Audiophilepure

They look virtually indistinguishable from my SCM40 passives, except that they have black, finned amp packs at their rear bottom half, a power cord, and a single balanced cable instead of a pair of speaker cables plugged into them. Like my passives, they are gracefully understated, a minimalist marvel that my wife, Belle, loves. The prefix initials, SCM, stand for Studio Control Monitor, and the ’40’ stands for the volume in liters inside the speaker. Standing 38.58″ tall with a 9 1/4″ wide front baffle, it boasts a 6 1/2″ bass driver, a three-inch ATC Soft Dome midrange driver, and a one-inch Neodymium tweeter on the top half, with its “ATC Acoustic Engineering” badge just below. Its curved sides narrow down to 7″ at its rear. Upfront at its base, a 14.56″ wide wooden plinth is supported by removable spikes, while two additional spikes are located toward the cabinet’s rear (aftermarket feet, like the IsoAcoustic Gaia III that I use, can be substituted for the spikes).

A sealed box design, they’re quite accommodating to room size and placement, as Jerry Willsie, veteran Director of Sales at Straight Wire, Inc. (whose Crescendo 3 speaker cables are used with my SCM40 passives, while their Crescendo 3 balanced cables connect to the active version), informed me prior to my review of the passive ATC SCM40s. 

https://www.hifichoice.com/content/furutech-demag-alpha

o test the DeMag alpha, we select a rather bright recording of Simon & Garfunkel’s The Boxer. We first listen to the track before demagnetisation and there is the expected slight harshness to the vocals. Next we demagnetise the LP and play the track again. We are not expecting what we hear – it isn’t a subtle change, but a significant refinement of the entire sound with the vocals in particular enjoying a greater presence in the room. The accompanying guitar is clear with additional tunefulness and, when the rhythmic patting on the drums begins, the sound is much more musical and punchier.

We next select a CD of Bach’s The Well-Tempered Clavier played on piano by Friedrich Gulda. Following on from demagnetisation, the piano sounds more convincing as if there is a real instrument in the room. The vast complexities of the performance appear to be better recorded and give a more accurate rendition of the piano and the acoustics of the room where the recording was made.

https://www.audiophilia.com/reviews/2025/3/3/canor-asterion-v2-tube-phono-preamplifier

In collaboration with the wonderful and relatively inexpensive Synthesis Roma 96DC + 25W Pure Class A Integrated Amplifier (reviewed next month ), its Class A tube topology only added to the smoothness of the Canor’s sound, almost luxurious. With both pieces of kit using tubes, they did not “gild the lily”. There was power and detail aplenty. High-end tube pre, power and phono for about CAD 8000.

One recording where this tube pair shone very brightly was the 2011 Speakers Corner double album reissue of the 1963 Philips original of the Sonatas for Piano and Cello by Beethoven with Mstislav Rostropovich and Sviatoslav Richter. Notice the piano receiving top billing. It’s the same with the Beethoven Violin Sonatas. The piano part, often just an accompaniment, is an equal musical partner to the melodic line of the cello. And the performance, with two artists of equal stature, bears that out. The superior imaging and soundstage of this remastering puts the listener in an expensive stalls seat—my wife and I during late-night listening were enthralled with Rostropovich’s beautiful tone highlighted by the Canor’s ability to replicate natural timbres.