Atc scm 20

20 litre standmount speakers from speaker manufacturer Atc. Just as well known for their studio and commercial success as for their domestic speakers, these are part of their domestic range. These particular speakers are probably atc mid range models and retailed for £2000.

Looks wise they are not the most attractive speakers I have ever seen but the build quality is a joy to behold. These speakers are immense. They weigh more than France (20 kilos!) and have the thickest and most substantial veneer I have ever seen. Because of the weight issue you will need something quite substantial to place them on a couple of old oil rigs should do the trick!

Sounds? These speakers sound excellent. They have mid range to die for. Their treble is extended yet very civilised and their bass? At first I could not find it! Normally I do not like to go into too much detail about the equipment I use to listen to the review subjects, as it can give the reader pre judgements as to whether or not it would be suitable for their own systems however, with this review I feel it is necessary.

I first hooked these speakers up to a Cyrus 8 amplifier. Oh dear! Where's the bass? One thing I quickly found out about these speakers is they need power, the mid range is good with out it but you will not get any real bass (none!). The next amp I tried was a quad 909.

These amps have about 140 watts on tap, so twice as powerful as the Cyrus and things got better. The next step was to give them even more power in the shape of 300 watts of Bryston amplification and things got even better. One word of warning though these speakers are not bass monsters. The Bryston amps can get seemingly more bass out of a pair of Wharfdale diamonds than these speakers!

What the power does is free the bass up. I have never heard a speaker change its character quite as much as these speakers do when they are given more power. The bass starts to time and integrate with the rest of the music. Lines start to flow and lock together much more comfortably.

I realise this is what happens with plenty of speaker systems but the transformation here is night and day and with out the right amount of power the integration of the bass and treble is not good. With it and they sound ok. These speakers will never appeal to timing freaks, they just don't have the flow of something like a Neat speaker, but they are acceptable.

One thing that will appeal to many is how close you can position them to a wall, you can put them nearly all the way back because there is not a huge amount of bass energy and certainly very little mid bass.

So what do they do well? Vocals are the main strong point. Female voice is simply gorgeous (obviously not everybody's, Kylie Minougue is still going to sound like some shrill aussie woman!) and realism is excellent. Pitch and timbre are very good and the treble really is superb. You can turn these speakers up very loud and they do not shout or sound strained at all.

The one thing they will tell you is how good the recording quality of any of your favourite records is. This can be good or bad. If you mostly listen to very well recorded classical and jazz then you are in for a treat. If you listen to compressed pop and rock you may want to look else where. These speakers hi light every single flaw and sound very flat and small with badly recorded music.

As to if they sound live or concentrate more on the recording they are definitely in the latter camp. You are very much aware of the whole recording process and this is probably as it should be as Atc have a fantastic reputation of churning out some of the best recording studio monitors in the world.

If you have a taste for a real hi end stand mount and have a powerful amplifier you should look to try a pair of these speakers. They are not totally on the beat and they do not like badly recorded material but when you get it right you will not hear much better. They can sound absolutely fantastic with female voice, classical and jazz so if your record collection starts and ends with this type of music you will not give these speakers up lightly.

Ebay Alert!

2nd hand values vary massively for these speakers. For the later models you can pay anything upto £900. For the earlier stuff you will probably need £600-£700 depending on condition.