ATC SCM 40 Active

• Another pro audio attribute that this ATC shares with its siblings is that it's largely genre-agnostic. In other words, no matter what type of music you play, it still reproduces all the acoustic fundamentals just as they should be. Undoubtedly a great deal of this skill lies with the articulate treble and upper midband, which comes across as perfectly voiced rather than dry and analytical.
• The lower frequencies arrive at your ears at the same time as the mids and top, so that when listened to as a whole, you're rewarded with a wonderfully tight, powerful, engaging and emotive presentation.
• The ATC created a more precise musical vista thanks to its impressive talent for timing and resolution.
• The advantage of this sizeable active speaker became grin-inducingly apparent, as waves of subsonic fun thumped and growled through my listening space. Such seismic activity made me feel like a kid discovering sweets for the first time, but I couldn't help but also be impressed by the amount of control that this speaker displayed. Not only was I getting a healthy punch in my chest, but there was no sloppy overhang or blurring..
• THE VERDICT Talented, dynamic, and fun, with a soundstage wide and deep enough for you to forget about the cabinets standing in your room, ATC's SCM40A makes a great case for itself. ATC's pro-audio DNA shines through, with a musical performance offering fresh insight and impact to pieces you thought you already knew inside out. This speaker presents orchestral music with scale and finesse, yet you can turn things up to hooligan levels without fear of the drivers letting go and musically losing control. This is a superb active loudspeaker package, especially when you remember that you just need to add a good quality preamp and source to have a full system. We loved its passive sibling, but the active version is on another level and is cracking value for money too.

ATC SCM 40 Active

• The SCM40A’s air-moving hardware is also the same as its passive brethren, sporting a three-way design made up of a 25mm soft dome tweeter with precision alloy wave guide and a 75mm variant of ATC’s instantly recognisable large soft dome midrange drive unit. A 164mm short coil bass driver continues the visual theme with a massive central dust cap. All units are made in house and incorporate huge motor assemblies to ensure they can handle whatever signal is thrown at them without worry. On the eye the bass driver seems bigger, as 164mm is measured from the centre of its rubber surround, unlike many manufactures that measure from the edge of the surround to make the numbers look big, but drivers appear small.
• Unpacked and standing at 980mm tall by 370mm wide, they cut a figure that’s refreshingly proportionate. In an age where most speaker manufacturers strive for slimline models to suit the trends of the times, it’s refreshing to see ATC makes loudspeakers that are designed to look like loudspeakers. The SCM40A is a wider speaker than most rivals’ offerings, and looks all the better for it.
• ... subsonic frequencies are a worthwhile challenge for any speaker for how it copes (or not) with reaching lower than their comfort zone while still maintaining control. And control is what the ATCs have in abundance. While those big bass drivers have no issue pinning me to my seat, it’s the stop start quality of the lower notes that makes me sit up and take notice. There seems to be a complete absence of overhang or blurring that can come with ported or less inert cabinets. Instead the ATCs are geared to deliver the lower notes as intended, and add nothing else, which is exactly as the artist or engineer intended.
• Midrange and treble are just as articulate and well voiced. Previous generations of ATC were sometimes labelled as dry or over articulate sounding, and the SCM40A quite rightly challenges this preconception. Sure its sound is unapologetically accurate but the balance it brings makes it exceptionally neutral, without sounding voiced in a given direction or favouring any particular type of music or genre.
• Vocals are just as deliciously rendered. With Aldous Harding’s Horizon track from her Party LP, the ATCs reproduce her voice with a gorgeous richness that’s full of body and sounds arrestingly edgy when needed, showcasing how she changes the track’s mood to challenge the listener, which is reinforced by John Parish’s backing vocals that are equally well formed. In a nutshell, with the ATCs Harding’s performance and intention is effortlessly captured.
• And this underlines what the ATC active package does so well, by presenting the music as a holistic whole that allows them to aurally vanish into the soundstage. With a 16/44 rip of James’s The Lake track fed from my NAS drive the music takes on a hairs on the back of the neck quality, despite the standard resolution file format. Everything is intricately placed in the mix, allowing the percussion to gather centre stage, as the guitar riffs swirl and Tim Booth’s vocals take charge. Nothing feels neglected and nor does the music sound forced or forward, you’re simply taken into the mix.
• While ATCs can clearly handle music with maturity, this doesn’t mean they’re lacking in energy to get your feet tapping too. With Yard Act’s Fixer Upper at 24/44 via Qobuz the ATCs render the percussion with enough punch that they could floor a horse, while the bass line bounces along like Bez on Redbull. 
• The ATC40A is a superb speaker package that more than delivers against its promise of musical synergy thanks to its carefully matched internal amps and loudspeaker hardware. They are an exceptionally transparent performer and partnered with a preamp and source components of equal quality, you’ll not be left wanting.

ATC SCM 40 Active

• The thing that smacks you in the face with these speakers first is the way music is exquisitely integrated and balanced. Like music you’d take to a desert island akin to Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs, these are really a pair of speakers that represent the best of what is easy to live with.
• The other obvious trait is room filling soundstage and scale. I’m not going to be telling you anything you probably wouldn’t envisage – it’s down to the simple physics of the drivers, their size and coherence together.
• Every crack and crunch the synthesisers make extending your amazement of their capabilities.
• As sure to that soul churning experience you get after listening to speakers of this quality, the pleasing mouth popping sound as you turn them off if the final peg of thinking, ‘God I want a pair’. 13th Note performers unhesitatingly and unflinchingly!

ATC SCM 40 Active & CA2 Mk2

• Anyone who is enthusiastic about large studio monitors often faces the problem of convincing their spouse of setting up wide boxes in the living room. The solution could lie in an attractive, relatively close-to-the-wall floorstanding ATC loudspeaker.
• Easily bent into the listening position, the boxes are characterized by a completely homogenous, sculptural reproduction that never looks artificial. The ATC acts as a performer of the given and only provides extravagance if they are included in the recording.
• Subtle sound textures and complex orchestral interludes never get in each other's way and are fully reproduced: the flow of the breeze that goes through the flute, the characteristic sound signature of the violins, the complexity of the orchestral stage. This is done with an accuracy that does not noticeably diminish even when the stepless volume control of the pre-amplifier ATC CA2 is at two o'clock.
• The SCM40A takes on storm and urgency with stoic serenity. The longer the active members stay with me, the more my hearing involuntarily adjusts to the quality and artistic interpretation of the recording.
• This is studio monitor precision at it's best, combined with the living room-friendly form of a neat, state-of-the-art loudspeaker, which plays sovereignly but never superficially spectaculary, in an informal, self-evident manner.
• How carefully the ATC captures the special mood, with a generous applause and donation.
• It remains to be added that the ATC preamp borrow also features an excellent phono section for CA2, and the settings are just right for my low-output MC Valencia from Ortofon
• The ATC SCM40A is simply world-class when it comes to playing records, and the rest is a matter of personal concern: for some listeners, the self-contained Briton will initially seem unspectacular, and for heavy metal fans there will be elsewhere more Sause at a lower price The SCM40A is by no means designed as a sound reinforcement instrument for level orgies, but as a very serious sound transducer for the finest in music with all its facets and sovereign naturalness Very well done!

ATC SCM 40 Active & CDA2 Mk2

• This is a startlingly immediate system. The 44.1 rip of Emiliana Torrini’s Gun has a presence and visceral ‘she’s right there in the room’ quality to it. Her staccato intakes of breath are vivid and absolutely real, while the gradual increase in scale and volume to the track is handled with absolute imperiousness.
• And the bass… the low end on offer here is exquisite. The technical arguments for why active speakers can generate better bass than an equivalent passive design are worthy and entirely accurate, but are no substitute for listening to what this system is really capable of. The sledgehammer low-end of Scratch Massive’s Waiting For A Sign is simply awesome. If you want bass that you feel as much as hear, there’s very little else available anywhere near this price that can out slam this setup. What sets it apart further is that there’s nothing I’ve ever heard anywhere near this price that combines this gut-wrenching impact with the agility this system possesses. As a combo, it is utterly addictive.
• The role that the CDA2 Mk2 plays in all this is subtle, but effective. It gets all of the basics right with a wonderfully linear volume control and a total absence of unwanted noise, but beyond that the quality of the digital-to-analogue section is entirely noteworthy. It takes a little time to appreciate quite how good it is because it is so natural and unobtrusive, but it allows this system to demonstrate truly lovely tonality at times.
• This, then, is a rather special system even judged by the hallowed standards of Beautiful Systems. It is comfortably one of the very best implementations of active speakers that I have had the pleasure of spending any time with. It does the things we have come to expect from equipment in 2018, offering a sensible footprint, flexible inputs and elegant aesthetics. It then combines all of this with a performance that is utterly and unequivocally joyous. The active loudspeaker is no longer simply the optimal choice on paper, it’s a real world champion too.

ATC SCM 40 Active

• ATC specs are engineering specs, not advertising specs. The speaker is rated from 48 Hz to 22 kHz with a – 6 dB point at 48 Hz. No advertiser would quote a spec like that. It isn’t the kind of hype that sells loudspeakers. Most manufacturers would simply say something like it goes to say 30 Hz and skip how far down the roll off was. It isn’t a lie but it tells us little useful. Also recall I mentioned ATC calls this a 6½” woofer. Almost everyone else would call it an 8” woofer because the convention is to measure the frame size. ATC measures the diameter of the cone, the real size of the driver. You can trust people who give you facts, not hype.
• ATC, unlike the majority of manufacturers, makes all their drivers. And all their employ underhung voice coils where the voice coil is shorter than the length of the magnetic gap. This is common in tweeters but quite rare in other drivers. It costs more and is a little less efficient but gives more accurate reproduction because the voice coil remains in the 'focused’ part of the gap, where the magnetic lines of force are more linear even at high drive levels and/or at very low frequencies (the lines of force are less linear at the edges of the voice coil). This doesn’t mean that over-hung is lousy. But if maximum fidelity is the goal underhung is the superior choice.
• Adding everything together and how easily the ATC SCM40A can be used to produce a simple, elegant, high performance system this is a heck of a speaker system. And if you want a speaker system that allows great live recordings to make you think the performance is real, this is a must audition. Add a preamp and a source or two and you have a simple high performance system. The last speakers the great Gordon Holt bought for his own use were a set of ATC SCM50A active speakers because ATC speakers were among the few that made great recordings sound real. That’s enough of a recommendation for me. Simplicity and performance and relative economy gives the ATC SCM40A a very, solid 2016 Most Wanted Component nomination and highly recommended!

ATC SCM 40 Active

• The ATC SCM40A is the latest addition to the company’s range of active floorstanders. It is an attractively slim speaker with curved sides
• All three of the drive units are made in house by ATC, which has been building cone and midrange dome drivers for some time, but only developed its own tweeter in the recent past.. All three units are capable of sustaining high sound pressure levels if required; power handling has always been a strong point thanks to ATC’s pro audio heritage.
• The ATCs are full bandwidth speakers that have grip in the bottom end and a total absence of ventilation on the cabinet. The bass is deep, solid and, thanks to the active operation, tactile. It has a degree of solidity that makes everything feel like it’s in the room, that and the ability to play at the sort of level that approaches that of live sound you get in a studio control room.
• I had a lot of fun with this system and it has reignited my enthusiasm for active operation; there really needs to be more speaker systems like this. But for now the combination of NAC-N 272 and SCM40A is all the system most of us will ever need, and the best sounding three box system I’ve enjoyed to date.

ATC SCM 40 Active

• For my taste and experience, ATC combine much of the dynamic characteristics of horn drivers, while leaving behind the shouty, cupped hands sound. Even more importantly, they also don't bleach their timbre the way horn speakers seem to do. 
• They also show the immediacy and speed of electrostats, if perhaps not quite as much resolution. They are, however, much more able to play loudly and dynamically than electrostats as well as having much larger sweet spots than electrostats tend to have. 
• Vocals are extraordinarily clear and clean—likely due to ATC's mid-dome driver which covers the range from 350Hz to 3.5kH - essentially single driver reproduction of the vocal range. With vocals produced from a single driver, performance is enhanced. The mid-dome driver did its ATC magic. Well recorded vocals have a clarity, immediacy and "speed" that few other cone driver brands have. 
• If you have ever hankered to crank up a song you love, there are few better speakers than the 40A for that experience. Try "Până Când Nu Te Iubeam" loud and you might find yourself laughing in a way a lower volume level won't suggest. 
• I like the place the 40A plays in the ATC line. It's an angel's balance of the somewhat kinder, gentler domestic line with a slice of the precision of their studio line. Absolutely recommended.

ATC SCM 40 Active

• The soft dome is a revelation, especially with acoustic guitars. The romantic Mexican string style in “Puesta Del Sol” by Sean Harkness combines mellow richness with clarity. This accuracy is a hallmark of ATC.
• Another instrument with excellent recreation on these floor-standers is the saxophone. John Coltrane sounds stunningly pure in “Naima.”
• ATC’s long held reputation for accuracy is put on full display. Pick any number of popular classic recordings and the results are the same, spot-on pitch and tonal clarity.
• You can voice the SCM40As to your taste with interconnects and choice of preamplifier.
• If you’re tired of the cable and equipment hassle, I can’t suggest a better pair of active speakers than the ATC SCM40As. They produce sound well beyond what their price tag suggests, especially considering that you will eliminate at least a few thousand dollars in speaker cables and power amplifiers.

ATC SCM 40 Active

• 84 out of 100 points
• Price / Performance: "outstanding", "Highlight"
• "Active monitors are expensive, square and misshapen - so goes the stereotype. The new ATC is by contrast an elegant column speaker that brings all the virtues of the English Super monitors."
• "Ultimately, transparent and high-resolution monitor in the elegant floorstanding speakers format. He plays incredibly neutral, by drawing and holographically, thereby using very precise bass and stupendous fine dynamics.

ATC SCM 40 Active

• The SCM40A has three power amps (and an active crossover) in each enclosure. There’s a 150W module for the bass driver, 60W driving the midrange and a 25W amplifier for the tweeter. It all comes wrapped in a solidly made, curved cabinet, finished in cherry or black ash.
• The way they reproduce dynamics is excellent. They have the reach to convince with the large-scale dynamic swings of Swan Lake, punching out crescendos with enthusiasm. There’s an impressive dose of muscle here, and the kind of low-end authority only really capable big speakers truly manage.
• Every subtlety is sharply defined with the speakers keeping organised and controlled, yet fluid, even when the music becomes complex. Most hi-fi – even true high-end kit – has problems making sense of Radiohead’s 15 Step. Not these ATCs. They take all in their stride, revealing a lovely cohesion throughout the frequency range. Resolution, timing and dynamics are all spot-on.
• Terrific detail resolution; exceptional dynamics and control; composure; integration

ATC SCM 40, P2 & CA2 Mk2

• They still exist, the long-established companies that have enjoyed an excellent reputation among professionals and music lovers for decades and have escaped the fate of being pushed by the lifestyle brand by some private equity firms and subsequently being hogged away with maximum returns. For example, the English company ATC
• Sonically, the ATC-Kombi does great things. At what sound this system offers, it can safely measure with systems several times more expensive. On the turntable is Zaz's album "Zaz". Often the Frenchwoman is referred to as modern Edith Piaf. Even if I did not sign that, there are - to the luck of Mrs. Geffroy alias Zaz - some differences. However, as for the energy and joy she seems to be spraying while singing, she is really reminiscent of Edith Piaf. And this radiance, this joy the ATC station wagon brings wonderfully authentic.
• Add to that a truly phenomenal resolution and a tonal balance, which immediately make it clear that here professional monitors were the inspiration for the development. Medium and treble are definitely right, really good. And the bass? Playing in our rather large listening room sovereign the advantages of the closed housing and shows wonderfully variable, controlled and, where necessary, quite powerful.
• The electronics contribute their part: Neither the preamplifier nor the power amplifier show weaknesses, but play with the speakers like a piece.
• Conclusion: For a long time we did not have a chain in the listening room that offered such an extremely good price / performance ratio as the combi preamplifier CA2 mk II, power amplifier P2 and speakers SCM40 from ATC. Everything is just right here: elaborate technology, clean measured values ​​and the most important thing - an absolutely outstanding sound.  

ATC SCM 40

• A reminder that so many reflex ported designs are't doing bass right.
• The way it integrates its superb low frequencies with the midband is a joy; in this region it’s more searching than many, but is never harsh unless the source and/or song is too. It sounds like a veil has been lifted from in front of the music and it gives an explicit insight into the proceedings.
• Everything snaps into focus and arrives at the right place and time
• Treble is airy, spacious and well etched. The looped hi-hats on Beatmasters Who's In The House? are crispy and scratchy, which is just how they should be
• There's no gilding of the lily with the SCM40, everything is handed to you in am accurate and unalloyed way.
• Given a serious source and recording, the new ATC SCM40 is superb – I know of no price rivals that give this level of accuracy, speed and insight. It strings the rhythmic elements of the mix together brilliantly, punching out subtle dynamic in a marvellously satisfying and visceral way.
• It’s capable of a level of transparency you normally only expect from loudspeakers at three or four times its price.
• Superlative clarity; excellent phase coherence; sublime bass

ATC SCM 40

• The main feature of the sound would probably be the raw speed of attack. Transients have curves so steep you wonder if ATC has found a way of achieving infinite bandwidth. 
• It’s a realism, an honesty that tells you exactly what that session sounded like in the studio, but done with style. There’s a wholesomeness to the sound, I hate that word, but can’t find a better one. The sound is perfectly revealed, but never brash.
• The bottom line.. I’m sold. I can’t live without them. I need them in my life and will have to make the change. Putting my Living Voice OBX R2′s back in was pleasing and frustrating in equal measure. Yes, they are a lovely listen, but the lack of comparative  clarity and speed is something that I can’t live with. Many will disagree, in some systems the SCM40′s will sound too revealing. If the electronics are forward, they will sound forward and with this much detail that will be too much. Audition carefully, but please, do audition. In the right system, you would have to spend £10k to get anywhere close to this sound quality.

ATC SCM 40

• Quality of the mid band reproduction is probably among the strongest sides in SCM40s sound identity, and this should be probably attributed to the midrange driver being used. The loudspeaker proved extremely clear and detailed though at the same time it appears that there is a character somewhat tolerant to mediocre recordings.
• Musical instruments were characterized by very good presence while voices, both solo and chorus, were detailed, perfectly focused and with very good description of both the feeling of motion and the transition between different groups in the sound stage.
• It is clear that the SCM40 includes some of the key elements that have made ATC especially likeable to a specific audience: It is an accurate, neutral loudspeaker with some considerable potential for high SPL listening.
• We are dealing with a product designed with the discerning listener in mind. A listener with a music collection both significant in size and variable in quality, who needs to take advantage of this collection by using an all around and user-friendly loudspeaker. For anyone who belongs to this profile, the SCM40 sets -in my opinion- a reference level.

ATC SCM 40

ATC SCM 40

• "Class C (Full-Range) Recommended Components 2013"
• The SCM 40s could play very loud without seeming to make excessive demands on any of the amplifiers I tried them with (Luxman L-505u, ATC SIA2, Leben CS600), so their 85dB sensitivity rating probably should not be a matter of concern.
• I won't go on at length about the SCM 40's sound. The family resemblance to the SCM 11 was strong: it sounded like an excellent monitor speaker (which the SCM 11 is), except with more bass—and, for the price, unusually well-controlled, well-extended bass. I gather that some people hold to a stereotype that ATC speakers are for rock'n'rollers, by which I assume they mean large-scale dynamics, but also slammy bass and etched treble. Well, you can't prove that by me. Indeed, my sister-in-law listened to some Jane Monheit on the SCM 40s, then turned to me and said, "These speakers just sound 'sweet.'" I agree.
• To sum up, the SCM 40 is an almost amazing value for the money. It's built in the UK by a company with as much heritage and credibility as you could ask for. As the top of ATC's entry-level line, it embodies the realestate advice about buying the cheapest house on the nicest street. Its sealed-box bass loading makes it (as far as I know) unique among relatively affordable floorstanding loudspeakers. So, if Stereophile's "$$$" code (in "Recommended Components"), indicating exceptional value, could be given to a loudspeaker that costs more than $4000/pair (which I believe it can't be), I would plaster a "$$$" right on the SCM 40's front panel.

ATC SCM 40

•  And again we have to deal with the extraordinary freedom in creating high levels.This can not be described in simple words, this necessarily must be experienced. The ability to play very loud without a hint of distortion is a very interesting experience.
• Fleshiness of sounds that get in the bass and lower midrange is simply amazing. Clean bass issuing from the sealed enclosure makes us think the reason why almost all manufacturers worship so much the vented columns. Stability offered by the bass foundation is simply not to be underestimated. Like this should play all the columns of ambitions.
• The juiciness that acoustic instruments are receiving, the authenticity of the sound of piano, the vocal performances are gaining credibility as an authentic tone until one wants to go to concerts just to see if music can sound better. And most interesting is that all this is achieved without the feeling of warming the sound. Juiciness and midrange definition makes the sound very emotionally engaging without a hint or impression that it is luscious. 
• I am very glad that there are such columns as ATC. Good British school, which leads to believe that the search for the perfect sound makes sense. 

ATC SCM 40

ATC SCM 40

• Listen to The Rolling Stones' Monkey Man and you can add the words ‘dynamic', ‘detailed' and ‘subtle' too. The ATCs have the incontestable authority to take the song by the scruff of the neck and bring it bounding to life.
  
• The SCM40s enjoy crisp timing, an expansive, explicit soundstage, and fine stereo focus.
• Low frequencies are deep, taut and responsive, the midrange occasionally torrential in the amount of detail and expression it delivers, and percussives at the top end shine benignly.
  
• This winningly even and musical tonality is apparent whether playing small-scale, subtle recordings (when the ATCs sound like they've shrunk to the size of dextrous standmounters) or full-on orchestral blow-outs (when they sound big enough to fill a concert hall).
• Thrilling musicality and authority; built like a bank-vault door.