Kef ls50w vs AVI DM10 vs ATC scm19

radiorog

Well-known member
Jan 1, 2013
149
21
18,595
Visit site
Hi everyone,

well I had a very interesting and productive audition today at hifi corner in edinburgh. I came out and looked at my watch and two and a half hours had past, and I would have guessed i'd been in there no more than one and a half hours, so I must have enjoying the experience somewhat!

So I wanted to hear how the mentioned speakers faired against each other having read and heard many reviews regarding all three. I wasn't expecting the ATC's to be there but on arrival I was very pleased to see they had these in.

Myself and the shop assistant only listened to three tracks mainly, the new sinlge by the wu-tang clan, riders of the storm -the doors, and a song by deadmau5 which i currently dont know the name of. There were a couple of others but these were the main ones used. For the passive ATC's a Rotel amp of approx £1000 was used, I forget the model but it had an inbuilt dac and was rated at 80wpc I think.

First in were the Kef's which sounded fantastic. The obvious great clarity was there and punch and drive, and a nice warmth from the bass which was also tuneful. Listening at fairly close quearters (speakers were about 2m in front of me, and 2m to the side each, you can use your trigonometry skills to calculate the rough distance ;)) we got to listening to them at decent levels and they didnt sound boxy which I was half expecting having listened to the dynaudio xeo 2 or 4 a month ago which sounded a bit too enclosed.

Next off were the AVI's. These sounded very similar straight off as far as could tell as far as clarity and defintion were concerened, but they were obviously lacking the warmth of the Kefs and I knew pretty much immediately that I would require the sub to go with these, which I dont have room for, and so these were ruled out pretty quickly.

After listening to the three main tracks on these 2 speakers, we switched over to the ATC. I wasnt smacked in the face with anything in the immediate ten seconds and had to listen for about 30 seconds to start getting a feel for the differences. They did sound a little less punchy, which i was initially dissapointed with, but the clarity still seemed there. There was nothing I heard on the two active speakers which I couldnt hear on the ATC passives. As the listening went on into the first track (wu-tang) I suddenly noticed a vocal clarity that I hadnt on the other two speakers. (For your interest, it was the word "papaya" approx 1.5 mins in). I noticed the word was heard crystal clearly which I hadnt noticed before. Asking to switch speakers right then, we went back to the kefs and yep, the word was muffled and nowhere near as clear.

Listening to the doors back to back bewteen the Kefs and the ATC's , they sounded pretty similar, there wasnt anything glaringly different between what I noticed here.

After hearing the first two tracks the assistant fancied a listen to the deadmau5 track. This was the first time he had heard the ATC as they were new in, and he seemed keen to try them out out of sheer interest for himself as much as a sales technique! After ten seconds the complex bass rythmns kicked in and various squelchy noises and drums. (He wanted to hear this as he said the various bass tracks can be hard to reproduce). Immediately...WOW! "This sounds b*****y good!" I declared. The bass was extremely punchy here and the squelchy noises could be felt within. We switvhed back to the Kefs, which I was expecting to sound as good or maybe even better as it was what I was assuming, lower dynamic ranged music, but no, they didnt have the same guts about them. The bass wasnt as deep or hard hitting or tuneful, and the squelchy noises seemed dulled. They were simply not in the same league.

Listening to a Buddy Holly track after this, firstly on the ATC, I could tell that he was singing very closely to the microphone and the rest of the orchestra and instruments sounded great. Back to the Kef's, I couldnt hear how close he was to the mic, although as a whole, the song sounded as good, but I am sure with more listens to this one track, I would notice more and more in favour with the ATC's.

I have an untrained ear and so finding differences to what I might prefer longterm in a speaker is not perfect, and I will without doubt miss lots of important things.

So my final conclusion is that regarding an upgrade for my system, I would not be looking at going active within my price bracket, and instead I would prefer to own the ATC scm19 speakers to accompany my Ropksan amplifier. I feel the sound would far outshine what the other speakers can produce.

One other thing we found out was that bluetooth sounds a lot worse than streamed music and so I would also like to add a streamer (I'm guessing the much talked about here yamaha) to set up at some stage. The bluetooth streaming sounded noticeably muffled in comaprisson to the same tracks streamed through a network player.
 

Andrewjvt

New member
Jun 18, 2014
99
4
0
Visit site
radiorog said:
 Hi everyone,

 well I had a very interesting and productive audition today at hifi corner in edinburgh. I came out and looked at my watch and two and a half hours had past, and I would have guessed i'd been in there no more than one and a half hours, so I must have enjoying the experience somewhat!

 So I wanted to hear how the mentioned speakers faired against each other having read and heard many reviews regarding all three. I wasn't expecting the ATC's to be there but on arrival I was very pleased to see they had these in.

 Myself and the shop assistant only listened to three tracks mainly, the new sinlge by the wu-tang clan, riders of the storm -the doors, and a song by deadmau5 which i currently dont know the name of. There were a couple of others but these were the main ones used. For the passive ATC's a Rotel amp of approx £1000 was used, I forget the model but it had an inbuilt dac and was rated at 80wpc I think.

 First in were the Kef's which sounded fantastic. The obvious great clarity was there and punch and drive, and a nice warmth from the bass which was also tuneful. Listening at fairly close quearters (speakers were about 2m in front of me, and 2m to the side each, you can use your trigonometry skills to calculate the rough distance ;)) we got to listening to them at decent levels and they didnt sound boxy which I was half expecting having listened to the dynaudio xeo 2 or 4 a month ago which sounded a bit too enclosed.

 Next off were the AVI's. These sounded very similar straight off as far as could tell as far as clarity and defintion were concerened, but they were obviously lacking the warmth of the Kefs and I knew pretty much immediately that I would require the sub to go with these, which I dont have room for, and so these were ruled out pretty quickly.

 After listening to the three main tracks on these 2 speakers, we switched over to the ATC. I wasnt smacked in the face with anything in the  immediate ten seconds and had to listen for about 30 seconds to start getting a feel for the differences. They did sound a little less punchy, which i was initially dissapointed with, but the clarity still seemed there. There was nothing I heard on the two active speakers which I couldnt hear on the ATC passives. As the listening went on into the first track (wu-tang) I suddenly noticed a vocal clarity that I hadnt on the other two speakers. (For your interest, it was the word "papaya" approx 1.5 mins in). I noticed the word was heard crystal clearly which I hadnt noticed before. Asking to switch speakers right then, we went back to the kefs and yep, the word was muffled and nowhere near as clear.

  Listening to the doors back to back bewteen the Kefs and the ATC's , they sounded pretty similar, there wasnt anything glaringly different between what I noticed here. 

 After hearing the first two tracks the assistant fancied a listen to the deadmau5 track. This was the first time he had heard the ATC as they were new in, and he seemed keen to try them out out of sheer interest for himself as much as a sales technique! After ten seconds the complex bass rythmns kicked in and various squelchy noises and drums. (He wanted to hear this as he said the various bass tracks can be hard to reproduce). Immediately...WOW! "This sounds b*****y good!" I declared. The bass was extremely punchy here and the squelchy noises could be felt within. We switvhed back to the Kefs, which I was expecting to sound as good or maybe even better as it was what I was assuming, lower dynamic ranged music, but no, they didnt have the same guts about them. The bass wasnt as deep or hard hitting or tuneful, and the squelchy noises seemed dulled. They were simply not in the same league. 

 Listening to a Buddy Holly track after this, firstly on the ATC, I could tell that he was singing very closely to the microphone and the rest of the orchestra and instruments sounded great. Back to the Kef's, I couldnt hear how close he was to the mic, although as a whole, the song sounded as good, but I am sure with more listens to this one track, I would notice more and more in favour with the ATC's.

 I have an untrained ear and so finding differences to what I might prefer longterm in a speaker is not perfect, and I will without doubt miss lots of important things.

 So my final conclusion is that regarding an upgrade for my system, I would not be looking at going active within my price bracket, and instead I would prefer to own the ATC scm19 speakers to accompany my Ropksan amplifier. I feel the sound would far outshine what the other speakers can produce.

 One other thing we found out was that bluetooth sounds a lot worse than streamed music and so I would also like to add a streamer (I'm guessing the much talked about here yamaha) to set up at some stage. The bluetooth streaming sounded noticeably muffled in comaprisson to the same tracks streamed through a network player.

 

At work.so.only skimmed your report
But I'd say the amp used on the atc, while sufficient is nowhere near what is needed on these speakers and you'd be surprised how they show up differences in amps.

What I.. trying to say is you.could.get much better results in better amp
 
Q

QuestForThe13thNote

Guest
radiorog said:
Hi everyone,

well I had a very interesting and productive audition today at hifi corner in edinburgh. I came out and looked at my watch and two and a half hours had past, and I would have guessed i'd been in there no more than one and a half hours, so I must have enjoying the experience somewhat!

So I wanted to hear how the mentioned speakers faired against each other having read and heard many reviews regarding all three. I wasn't expecting the ATC's to be there but on arrival I was very pleased to see they had these in.

Myself and the shop assistant only listened to three tracks mainly, the new sinlge by the wu-tang clan, riders of the storm -the doors, and a song by deadmau5 which i currently dont know the name of. There were a couple of others but these were the main ones used. For the passive ATC's a Rotel amp of approx £1000 was used, I forget the model but it had an inbuilt dac and was rated at 80wpc I think.

First in were the Kef's which sounded fantastic. The obvious great clarity was there and punch and drive, and a nice warmth from the bass which was also tuneful. Listening at fairly close quearters (speakers were about 2m in front of me, and 2m to the side each, you can use your trigonometry skills to calculate the rough distance ;)) we got to listening to them at decent levels and they didnt sound boxy which I was half expecting having listened to the dynaudio xeo 2 or 4 a month ago which sounded a bit too enclosed.

Next off were the AVI's. These sounded very similar straight off as far as could tell as far as clarity and defintion were concerened, but they were obviously lacking the warmth of the Kefs and I knew pretty much immediately that I would require the sub to go with these, which I dont have room for, and so these were ruled out pretty quickly.

After listening to the three main tracks on these 2 speakers, we switched over to the ATC. I wasnt smacked in the face with anything in the immediate ten seconds and had to listen for about 30 seconds to start getting a feel for the differences. They did sound a little less punchy, which i was initially dissapointed with, but the clarity still seemed there. There was nothing I heard on the two active speakers which I couldnt hear on the ATC passives. As the listening went on into the first track (wu-tang) I suddenly noticed a vocal clarity that I hadnt on the other two speakers. (For your interest, it was the word "papaya" approx 1.5 mins in). I noticed the word was heard crystal clearly which I hadnt noticed before. Asking to switch speakers right then, we went back to the kefs and yep, the word was muffled and nowhere near as clear.

Listening to the doors back to back bewteen the Kefs and the ATC's , they sounded pretty similar, there wasnt anything glaringly different between what I noticed here.

After hearing the first two tracks the assistant fancied a listen to the deadmau5 track. This was the first time he had heard the ATC as they were new in, and he seemed keen to try them out out of sheer interest for himself as much as a sales technique! After ten seconds the complex bass rythmns kicked in and various squelchy noises and drums. (He wanted to hear this as he said the various bass tracks can be hard to reproduce). Immediately...WOW! "This sounds b*****y good!" I declared. The bass was extremely punchy here and the squelchy noises could be felt within. We switvhed back to the Kefs, which I was expecting to sound as good or maybe even better as it was what I was assuming, lower dynamic ranged music, but no, they didnt have the same guts about them. The bass wasnt as deep or hard hitting or tuneful, and the squelchy noises seemed dulled. They were simply not in the same league.

Listening to a Buddy Holly track after this, firstly on the ATC, I could tell that he was singing very closely to the microphone and the rest of the orchestra and instruments sounded great. Back to the Kef's, I couldnt hear how close he was to the mic, although as a whole, the song sounded as good, but I am sure with more listens to this one track, I would notice more and more in favour with the ATC's.

I have an untrained ear and so finding differences to what I might prefer longterm in a speaker is not perfect, and I will without doubt miss lots of important things.

So my final conclusion is that regarding an upgrade for my system, I would not be looking at going active within my price bracket, and instead I would prefer to own the ATC scm19 speakers to accompany my Ropksan amplifier. I feel the sound would far outshine what the other speakers can produce.

One other thing we found out was that bluetooth sounds a lot worse than streamed music and so I would also like to add a streamer (I'm guessing the much talked about here yamaha) to set up at some stage. The bluetooth streaming sounded noticeably muffled in comaprisson to the same tracks streamed through a network player.

good comparison. Not surprised the atcs as a £3k package with the Rotel was a good to you as the kefs at £2k. I’d expect the atcs to perform better with your amp and that Rotel which isn’t exactly fantastic at getting best out of those atcs. id recommend hearing either pmc twenty 22s which are a similar type of speaker to act, or twenty5 22s if your budget goes that far, or hear both.
 

chebby

Well-known member
Jun 2, 2008
1,255
27
19,220
Visit site
radiorog said:
Next off were the AVI's. These sounded very similar straight off as far as could tell as far as clarity and defintion were concerened, but they were obviously lacking the warmth of the Kefs and I knew pretty much immediately that I would require the sub to go with these, which I dont have room for, and so these were ruled out pretty quickly.

Eek!

Head for the hills.
 

CnoEvil

New member
Aug 21, 2009
556
14
0
Visit site
I agree with Andrew.

You are only scratching the surface with the ATCs...which given what you heard, would be the obvious choice, though you'd need to hear them in your system. They would also keep up with an amp uprade in the future, like say, a Devialet! *diablo*
 
Thanks for the interesting read. Earlier this year I went though a similar process with passive speakers, and with a slightly higher budget. But came to a similar conclusion as you can see in my signature. The ATCs speak for themselves with their precision and integrity. I’m sure if you choose the 19s you’ll be very happy. Having said that I loved the wireless KEFs I heard at the Bristol Show in February fed direct from a Zen player.
 

lindsayt

New member
Apr 8, 2011
16
2
0
Visit site
radiorog, is your next step to audition the ATC 19's against your Dynaudio 2/7's to determine if they are worth the approximate £1600 upgrade cost?
 

Gazzip

Well-known member
Jan 15, 2011
88
2
18,540
Visit site
Your findings with the Kefs were very similar to mine. Initially sounding very, very good, but soon exposed as not all that special. However you have to remember that you are getting remote control amps, DAC, streamer and speakers for under £2K. Albeit that the streamer was not fit for purpose when I had the LS50W’s on home demo... ATEOTD the Kefs were never going to compete with the ATC’s when you consider what is bundled with the LS50W’s...

This is the power of marketing. I have heard one online reviewer declare that the LS50W’s are the best he has heard South of $15K for a passive alternative, which is frankly laughable. The problem is that some people actually believe this guff.
 
I think I read/saw the same review...Steve Hufff I believe.....it's part of what made me go and have a dem with a view to ditch my naim xs/pmc set up...boy was I disappointed with the kefs....kept my pmc's and lost the boxes with the purchase of the superuniti....actually the SU worked out to be more of a wireless system than the kefs turned out to be.lol.
 

newlash09

Well-known member
Aug 28, 2015
226
52
18,870
Visit site
I've never heard the kef's, but have read most of their reviews. To be honest, I was expecting the kef to come out on top, considering that the ATC's were paired with a Rotel. I could'nt have been more wrong.

Most of the life-style shoppers, will still be blown by the sound quality of the kef's, when heard in a boutique store. And they are most likely to buy blind without audition.
 

jonathanRD

Well-known member
Jan 27, 2011
179
52
18,670
Visit site
chebby said:
radiorog said:
Next off were the AVI's. These sounded very similar straight off as far as could tell as far as clarity and defintion were concerened, but they were obviously lacking the warmth of the Kefs and I knew pretty much immediately that I would require the sub to go with these, which I dont have room for, and so these were ruled out pretty quickly.

Eek!

Head for the hills.

Going back a few years, I wonder how different some of the AVI/active threads would have been if it had been possible then to have this demo. Althogh this is just one listener's view, it is very interesting all the same. The opportunity to demo together somewhat removes the hype two of these products have, partly fueled by the fact that they could only be demoed on their own previously.
 

Infiniteloop

Well-known member
Jul 23, 2010
59
20
18,545
Visit site
CnoEvil said:
I agree with Andrew.

You are only scratching the surface with the ATCs...which given what you heard, would be the obvious choice, though you'd need to hear them in your system. They would also keep up with an amp uprade in the future, like say, a Devialet! *diablo*

This is at least the second time I’ve seen you recommend Devialet Cno. When did you get to hear one and what were your impressions?
 

CnoEvil

New member
Aug 21, 2009
556
14
0
Visit site
Infiniteloop said:
This is at least the second time I’ve seen you recommend Devialet Cno. When did you get to hear one and what were your impressions?

I haven't.

I was going by the fact that he enjoyed the ATCs with Rotel, which is clean and neutral....so to me, it was a natural recommendation to try (given everything that I've read about it).
 

seemorebtts

Well-known member
Feb 2, 2013
66
0
18,540
Visit site
nopiano said:
Thanks for the interesting read.  Earlier this year I went though a similar process with passive speakers, and with a slightly higher budget.  But came to a similar conclusion as you can see in my signature.  The ATCs speak for themselves with their precision and integrity.  I’m sure if you choose the 19s you’ll be very happy.  Having said that I loved the wireless KEFs I heard at the Bristol Show in February fed direct from a Zen player. 
does the i32 have enough power of your ATC as I want the ATC but I thought I might need more power for the 40
 
newlash09 said:
I've never heard the kef's, but have read most of their reviews. To be honest, I was expecting the kef to come out on top, considering that the ATC's were paired with a Rotel. I could'nt have been more wrong.

Most of the life-style shoppers, will still be blown by the sound quality of the kef's, when heard in a boutique store. And they are most likely to buy blind without audition.
Choices come down to requirements, and here you basically have three different speakers that will suit different people/situations. Many active loudspeakers still fall into the normal categories of hi-fi as they require more boxes to use them. The LS50 Wireless is a solution - integral TIDAL and Spotify streaming, wireless streaming from tablets, phones, and other Bluetooth products. The AVI needs external sources, and the SCM19s not only need sources but amplification as well. I wouldn’t really say there is any need to compare the KEF and AVI, but I appreciate some might just do it anyway.

One aspect that has to be taken into account is the set up. With most active speakers, there’s not much to mess about with other than placement, but via the app, the LS50 Wireless has an array of parameters to tailor to the room (or to personal preference). Get this wrong and they’ll be underperforming.

Sample any number of people with the above comparison of speakers, and you’ll always receive differing opinions. Opinions on these will be just as split as they are for the normal passive LS50s - some people get them, some don’t. I’ve heard the DM10s briefly against the DM10s, and whilst I appreciate there were aspects to the DM10s that were better with certain instruments, there’s no way I’d be able to live with them for a lot of the music I listen to. This comparison also goes to show that ‘active’ isn’t going to ‘turn the world’ and make everything else irrelevant. It’s all about solutions and which one is right for you.
 

radiorog

Well-known member
Jan 1, 2013
149
21
18,595
Visit site
Andrewjvt said:
At work.so.only skimmed your report But I'd say the amp used on the atc, while sufficient is nowhere near what is needed on these speakers and you'd be surprised how they show up differences in amps.

What I.. trying to say is you.could.get much better results in better amp

Hey Andrew, yep, I dont doubt that one bit. I was surprised how good the ATC's did sound with a fairly small amp. I can imagine they must sound amazing with powerful amps.
 

radiorog

Well-known member
Jan 1, 2013
149
21
18,595
Visit site
chebby said:
radiorog said:
Next off were the AVI's. These sounded very similar straight off as far as could tell as far as clarity and defintion were concerened, but they were obviously lacking the warmth of the Kefs and I knew pretty much immediately that I would require the sub to go with these, which I dont have room for, and so these were ruled out pretty quickly.

Eek!

Head for the hills.

I was surprised a little!
 

radiorog

Well-known member
Jan 1, 2013
149
21
18,595
Visit site
QuestForThe13thNote said:
good comparison. Not surprised the atcs as a £3k package with the Rotel was a good to you as the kefs at £2k. I’d expect the atcs to perform better with your amp and that Rotel which isn’t exactly fantastic at getting best out of those atcs. id recommend hearing either pmc twenty 22s which are a similar type of speaker to act, or twenty5 22s if your budget goes that far, or hear both.

Yeah, I hope the roksan sounds even better, that would be a result. Thanks for the recommendations, noted :)
 

radiorog

Well-known member
Jan 1, 2013
149
21
18,595
Visit site
CnoEvil said:
I agree with Andrew.

You are only scratching the surface with the ATCs...which given what you heard, would be the obvious choice, though you'd need to hear them in your system. They would also keep up with an amp uprade in the future, like say, a Devialet! *diablo*

I agree also. I have been offered the chance of a home demo further down the line if I wish, which I will definitely do if I get closer to a purchase.
 

TRENDING THREADS