Yeah ATC take the mid drivers very seriously. Both the 19 and 40 have their iconic mid dome combined bass driver and dedicated mid driver respectively. The former has some of the lowest distortion in the industry through careful reduction in crossover requirements I understand.
Simon
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Simon,
Your correct for the 19, but the 40, has 3 separate drivers, so the 8 inch bass is just for that I assume.
At the Bristol HiFi show I at last heard the ATC SCM40. I was smitten completely by their sound and I can well understand how they inspire you to rediscover your music collection!
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So here’s a small report of what’s been happening here. The active 40’s arrived last thursday and I’ve been playing them as much as I’ve been able since then. There’s probably a burn-in process still going on but I haven’t noticed any big changes in sound signature for now. There’s mostly good in their sound but one problematic thing which surprised me. Though this is something I should’ve expected.
When I got them, I drove them first with Metrum Acoustics Jade dac/pre. I also had PSAudio DirectStream and E.A.R Yoshino DAC4 at hand. They all sounded good with 19A. My first observation was that 40’s indeed sound smoother, slightly darker and softer (not in bad way) and clearly bigger than 19A. They’re easier to the ear when 19A could come out slightly too analytical with some tracks. Second observation was that they sound way more powerful than what I got with SN2 driving the passive version. They just put out the music so effortlessly that it amazes me. Clearly more air, separation and clarity than before. But with power also lies the problem.
The bass performance is on completely different level. They hit super deep and with such power that now I must admit that they do overpower my room. They never get out of control, but there’s simply too much bass energy and some tracks wake up the room modes. I didn’t have this problem with passives. I already thought that I just made a biggest and most expensive mistake in my life but I got lucky, sort of. There happened to be a Linn Akurate DSM with the newest Katalyst board for sale in Finland, second hand. It was on the upper end of my budget but still possible to get at this point. Seller brought the unit for audition and we played with it the whole day. ADSM sounded very good straight out of the box. Easily on same level than the other front ends I mentioned before. But Linn’s boxes are super versatile with tons of features. One of them is this thing called space optimisation which is their version of room correction. You put every detail of your room, speakers, sweet spot etc. in the software and then it calculates a correction for the speakers. Luckily they even have SCM40A supported and measured by Linn so after few days of listening and tweaking with the software, they now sound extremely good. Now I have all the power available without overpowering the room. Of course I can’t directly compare this to my old setup since front end is completely different but in my opinion, it’s a clear step up from before. Linn, like Naim, is very good with PRaT and musicality but their presentation differs from Naim. It’s more neutral approach but at the same time the music is easier to follow and I hear so much more information on tracks. Now after listening to many other dac/pre’s, speakers and setups I must say my old setup was very warm and dark sounding. It still did PRaT well but I’m hearing so much more with the current setup. Even though my room has its limitations, it’s clear how active version is a clear step up in my case. It’s amazing how good sound you can get from one box and two active speakers.
So my ten-year journey with Naim has come to an end for now but I have this feeling that some day I’ll get back there. I’m still very interested to hear the 372 if they release that some day. Of course now I need to add room correction to the mixture, at least until I move from this apartment to bigger one, but there’s many easy solutions for that nowadays (Roon for example).
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I wish I’d had time to listen to them yesterday 
Glad you got there in the end, with the 40A.mine took at least 3 months of running in, and noticing small changes.
I too wonder if having moved from Naim after 15 years , and going to Auralic ,will I ever return, not sure, but still think they are a brilliant company.
Enjoy the ATC, s
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I’ve just started looking at Auralic but there doesn’t seem to be a lot of end-user feeback. Superb reviews though.
I hAve a Vega G2, preamp, streaming DAC and for me it was way better than anything else I listened , including 272, NDX with NDAC .
It’s really great to use, I can recommend the product and the company.
If your UK based my dealer in Chester is really great for a demo,
Also the build quality is equal to Naim.
Go and have a demo, if u can.
the G1 and G2 are on my list… along with the 272 though, tbh, I wasn’t going to investigate further until the NEW N-272 raises it’s head 
Might I ask which power amp to go with the G2?
I use ATC SCM 40A speakers so power amps built into the speakers, fed from the G2, it sounds amazing.This replaced my old system of 252/SCDR/300DR/NDX/nDAC into Dynaudio contour 3.4S,my new system is better, that slight Naim glare has totally gone.
Like the sound of that… Having recently purchased the passive SCM40s (right at the start of the thread, 190 posts ago) I couldn’t quite stomach the idea of changing to the active models 
I need to do more research on complementary power amps. Maybe borrow a G2 and try just using the SN2 as a power amp and see what that’s like…
Atc p1 will do the trick
They look good… so move away from NAIM altogether? Gosh that’s a bold move… Out there on ones lonesome; frightening 
I felt exactly the same, but there is Hifi life, without Naim !
Naim are brilliant , but others such as Auralic offer a different approach,
To move from Naim and sell all my gear via my dealer on eBay was scarey to say the least, but so glad I did it now.no desire anymore to tweak, try yet another PS upgrade, expensive cables etc etc.
Been doing some more reading and asking around and I hear nothing but good reports about the P1… Have you tried it? I might see if my local ATC dealer that supplied the SCM40s has one I can borrow though using the pre-amp stage from the SN2 I’m currently using will cloud things to some extent.
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Hi- I’ve had and loved the sia2-150 mk2 which will control the 40’s a treat. The p1 and ca2 pre will bring more to the party
Sounds like the P1 and CA2 are the non-integrated version of the SIA2-150. I do like the styling of the ATC amps My gut feeling is the P1+SCM40 will be a nice combination with good synergy.
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Was in my dealer Signals this morning and last week and heard a pair of SCM40 running in…
Sounded mighty fine, even running in.
@Gazza, how is it going with the SuperLumina interconnect?
Sorry @anon4216120 for the slight diversion, but I think Gazza is avoiding me.
I thought i had got away with it. 
Took the rest of the cables back this morning. First go round the SL Din to Din was faulty with a very loud buzzing and had to be sent back to Naim, got a replacement. At this point in time i had Naim SL din to din and True Signal Ultimate Signal din to din, plus a set of SL din to xlr twin leads for preamp to NAP300. Neither din to din really moved me to be quite frank. Then added the SL din to xlr, things began to improve quite markedly…no clue why?
After a few days back to back between SL and True Signal din to din i was rather surprised i did not like the SL din to din, it sounded boxed in, and compressed, like a poor recording? Not what i wanted to hear or what i was expecting. So got the wife involved…she could not care less about Hifi, but has got good ears. Did some A-B-A a few times, each time she preferred the True Signal cable, commenting about the clearer more open sound. So after a call from Alistair from Signals i returned the SL din to din, and picked up a brand new True Signal din to xlr twin for the preamp to amp. Been swapping this out with the Naim din to xlr…bottom line, i (we) did not get on with Naim SL. However, the greater clarity and detail does lose some of that Naiminess for want of a better word…if only i could have both.
Had a long chat with Alistair this morning and decided to try something different. Did learn a long while ago its sometimes better to work backwards from where you might want to get to. So after Easter will demo the cables, both sets inc speaker cables with a 552/500. Perhaps i will feel different about the sound, but its a reality/sanity and safety check. Also the new True Signal flagship speaker cable…Relevation will be available.
Phew thats a load if my chest and sorry to the OP for the digression.