Steve Guttenberg reviews an ATC active?

for the ATC SCM40, here is a list of speakers in the same pricerange

https://speakerchoices.com/?pricemin=7000&pricemax=9000

Expensive active speakers are a hard sell outside of the studio. At home I already own amps, I don’t want to buy another packaged with a speaker. In a studio where space and time are limited a package makes a lot more sense.

Depending on the design, actives can be the fulfillment of design intent by an active crossover implementation + hand picked power amp sections, all in one box from the engineer.

In such a case, the engineer still lets you tweak your linestage, dac, phonostage, turntable, whatever all day long. He only took away your freedom of choice on the power amp. However, some audiophiliacs might think they know more than the guy who designed the stuff and have more tools in hand for execution. Hence, it’s a "hard sell’".

And to add to what @deep_333  just said, I think there is far more sonic variations to discover in what's BEFORE the amplifiers:  preamps, linestages, DACS, phono cartridges, arms and  turntables, cables , streamers, etc.

Brad

My gate swings both ways.  I run ATC active and passive....and love them all!

ATC 50 and 40 actives, ATC SCM 20 and 7.  Why not?  I feel as if the only 'fault' ATC transducers have, is an unforgiving nature towards everything in front of them.  They sometimes scream "you lied to me, you said you would feed me only the cleanest signal and recordings".

Every system change I make is reflected truthfully, for better or worse.  Sound Anchor stands with Herbies Fat Dots under ATC 20s, thumbs up.  Improved cabling on ATC 50 actives, thumbs up.

Expensive is so subjective.  I foresee keeping my loom of ATC transducers for a very long time.

Addendum.  Besides being an audiophile, I’m a financial guy.  Purchasing quality once as opposed to chasing product multiple times is from a fiduciary aspect far more responsible.

A car addict friend of mine owned over 300 vehicles.  His statement was simple.  He admitted he could have owned any three automobiles on the planet he desired for the coin spent on jumping around to all of those diverse purchases.  To this point, I knew of his ownership of 5 Lotuses, Porsche 928, several Corvettes, 2 Alpha Romero 164s and it goes on.  So, he was not slumming.

The simple point is that serious quality costs serious money, but not as much as endlessly chasing.  I own and use daily, optics and audio gear 20+ years old, not because I have to, but because the products are still valid.

ATC transducers will remain valid for a very long time.