightness, punch the air reach-out-and-feel it.   It's one of the reasons I fell for the Perspectives.  I'm not a bass head, but the Perspectives did all the audiophile goodies of transparency, detail, tonal realism, but unlike many they don't sound too polite or buttoned down.  Fun music with funky or driving bass just boogies.  They are dancable. 


I admit I'd want to not screw with it too much via DSP if I could avoid that.  Fortunately I don't have to in my room.

Not sure where they have dealers. This was a year ago but I think it was about $3400 to upgrade them, might be more now. I have the invoice but I would need to dig it out. I bought mine blind, took a leap of faith. Very few places near where I am with dealers anymore. 

@yuhengdu_tiger I think you are fighting two battles at once: room acoustics and speakers.

No matter what speakers you choose, your room size and placement constraints close to boundaries create issues in terms of room modes and resonances. Serious acoustic treatment will be worth every penny, starting with bass traps in all corners and acoustic panels on the front wall. Also much cheaper than new equipment!

On speakers, I have 2 more suggestions. The first is the Living Voice Auditorium series. These are really excellent, deeply musical speakers, which still have a compact footprint similar to the SCM40s, but far higher sensitivity so much easier to drive, and have a strong synergy with tube amps. Though they are also not EDM bass monsters, they have higher cone surface area from the dual woofers for lower frequencies, and fantastically integrated mids and highs. They are absolutely worth adding to your shortlist.

The second is the SCM19A tower version. Same footprint as SCM40, all the benefits of ATC active biamping, and the new ATC tweeter. Going active should result in better dynamics, detail and bass authority than the SCM40 passive, even foregoing the separate mid driver. Note that the SCM19/20 has the SL midbass with the mid dome grafted onto the cone. Nobody argues that the SCM19 is preferable to the SCM50, but many users have  found they preferred the SMC19 to the SCM40. They both share the same basic sound signature, but some find the 19/20s drivers sound more integrated. This was actually my experience when I demoed the passive v1s.

@prof  Thanks for your reply. The perspectives are now top 1 on my list even I have no where to audition them so far. May I know which amp do you pair with them? And how do you feel about their mids/vocals presentation? My music are vocal oriented (recordings an lives) and this is the most critical department for me. 

I feel your description about the bass. Seems they have really visceral bass and still tonally balanced to be musical. Thanks!