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Review ATC SCM20PSL monitors 50 hours listening

My wife's system under construction consists of a Rega Apollo R CD player, Luxman 509X integrated and new ATC SCM20PSL monitors!  In burr magnolia.  They are gorgeous!  All electronics sitting on an IKEA two shelf bench.  I did mention system under construction....before anyone flames. That shelf will be corrected with a Quadraspire SVT stand.  Okay?

Even in this incomplete phase with the monitors sitting on no name massed 29" stands, they are incredible.  The Luxman grabs hold of them firmly and just drives them.  All control.  The ATCs are really quick, image well without completely disappearing and have controlled slam.  Nicely extended highs, beautiful midrange and tight bass easily revealing acoustic bass timbre.  One can easily differentiate between Eddie Gomez, Edgar Meyer and Charnett Moffett.

She is having great fun with it even if Bon Jovi recordings mostly sound, well, marginal to be honest.  Heresy I say, but it's her system.

Zavfino Prima power cables, Decware ICs, Mojo Mystique 3 DAC, Duelund speaker cables, Decware ZLC power conditioner.

celtic66
vinylvalet
913 posts
 

@soix +1

Ag insider logo xs@2x
lonemountain
462 posts
 

m-dB

 

Wow, that Lorraine Campet link you posted is amazing. What intonation! It was perfect.

One of things with ATC that has always been a goal of Billy Woodman (founder) and the engineering department: realism via low distortion. Distortion starts in the drivers, where ATC invests a LOT of effort and time in designing and building their own. The midrange is so good due to creating a driver that would be far too expensive to sell OEM.

Brad

kenjit
1,771 posts
 

One of things with ATC that has always been a goal of Billy Woodman (founder) and the engineering department: realism via low distortion. 

It is interesting you say that. I could not see any distortion measurements shown on the ATC website. Audioscience did a review and found horrific distortion and poor response:

 

celtic66 OP
1,681 posts
 

Distortion is an interesting thing.  Leaving transducers aside, segue to amplifiers.  It is inarguable that tube gear amplification carries far more distortion than solid state amplification.  Yet, how many swoon, defend and tout the benefits of tangible vacuum tube amplification of music?  And I've owned many quality tube pieces and loved them.

I understand your point of showing discrepancy between claimed low distortion transducers by ATC and actual measurements.  I cannot address that.  I simply know that the ATC 20 passives sound incredible to me when properly amplified and fed decent material and that I've no numbers to support or discredit that perception.  I've never heard the ATC SMC 19.

 

lukemaximus
42 posts
 

@kenjit 

Please note that the ASR review is of the older, original SCM19, which used tweeters from another manufacturer. 

The more recent SCM-19v2, which I have, and the SCM20PSL, which the OP has, incorporate ATC's 'new' made-in-house tweeters. I don't know if other changes accompanied the inclusion of the new tweeters, for example modifications to the crossovers, but the ASR review is of a different speaker and is not pertinent.

ATC's are lauded for being highly resolving. This would imply low distortion. 

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