It may very well be personal taste… i found my current Spendor A4 speakers just a bit shy in the low bass as well, they were measured to reach around 38hz. I opted to add a subwoofer and that worked really well for me / my listening situation.
I know that Naim’s Steve Harris made a similar decision for this SCM50ASLT speakers, which by ATC specs should also reach around 38hz:
“On my second system I use ATC SCM50ASLT towers which I’ve complemented with a couple of Focal subs to do the lower octave and balance out stereo image vs sheer bass weight and dialling subs into the room acoustics. The SCM50’s are old school in their design and need lower end reinforcement to really rock.”
That shouldn’t deter anyone from trying these speakers out ofcourse!
I think they are one of the best options when it comes to actives. It could very well be that the bass extension is already perfect for someone’s tastes and listening environment. And even if it’s not, a subwoofer is easy to add and may be fun to experiment with.
Having owned SCM40, SCM40A and currently SCM50ASL, I can’t say that I’d feel like ATC would be bass light. Bass is extremely well controlled, fast and somewhat taut though with entry series. Moving up to classic series the bass gains serious amount of weight and size and speaker’s ability to fill the room with sound gets clearly more impressive. With closed box design like 40 and 40A the bass will sound different compared to more common back or down firing reflex port designs. Moving from passive 40 to active version, the difference in power, control an authority in bass playback was substantial. It was like listening to a different speaker. Suddenly they even woke up room modes in my previous apartment when I had used passive 40’s for five years and no problems with room modes.
Hi Steve,
At that price point, ATC SCM 40A look like the benchmark active speaker.
The obvious alternative is the Dutch & Dutch 8C, which we auditioned about 2 years ago when looking to get into streaming music.
We found the 8C to be most impressive, especially in an all digital system. Its room correction DSP gave us even better bass than our ART speakers driven by NAP135s.
We couldn’t quite get on with the 8C when using an analogue source, i.e. our turntable. I shared our impressions on the long streaming thread that I started 2 years ago.
Rick at @Musicraft in Derby knows both speakers well and can demo both. He also knows a thing or two about subs, so could be a good first port of call.
Otherwise, Strictly Stereo in Stockport are good to deal with for the 8C.
Of course it depends on what people consider as light or not in the bass (over the years on the forum some people have declared that much less extended speakers than the SCM40 are not light in bass)…
One comment was that the roll-off is slow - that suggests they do roll off, but that person found it acceptable: someone else might not.
It will of course depend to some extent on the room, but significant.y also on the choice of music (a lot of music has little or no really low content). There is of course one good way to tell, for any individual, choice of music, and room…
Ofcourse they roll off, all speakers do, my point was that the specified frequency response shouldn’t be used as the reference to how much bass they will produce compared to another speaker.
ATC give the spec as -6db at 48hz and has a single 164mm drive unit
Naim gave the ovator s400 a frequency response of “down to 35hz” and has twin 165mm drive units.
I can tell you, and probably have the REW trace saved somewhere to prove it, that in room (well at least in my room in the same position) the response across the entire bass region and well into the high 20hz region, the ATCs blow the Naims away.
While on the subject of “honest” specifications, the ATC measurement of the bass driver, and indeed all the drivers is also honest, the 164mm drive unit is substantially bigger than the twin 165mm units in the Naim speakers, when measured as most manufacturers do, the ATC measure more like 180mm. Published specs don’t tell you how they sound is what I’m getting at, go have a listen or better yet get a home demo
Found a rough measurement I did in room from approximate MLP. Obviously a lot or room gain at 35hz but in room I get approx +3db gain at 20hz. Signal was 75db test tone to set level before a 20-20k sweep.
My room isn’t ideal obviously and is the reason I sought replacement for my beloved s400’s but I firmly believe that regardless of room they trump the Naims convincingly, bags of detail and drive, in short they are mega. Id actually give a word of caution that if in a small room you may be better with something smaller, the 19s for example, as I can imagine that the 40s would happily overpower a room of modest proportions, I may be on the verge of that myself but it sounds magic to my ears.
Brilliant I am over whelmed by my new scm 40 some recording are bass heavy and can just slightly overload the room. However they are absolutely brilliant and ruthless in their detailed delivery that is what I want. I want to hear every tiny detail and nuance in the recording perhaps some people don’t like ruthless detail. Why do some people want seismic bass magnitude 10 on the Richter scale the 40s provide ample true bass not artificially ported bass.
Yes that’s not a healthy frequency response, the difference between the 35hz point and the 100hz point is about -30dB. If the 35Hz point would be on the line level then the 20hz point would be at around -15dB.
So around 35hz seems to be a reasonable bottom end in a corrected room, similar to the SCM50. That is still very decent and will likely suit most people just fine.
Because there’s a room null at around 95hz and a gain at 35. In reality you don’t hear the null as it’s both narrow and deep and the 35hz room mode isn’t a problem unless the material you listen to is filled with 35hz content, which I’d guess there isn’t much of as I dont notice it, certainly doesn’t sound like a problem to my ears at any rate, it does add a healthy kick to movies though I’m sure along with the twin subwoofers I have for that purpose.
In summary the bass response in room is fantastic and well below the “specified” 48hz which you seem to think means they are bass light, they are quite the opposite.
Out of interest have you measured response of your system in your room? I’d wager that unless you’ve spent considerable money on the room that you will have similar modes and nulls, perhaps not in such favourable frequencies as my room has.
Well that is entering subjective territory ofcourse, since your are using your room as an equalizer/ bass boost, which compromises linearity. The specified 48hz that ATC provides is likely the lowest they can go without compromising linearity.
P.s., i am not here to attack the SCM40. You seem a little defensive about the SCM40’s capabilities and i’m sure they are wonderful speakers. I’m just going on the neutral facts and don’t have anything to prove here.
Well it may be somewhat subjective but seeing as most people listen to loudspeakers in rooms rather than anechoic test chambers it’s probably valid, especially when I have measured them in my room.
The point I’m trying to make is that ATC seem to have a more honest way of listing specs or perhaps testing them, IME ofcourse, compared to other loudspeakers I have owned. Same room, same position with two different loudspeakers and the specifications vs reality were reversed. YMMV ofcourse.
TLDR: specs alone may be misleading so have a listen, you may also find they have plenty of fast, accurate, deep bass
Comparison with the S400 is completely irrelevant. Instead, what is the output like at 50, 45, 40, 35, 30, 25, and maybe even 20 relative to 55? Are they respectively lower (apart from room peaks)?
I’m not 100% sure what you’re asking but the trace of frequency response in my room is posted above so you should be able to see what I think youre asking.
Comparison to the s400 is relevant to the point i was trying to make in that specs aren’t the whole picture, neither is frequency response for that matter.
I have heard both the SCM 19’s and 40’s and both would be an lovely upgrade over the 11’s. With the system listed in your profile you should give the 40’s a home demo to see if they work in your home environment. You may even want to entertain the the classic or tower series and compare to the Kudos 606 when the time comes…
Well as long as your room can accommodate the 40’s I think you would be pleasantly surprised . I seem to remember another member here using a 300 DR with passive 40’s , it worked very well I recall . As seakayaker mentions its never easy to buy speakers blind but if you find a good 2nd hand deal that risk would be reduced .
