ATC buying advice

I did end up at ATC because I want to hear the music as it’s intended to sound…I would say I aim more for ’warmer’ more musical experience than a clinically clear one. If that makes any sense?

Great info. Given that the ATCs are basically a blank slate of neutrality you’re open to “flavoring” them however you’d like. Given your preference for warmth and musicality I’d definitely skew towards a tube preamp if you’re open to tubes, and a couple brands that jump to mind are VAC and Allnic that have musicality in spades but are still nicely detailed. If you’d prefer solid state I’d mention Pass Labs and Ayre although I still think given your preferences tubes are the way to go. For cables I’d highly recommend looking at Acoustic Zen as they’re also very natural sounding while communicating lots of detail and won’t rape you in terms of price as many others can. Hope this helps, and best of luck in your quest!

BTW @lonemountain thanks for chiming in here with some very helpful info. Do you have any thoughts on good tube or solid state preamps that you or other active ATC owners have used with good success and given the OP’s stated preferences for musicality and some warmth?

I am am using meager 19's in a small room though...I would think active would eliminate the amp in compatability somewhat,Have heard great thing about them as well.Using simple zavfino prema's with great success. This will interesting to hear your outcome.Since using atc19 i have little desire to stray from them...would be up the chain fwiw.

     As communicated in other postings, I tend to live now in the active world.  I'm not a volume rocker listening, but I do really like the immediate attack and dynamics of active which I personally could not render with passive and some very good amplification.  Just my experience, not gospel.

     I also drug a friend of mine into that world and we've enough equipment to play with to do comparisons.  We've never looked back.  To that end, my wife's system IS with ATC 20 passives and a Luxman integrated, and is quite listenable.  Very sweet too.

@soix 

Regarding tube preamps, I don't have any recommendations for I have not listened to nearly enough of them to make a judgement.   I would say ATC active's reveal a lot about what is upstream so it better be a great tube pre!  You will definitely hear color. 

Brad

I came to ATC by way of producing music. The SCM25A's changed everything for me. I'd never heard a more accurate speaker which is essential for mixing/mastering. Everything you hear about the midrange and high end detail is true. The SCM25A has the same woofer, but different tweeter than the SCM40A in a smaller ported enclosure. I would expect the 40 to have more pleasing bass performance, but this is not an SL driver and while good, it is not going to fill a room with bass. When mixing, it is essential to know what is going on in the bottom octave. Subs are needed for this with these speakers. 

The 25's gave me confidence to purchase SCM19's for a fun room. These are beautiful sounding speakers. Thanks Brad at Lone Mountain, I agree they tend toward warm. While beautiful, the magic with ATC's is with the 3 ways. 

I then added passive SCM50's that are 2 generations old due to attractive price. As was pointed out earlier, these are entirely different beasts from the 25's in all the right ways.

I will back up and say you can't beat active ATC's. That is the way to go. Nobody mentions the zero phase crossovers along with discrete amps for each driver. ATC amps are excellent and zero phase crossovers make a world of difference with clarity. It's the same as using a linear phase EQ like the Manley Massive Passive; zero phase crossovers cannot be beat for clarity. That's why these are used almost exclusively in the Pro/Studio environment.

That said, the passive crossovers are insanely massive in the 50's and sound amazing nonetheless. The 50's use SL (Super Linear) drivers with underhung voice coils. This is big boy land. Brad at Lone Mountain can clarify, but my understanding is the mid and tweeter are SL versions as well with stronger magnets. This and the coffee can sized passives must be why they can handle 1500 watts if you decide to go that far. For me, the 50's fill the entire audio spectrum as they should. I still use subs, but they only fill in the lowest registers and don't work much other than to add dimension. I use a pair of 15's and always will. 

Beyond 50's, there's also the consideration of how loud do you want them. Aside from playing deeper as you go up the range, each model becomes 3 dB more efficient. 50's are quite inefficient at 85 dB SPL. You gotta hit 'em hard! They are a sweet spot size-wise tho.

I like it loud so I think I'd prefer 100's or 150's, but I do have a limited budget. It's interesting that the 150's 15" driver switches from rubber to foam as I understand it to better control IM distortion in larger drivers. Now we're talking tank like size compared to the relatively svelt 50's. SCM150's are used in mastering studios the world over. Check out Black Bird studio's various ATC rooms too if you want to see how room treatment is done. 

I say 50's or up and active if possible. Enjoy!