Audiophilepure

Read Here

“The ATC SCM100SE is a big-boned loudspeaker, and while its SE aesthetics help it to look more classy than its ‘pro-tools’ type stablemates, it will never be the slender belle of the speaker ball. But the 100SE makes no apologies for this and neither should it. If you want to move air properly you need a box with volume and preferably a large bass driver. The SCM100SE has both and is very well put together. What makes it so appealing is the ease with which it goes about the business of reproducing not only the full bandwidth of the signal but its full dynamic envelope as well, and if you like to play at levels that approach the realistic, it is in a class of its own. ”

Read Here

“It was the R11s’ imaging that blew me away. With or without the assistance of subwoofers, the 705 S2 minimonitors are imaging monsters that can chisel out aural images on a soundstage with laser precision. Not everyone likes or wants this, but I do. Because the R11s are large tower speakers, I didn’t expect that level of imaging definition. Then I listened to “Give Me One Reason,” from Tracy Chapman’s New Beginning (16/44.1 FLAC, Elektra), a track I often play to test a speaker’s imaging abilities. It begins with plucked guitar to left of center, then Chapman’s voice dead center, then Andy Stoller’s bass drum, including his subtle cymbal work just to the right of and behind the first guitar, then a second guitar far to the right of Chapman’s voice. Then two background singers enter, behind and to the right and left of Chapman’s lead vocal. As I listened to the R11s re-create each of these images with exquisite precision, sometimes down to what seemed the size of a tennis ball floating between the speakers, I knew they’d give up nothing to the much smaller B&Ws with SVS subs. Even when instruments were panned hard right or left, their sounds didn’t seem to emerge from the R11s’ baffles, but to hover just around the edges of the speakers — just as I’m used to with my reference setup.”

Read Here

“These ears are a bit spoiled when it comes to high frequencies thanks to my long term reference Lansche 4.1 with its plasma tweeter. There is no finer tweeter that I’ve heard. No mass, just a ball of fire that expands and contracts creating sound. If that sounds like something out of science fiction, it kind of is. Its Achilles heel is found when the music gets way too loud. It compresses, and can cause failure. Typically, I’d have to spend time acclimating to a non-plasma tweeter. Even if well designed, my ears usually can hear what the tweeter is contributing. The M2!5 required no such adjustment period. The implementation of the dual compression mid band and treble drivers just lock in, and sound totally integrated. It is neither bright nor brittle. It doesn’t harden or compress at higher volume. It’s not super-fast sounding, nor is blunted. It just sails along and remains at the service of the music. Very well done.

When it comes to fleshing out a stage, the sense that an orchestra is in the room, and the scale in which it is spread across the space is uncanny. While I won’t slam any manufacturers by name, I will say another guest, a former French horn player for the Dallas Symphony, and rabid audio enthusiast, proclaimed the M2!5 trounced a very well known “modern” $110,000 speaker that he has been aspiring to own. He thought my description “constipated” described the much more expensive speaker perfectly compared to the M2!5. He also thought the M2!5 to be more enjoyable if not “better” than another contemporary $250,000 design that he is very familiar with. His wife, an accomplished classic pianist, reached the exact same conclusion.”