Mario - l’m delighted you enjoyed reading the 50’s review and you’re right I drove myself mad swapping the modules over in the speakers going back and forth! The 552/500 would be an amazing combination and a system to last a lifetime, but of course the cheaper option for you would be 552/500/DBL if you could ever obtain the passive crossovers. I heard the DBL’s several times at shows but also I was friendly with a forum member who ran them and they are a stunning loudspeaker. There’s not many speakers even today that offer their sheer visceral majesty although big ATC’s and PMC’s probably come closest - they’re just one of Naim’s all time greatest creations.
I have this combo for about 1 year and love it! I use Vovox Sonorus S balanced cables between Atom HE and SCM19A that found a good match! There will be better options sure but this money i think Atom HE is bargain! (Class A analog preamp and very good as streamer also) and with headphones (i use Focal Elear:s) it’s match made in heaven.
If budget allow, Linn Akurate DSM/Selekt DSM (with Katalyst) maybe a bit better but cost much more.
I’ve only heard active DBL’s once, but they were incredible!
I wonder how ATC’s SCM150aslt would compare vs current forum favourites the Kudos 808.
If simplicity coupled with quality was your game, the top Linn streamer with balanced outputs and the 150’s could be a player. I’ve no idea how that combination would sound, but balanced outputs and active ATC’s are an attractive proposition
@carruthersesq - how close some of these speakers are to walls is what has struck me about this thread too.
However I can’t help thinking that however tolerant they are of positioning some of the set ups must surely be performing sub optimally even while outperforming the competition. While the sealed cabinets and lack of rear ports will help, the reflections from those positioned very close to side walls must surely be problematic. Would be wonderful to think you can just plonk them anywhere in the room and get the best out of them. Mrs O would love them stuck neatly in the rooms corners.
I recently auditioned active 40’s at my dealers but they didn’t have enough bass for my taste. I’m going to listen the the active 50’s when his demo pair arrive. If they have the 40’s clean, detailed sound with more bottom end I could be sorely tempted.
Along with a streaming pre-amp it would be an elegant solution to my desire to downsize without losing quality.
No, i did not compare the P2 versus Naim. Ive compared the P1 vs P2 side by side. The differece between the two is big to my ears. They are both evenly clean sounding. Both amps let your hear the recording space when its there. But the P2 does so with far more control and authority on my scm20 psl
Ive not heard the 20asl. But i compared the 50asl versus the 50psl for me the psl is a clear winner. Far more fluent . Everything is proportionally better.
The c1 is a real WOW moment for me. Not so much because of the low end. But everything on a recording is so much easyer to follow. Every thibg has so much more power. Even so in the mid and high frequencies
This is a very nice lean system. It also fits beautifully into your living space. I also use Vovox cables (power cords). They are a very good update and a bargain from the price-performance ratio. Enjoy.
I doubt I am allowed to post a link to it here even though it includes naim as I think it’s against forum rules, but a suitable google search should get you there. Soundstage has several homepages for different branches of audio which complicates navigation but my stuff primarily appears on their Soundstage Ultra i.e. high end gear pages or Soundstage Global which is mainly about product launches and shows.
Hoping this is OK with Richard as I am very keen not to break any forum rules, I’m just pleased if people enjoy my scratchings on parchment!
Re: the obervations made on ATC placement in some of the systems on here my own experience is that the sealed designs like the SCM19 and 40 are surprisingly forgiving about being around 12" from a rear wall and the main loss is stage depth if you get too close. The ported designs like the 50 and upwards are less forgiving and will boom more readily. None of them can be treated like SBL’s or SL2’s though which are optimal up against a wall.
@Iaudio87 I was interested about the P1 or P2 for my second system, but for the time being they are not available for demo here in Finland. However there was an SCM19 and SCM20ASL, and I recently got both for home demo. The S-tweeter was way better, but otherwise I much preferred the 19 with my NAP300. Based on that, I concluded that if the amps in the SCM20ASL’s had been available as one separate “box” that sounded the same, I wouldn’t have bought that “box”. Even if that “box” had been available for less than the price of a P1…
But hearing your good experience with P2 is encouraging. Maybe some of the things I didn’t like (lack of “open” sound, missing soundstage depth etc) were also related to vibration interaction between amp and speaker in same box. Maybe the P1/P2 are able to do better as a separate amp? But I am afraid they (or at least the P1) might still have the problem of not being able to do well at quiet volumes?
Note for 20ASL fans:
Of course active can do tricks that passive just can’t - better detail resolution was obvious. Tonal balance was also excellent. And price and size are of course different. So even if those brand new demo SCM20ASL’s didn’t work for me, I can still understand people who will want them, especially for professional listening.
I have found the 40’s, as you say, quite forgiving in both active and passive iterations in my own and my dealer’s room.
Certain bass notes/frequencies on certain tracks (Long black coat, on Dylan’s “Oh Mercy” for example) can excite some serious “one-note” bass boom, but this was drastically ameliorated in my dealer’s room with some acoustic treatment which was sufficiently effective for me to take under serious consideration for a home trial at a later date.
Hi @JonathanG, are you saying above that 18 inches is to the back of the speaker or to the front baffle where the port is? My SCM50ASLs are 18” to the back of the cabinets so the port opening is about 32” from the wall behind. I find there’s no boom at all, but I have tried pushing the speakers back a few inches too and nothing disasterous happens, just sounds best in my room around that sort of distance from the wall.
What you describe to me is exactly my experience with the SCM50 Active. The Passive SCM50 do this way better (if you setup them right).
And i heard it again last weekend at the Dutch Audio Event. ATC demomstrated the 40 active vs the 40 passive. It’s not the fault of the P1. The active setup lacked depth, tonal quality and soundstage.
I assume the better detail resolution came from the comparison between the SCM 19 Passive vs the SCM20ASL?
