My thoughts entirely
I think my 40’s took about 3 months. Unfortunately, the first pair delivered had unacceptable QC “issues”, but this was quickly resolved thanks to dealer and ATC.
On a positive note, I guess the lead time is probably indicative that ATC are busy and not because they only have 1 bloke in a shed making them
I haven’t seen many SCM19s on this thread so here are mine. It’s my “second system” but it gets just as much use as my primary system so I think I’ll just refer to it as my alternate system. I’m lucky. The 19s came from my other system and I moved my wonderful Kef LS50s to a friend. However, to really sing they needed the ATC P100 so that’s what they got.
P100? Looks like a P1 (or P2). It’s a good match for the 19s.
Roger
Oops yes. One of them PeakMan. Cheers
R
It was a really difficult decision between the ATC SCM 11 and the Neat Iota Alpha. The ATCs are great speakers, in the end, I decided on the Neats simply because they sounded more engaging, fun and overall a better fit for my room and listening.
Congratulation!
…great to have choices between a couple of well respected speakers.
On the couple of times I’ve heard the Neats they’ve always entertained.
It’s almost the fact that they look so different from how we expect a speaker to be put together that counts against them, but close the eyes and listen and they deliver.
The ATCs really dug deep, especially on acoustic guitar and vocals. Very impressive and if I was looking for something analytical, on the dry side and, dare I say it, more audiophile, I would have gone with the ATCs. These speakers are for the lounge, after 9pm low to mid level listening and so entertainment, fun, involvement were the key characteristics I was looking for.
I’ve got Guru QM10’s in my second system for exactly the same reasons, just make everything work, timing is incredible.
I have been meaning to post pics of my ATC’s (SCM40 passive and C3C centre) for ages on this thread but I held off because I thought I would wait until the room was redecorated! I’m actually in the process of redecorating still which is why there’s cables strewn across everything etc and it looks like a bomb site!! I spend my days paintbrush in hand and with my huge “best of Del Amitri” playlist on the NDX and then very quickly cobble the room back together to make it usable for movies/TV in the evening so this is the state of play tonight…
The basic plan was to upgrade the living room/home cinema to 4k Atmos so I recently upgraded the projector to an Optoma UHD55, managed to buy the very last Cambridge CXUHD 4k player Cambridge Audio had in the dark recesses of their factory and purchased a new 106" 16/9 Grandview fixed frame screen to replace the old 4x3 roller screen. The room is a 33ftx14ft through room with a log burning stove that semi divides the room because it is on a hearth that comes out into the room a few feet from the long side wall opposite the turntable.
I decided to go for dark colours in the viewing area in order to optimise the cinema performance and also to enable me to listen to music in the dark sometimes either when reviewing or for pleasure. We weren’t sure if painting some of the ceiling dark grey was going to be hideous in what is actually our main living room but in fact it’s worked out fine because the rest of the room is in light cream/mushroom including the ceiling in the other half of the room. I can confirm that the darker ceiling and walls have made a huge difference to the contrast and the screen really ‘pops’ now and the whole effect is much more akin to being in a cinema than a living room. The cinema walls except the wall behind the screen are very dark green chosen to go with the existing sofa. The colour is really a fern green kind of colour but my crappy phone doesn’t really capture it well.
General plan from here is to:
Finish painting!
Add recessed downlights in front of the screen and above viewing position
Change existing Pioneer SC-LX73 for a 4k/Atmos model probably from Rotel
Add 4x ATC HTS11 for Atmos overheads flush mounted on custom brackets to ceiling if possible
Change REL Storm 3 and Storm V subs to REL Predator HT1508 or SVS3000 series
Eventually replace SBL’s (if I can bear to part with them!) for ATC HTS40 or HTS11
The process will be a slow one because it all has to be funded from my writing activities. A key requirement is that the entire system can be moved to our retirement house in around 5-6 yrs time which ruled out in ceiling Atmos speakers. This also enables the room/house to be returned to a normal room more easily for a future buyer.
My Mum is coming over on Sunday to see Top Gun Maverick off 4k Bluray - she’s not seen it before so I’m hoping that will impress her! Imagine a cross between Judy Dench and Margaret Thatcher and you get the idea lol! When I announced my intention to paint a ceiling and wall charcoal grey I think she wondered if I had taken leave of my senses but the truth is I am as serious about films and concert blurays as I am about 2 channel music so wanted to optimise both. An interesting by product of the darker backdrop is that I actually find listening to two channel music more immersive too because the more subdued colours encourage you to focus on the music more. - I hadn’t anticipated that!
I fitted bass rumblers to the seating a few years ago and it’s linked to the LFE channel - good fun on blockbusters!
JonathanG
Here are mine. TV stand is temporary so looks a bit of a mess at the moment. Absolutely love the 40’s. They are accurate, uncoloured, neutral and punchy.
I had neat motive 2 for a long time and found them to be great speakers but always a little coloured with their own character. Ultimately I preferred the realism of the ATC’s
Looks great. Very similar to my set up. I originally went for the b&w m1 speakers for surround sound when i moved into our new house which i coupled with my then 272, xps, nap200, ovator s400 for the left and right channels. Due to the move and new room my ovators were lacking bottom end conviction and so i auditioned the scm40a. Fell in love with them and sold the ovators. I wanted to make sure that the centre matched the LR channels tonally, or as far as reasonably could be afforded at the time and ordered the c3c to go with them. Managed to source an audiolab 8000p to drive it and ran the LR through pre outs into my 272 and the centre through pre out through the audiolab.
Next move will be to switch my surrounds to hts7 and move the m1 to atmos duty only making it a 5.2.4 system. I have bk 400xxls and 200xls subs for LFE duties, sounds great for movies but the b&w are lacking on multichannel music for sure, hence the reason for wanting hts7 for rears
@Camlan Do you feel there’s enough power feeding your SCM40s with a Nova?
I personally would never pair 85dB speakers with less than 300W amplifiers. The reason I chose Proac DT8 for my 272/250DR is the 80W amp rating.
Would have loved to try the SCM40s but had several Dynaudio models in the past and never felt my 250DR (nor home demoed 300DR for that matter) had sufficient grunt to successfully drive those loads (86-87dB @ 4ohms).
Thank you.
I really feel like I should upgrade my 250DR to 300DR for my Dynaudio S40 to sing. Might be time to do so.
I really don’t think SCM 40s need 300wpc to sing, except perhaps in a very large room, where they’re probably the wrong choice of speaker. They’re certainly not the most sensitive, but they are 8 ohms with a pretty benign impedance curve. ATC themselves recommend 75-300 wpc and they sound very good to me driven by a 300DR.
Roger
Sorry for the delay in responding, been away.
In short, yes I do but I am using them in a smaller room.
Finally got the HTS7’s in their final place…‘Bothy’ now commissioned…
looks lovely Anthony, where’s the whisky shelf?
Have a looksie at the ‘Beer’ thread… more piccies to follow soon in the ‘Whisky’ thread…