ATC SCM19 Speaker vs. Kudos Super 20

Ryder, let me answer your questions - the 11s were the older models of two generations back (with the inset black facia - and they were called the ATC SCM 12 back then, and had the ATC  pro mid/bass driver which is now used in 19) - a truly lovely speaker if perhaps a little dark in tone.

As far as width between the 19s, about 6.5 feet.

BTW I ran the previous generation 19 on a 250 and 200 and the amps barely got warm... unless I really thrashed them - and then the amps simply got warm. 

Simon

My 11s are about 1.5m apart and about the same from the side walls. There's about 15cm behind them. 

I tried a LOT of standmount speakers before buying them, and I found most of them highly susceptible to placement. Generally,  they wanted far more air around them than is practical. The ATCs,  with their sealed box design, are quite unfussy. It makes a massive difference - they can give of their best in my room, not just in the dealer's listening room. 

And fwiw I have played them at high volume for protracted periods (when my wife is out) and the amp has never got hotter than 'slightly warm'.

kmchow98 posted:

Fair enough.

At that price level, I would prefer to listen to it carefully, and preferably at home. It's hard to resell speakers in Singapore. Too many low ballers.

Since your room is small, it think the Scm11 will be more suitable.

For me, I think only the 19 would be considered a worthy replacement for my Spendors. I have the SN2, if it doesn't have enough grunt, my next step is to sell my HicapDR and get a 200dr and go biamp. Should be interesting.

Just received confirmation from the user who experienced thermal shutdown on his NAP250 when used on the SCM19. As I have expected, it was the older version.

Yes, I too feel the SCM11 would be more suitable for smaller rooms, and it looked better than the larger SCM19 too with the mid-sized enclosure. But the SCM19's SL spec driver looks "nicer" as the round protrusion in the middle of the woofer is larger than the one in the SCM11 which makes it look, well more substantial. Anyway, will see how it goes as a new speaker purchase is not on the cards this year but late next year (the new room is not ready yet).

I can understand the concern to pick the speakers carefully so that it won't end up as an interim solution but rather a long-term investment. Similarly, I share the same sentiment. The losses will be rather high with the sale of gear that are purchased new.

Interesting you are considering to replace your Spendors with the ATC. I guess you are looking for more excitement? In my case I will still keep the Harbeth. I have no qualms the ATC SCM11 and SCM19 are good speakers but the price seems to be rather low for these quality speakers? £800 for SCM7, £1,200 for the SCM11 and £1,996 for the SCM19 retail prices. Comparatively when compared to Harbeth. The P3ESR at £1,500 is even costlier than the larger SCM11.

It will be good to know the experiences from newnaim16. Naim watts are usually impressive and I know the older versions of ATCs needed alot of power to sing. Which is why I never considered them in the past.

That said, I am in no hurry to upgrade anything at my end. The Spendors (3/1R2) sound great especially with long listening sessions. They have lovely midrange, speed and warmth, plus they are not fussy about positioning. IMO, Harbeth are little pricy vs the rest (mostly due to fan love)

The scm19 looks mean, is a sealed box. I always liked sealed boxes. I think they will go deeper, faster and sound bigger than my Spendors. But I might lose the classic BBC sound. haha.

I am reading this thread with great interest. I have a friend who owns a pair of first version ATC SCM19 and I am trying to get in touch of him to loan me so that I can do a home demo to compare with my Harbeth C7ES3. It will be an interesting audition but also bearing in mind that it may risks my Nap250 clipping as reported here if driving them too loud. 

Mikapoh, I had a first gen 19 speaker and there was no 'clipping' from my 200 let alone 250. I think it really is a bit of an urban myth  that has a momentum, a bit like wav files don't support meta data. The ATC speakers are quite benign (because they are sealed and have good cross overs) and work well with many amps. Yes they are very dynamic speakers compared to many at similar and upto two or three times higher price points, so if you want the speaker to be able to deliver the transients the amp has to provide.

Yes small amps like 20 watts per channel will work, but they will sound softer in the bass, which some might like as it can make the sound warm and cuddly but it is coloured. The ATCs go very loud in a non flustered accurate way if that is what you want.using some of their pro credentials. Far louder than my Harbeths I have owned before... but I don't tend to listen to my music really loud.. Unless it's a party or a heavy blues listening session with music buddies.

Even my old SCM12 speakers, the old even numbers that were harder to drive, still worked well with Naim, Cyrus, Arcam (in my experience) no clipping or shut down or excessively warm amps. The old SCM12 had to be driven a little louder, that is they didn't do very low level ( IE background to normal speaking level) music well, they tended to sound a little dull.. some opinion says that was because of the then bought in tweeter that was used on many of their models at that time.

Simon, just to add on to Mikapoh's post, the NAP250 which the user had used to drive the SCM19 (v1) is not from the current range but the older Olive model. He was rather optimistic that the current ATC SCM11 or SCM19 will cause the new Naim amps (NAP250 and below) to go into auto thermal shutdown when listening at high levels. A caveat is the benchmark of "high levels" may not be interpreted on the same page between individuals.

Ahh, and I wonder how much NACA5 speaker cable they were using. I trust it was greater than 3.5 metres per channel.. High levels for me is when the 19 driver cone is clearly seen moving from greater than 10 feet away.

try playing forge your own chains by d.r. hooker and watch your driver cones... they go mental on this track for some reason

NewNaim16 posted:

We did the car drive and a pair of SCM19 speakers are now in our home and connected to our 272+250DR with TQB cable. They're a brand new pair out of the box, so not run in yet. I don't want to comment at this stage but they're certainly an impressive little speaker. I'll report on how we feel about them later.

Any update on the SCM19?

Firstly thanks to everyone for replying to my original post about if I should invest time in driving 250 miles to borrow a pair of ATC SCM19 speakers for a home demo comparison with Kudos Super 20. I appreciate the encouragement to make the trip, which proved immensely worthwhile. As a matter of courtesy to the two dealers who’d kindly loaned the speakers, I wanted to discuss our findings with them first but that’s proven difficult in the short term so I’ll comment now.

Not surprisingly, the SCM19 and S20 both excel at different aspects. My wife was afraid of listening fatigue with the SCM19 and I was afraid of lack of bass. Neither has proven to be a valid concern. The SCM19 has fabulous mid-range, excels at vocals, and has an adequate (for us) well-controlled bass.

In comparison, the S20 has razor sharp top end, with more bass but hasn’t the exceptional mid range articulation of the SCM19. For our ears, in our room, the S20 although impressive, is a bit bright and sometimes maybe just a little too much bass but that's minor. I think it’s fair to say that this is in line with some of your comments.

So, it depends on what you want and probably what’s driving them, plus the usual caveat of, our ears, in our room with our preferences apply. The SCM19, were brand new out of the box and have not yet been run-in so we’re still listening now. The stands are Music Tools Entasis, which although not low mass as recommended by Simon-in-Suffolk, do look nice! This is on the back of a 272+250DR.

 This was a good reminder to me that you have to listen in your own room and make your own decision. Hope these comments may be of interest.

Thanks are due to both Mike at Infidelity, Kingston-Upon-Thames (my local Naim dealer) and also Jack at The Audiobarn, Old Harlow for their help and patience in kindly lending me Kudos Super 20 and ATC SCM19 speakers respectively, for home trial. Much appreciated guys! 

Good stuff Newnaim16. You might well find with the low mass stands the high end sharpens significantly but not at the expense of being too prolific. However you might prefer a softer, slightly diffused top end, in which case continue using higher mass stands. (apparently it's all to do with mechanical energy store, dissipation and damping...). Of course this is a big advantage of standmounts, you can tune to taste.

Hey newnaim16,

What's your final verdict?

@SIMON-IN-SUFFOLK - Thanks for the further information about stands. I'd like to try something low mass although due to WAF considerations we went for the Music Tools Entasis stands - at least as a start   The starting point was "were not having stand mount speakers" so I was pleased to have been allowed the SCM19. As my wife agreed that they sounded the better choice for our room, it wasn't such a tough sell.

I plan on either constructing some kind of a temporary low mass stand to hear the difference or maybe see if I can find a pair on an auction site.

@KMCHOW98 - Sorry, it wasn't really clear from my June-18 post but we went for the ATC SCM19 solution. It was not such an easy decision though as both speakers have their merits. Definitely it was a much tougher choice than deciding which electronics to purchase.

I'm hoping for a happy relationship with the SCM19 which is a first time for us with a non ported speaker. A friend who wears an assistive hearing aid listened to both speakers commented on how clear the SCM19 sounds which was interesting - speech is a good example.

Welcome to the world of ATC! 

Thanks Likesmusic, I hope it will be fun!

impressed a 2000 GBP speaker sounds better than a speaker almost double the price?

analogmusic posted:

impressed a 2000 GBP speaker sounds better than a speaker almost double the price?

Maybe better is too strong word - we preferred the SCM19 in our room with our preferences etc. We tried to forget about the price which was not a deciding factor. I do agree with you though that it was impressive but others may prefer what the Super 20 delivers in which case the price would seem logical.

Does anyone else have a comment on the price delta?

Being more expensive is no guarantee of being better. It's what works for you in your room that matters. If the cheaper one is the one you like, then that's got to be the ideal outcome. 

ATC have a very stable product range, They change it very slowly, and they change their drive units even more slowly. Their tweeter probably took them at least five years to get right before it went into production. Their other drive units have been around for decades, with the odd evolution every ten years or so. Their classic monitors like the SCM50ASLs the same. They are hopeless at marketing. So you are not paying for a model range that changes every year to catch some transient fashion, or for fancy marketing, and because of the longevity of their products the development and tooling costs are spread across many years production which helps keep the price keen. 

I have said it before in earlier posts that price is not always an indication of sound quality , especially in speakers.

As an example, the Elac line of speakers embarrassed speakers costing up to five times their price at the recent Axpona show.

The speakers that were most impressive to me at the show retailed for $7000.00, Dynaudio C1 Platinum, they also embarrassed much more costly speakers, some, three times their cost!

The ATC display was most impressive at the show, especially the SCM 40.

badlands posted:

I have said it before in earlier posts that price is not always an indication of sound quality , especially in speakers.

As an example, the Elac line of speakers embarrassed speakers costing up to five times their price at the recent Axpona show.

The speakers that were most impressive to me at the show retailed for $7000.00, Dynaudio C1 Platinum, they also embarrassed much more costly speakers, some, three times their cost!

The ATC display was most impressive at the show, especially the SCM 40.

Dynaudio and ATC make their own drivers and both are devoted to the pro market. Performance is the goal and making fashionable goods is not an option.

As some of you mentioned would happen, the the SCM19 performance has changed appreciably after a week of more-or-less 7x24 use, although not very loud at night when I'm trying to sleep though!

Incidentally, has anyone tried something like Sonic Design or Herbie's isolation feet? I'm running with Blu-tack but am forever curious ...

NewNaim16 posted:

... I'm also wondering if SCM 19 speakers would demand and XPS on a 272 or be happy enough without as an interim measure - we've heard the benefits on other speakers so understand the difference it makes.

I answered my own question and can report that the SCM19 speakers definitely reveal the significant benefit of adding an XPS-DR to a 272-DR