ATC SCM50 ASLT Active speakers with built in amps, $27k Per Pair

ATC’s SCM50 ASLT Active speakers truly push the envelope of delivering the best possible sound from your recordings. Whether CD, streaming, vinyl or even TV based sound, these 50s take a back seat to nobody. Why?

Take your pick of the most expensive, ginormous speakers out there. Be they Wilsons, Magicos or something else for $50-$100k PLUS- that’s just the start. You still need a crazy expensive amp (s?) to drive them. AND, your music has to fight its way through the complicated passive crossovers in those speakers.

Please read my Dave’s Faves entry of these speakers and note the passive crossover photos I’ve posted. The companies that make these passive crossovers are very proud of them. They feature the crossovers with prominently placed photos in their advertising.

Hey boys…they’re really nothing to brag about. If fact, you’re pointing out exactly why the ATC Actives are a smarter alternative.

With ATC, your music goes through a much more precise ELECTRONIC crossover which feeds the three amps, which DIRECTLY drive each driver. You don’t need speaker wire either.

The advantage of ATC’s directly driven configuration is quite arresting to hear! Transients start and stop faster than through behemoth amps, with crazy expensive speaker wire, driving giant towers with loads of component parts and more wire within.

While the passive crossovers made by the $$$$ speaker companies are comprised of quality components, we don’t want them in the road, PERIOD. All these parts can do is diminish the “water pressure” of the music as they create a web of relative mayhem. Take another look at ALL THOSE parts and coils of dental floss sized wire!

No matter who makes them or how much they cost, they’re 15-25 pounds of components, connectors and inductors with hundreds to THOUSANDS of feet of wire in the signal path! Further, you need to add uber expensive SPEAKER CABLES with yet even more jacks/plates/connectors to bring this system to fruition.

Let’s say you start with some $50k speakers. Your monoblocks are likely to run at least half that. Have you considered the price of AMP STANDS all these systems feature? Yikes! Your speaker wire could well run half what the amps cost. You pretty much start the conversation at $100k after your preamp.

The 50s are a downright bargain landing at $27k including the three amplifiers in each speaker. And yep, you don’t need any speaker wire. Just connect the 50s to your preamp and you’re set.

Now, of course we’d like you to get a proportionately wonderful balanced preamp like the Atoll PR300, $3800. I would feed the preamp with the Atoll CD200 CD Player/DAC, $3450. You’re sitting at $34,250 for the full array.

You could run the 50s off any integrated amp or even receiver that has preamp outs. Because the 50s are ACTIVE, they’re going to sound GREAT with what you have if you just want to start there.

Am I saying this ATC 50 system is competitive with the $87k of gigundo boxes? Yes! In fact, I’m saying in many ways the ATC system will absolutely outperform the heavier artillery. While the other guys brag about cabinets made of epoxy resin or aluminum, they’re still saddled with the passive crossovers and speaker cables/connectors that choke the sound right at the input.

In the all important category of playing bass with deep, taut, realistic timbre, the ATC system is going to outperform the monster stack for sure! You simply cannot garner the grip and tightness through a million miles of wire and passive components, that you can by propelling each driver with its own, dedicated amplifier. ATC’s electronic crossover prescribes much more precise frequency contouring and phase control than any spider web of passive components and wires can.

The Atoll CD200 has a wonderful on board DAC. You can run the streamer and TV (OPT) into the CD200 where its DAC will dictate the sound. With just two components, the preamp and CD200, you’re in great shape to round out your system for less than a ferocious investment.

Every month the hi-fi mags feature systems of hundreds of thousands of dollars. As you read what reviewers use to evaluate new speakers, amps, etc, their systems regularly run over a million buxx! ALL of those systems are huge stacks of boxes chock full of electronic components and loads of wire with molex connectors for the most part. They’re more expensive, complicated and less immediate sounding than ATC 50s.

The ATC 50 system will sound more dynamic and less BRIGHT. Complex systems come complete with spurious artifacts that make the music sound more mushy in the bass and tizzy in the middle and up top. Most importantly, the 50 depicts music from a dead black background vs a gray pallor.

As a piano fan first and foremost, the ATC Actives surpass the heavy lumber the mags show. Play some Liszt: Volodos’ “Funerailles” or Bolet’s famous Decca “Mephisto Waltz.” The deep, taut, unencumbered majesty of the lower register of the grand piano brings this music to a new echelon. It will do the same with an audio show classic like “Cosmic Hippo” by Bela Fleck. When you hear the ATCs play this music, you’ll realize it’s just silly to consider spending six figures to make it louder and more muddled.

The 50s use ATC’s dome midrange and dome tweeter. Please don’t miss that “everyone” else is trying to mate cone mids to dome tweets. I’m not saying they can’t do a good job. But the synergy you get with the dual ATC domes is undeniably more cohesive. Further, ATC can RX the ideal slopes and phase angles due to the electronic crossover. The passives are more intrusive and deleterious to your dynamics and resolution.

To sample the uncannily pure midrange character of ATC, try female vocals like Vega’s “Tom’s Diner” or Askvik’s “Liberty.” If you want singing with its raw pain, there are any number of Johnny Cash or Neil Young cuts. Acoustic instrument lovers shouldn’t miss Bach’s “Chaconne” by Hilary Hahn.

If you get the ATC SCM50 ASLT speakers in your system, you’ll be up long past midnight discovering new jewels within the music you love. Your music, now more dynamic than ever due to the lack of PARTS and WIRE, will sound more ALIVE, sanguine and unfettered than you ever knew it could.