(17-Sep-2014, 13:22)LBameule Wrote: Thanks, Flashman and Martyn. Yes, the Atohm are definitely in the radar, but the KEFs half the price and everybody is raving about them. I need to hear both of them and compare to understand or grasp what makes the Atohm twice as expensive.
Thanks to all! Best!
I live in France, and as I purchased a Devialet, I was able to get the Atohm GT1s plus speaker cables for 2000 euros vs. list of 2500 euros. As you purchased a Devialet, you should be able to get the same deal. But maybe it's only in France/Europe. Not sure where you live. But it's true, the LS50s are much less expensive. Good hunting!
LBameule, Below is an excerpt from a Six Moons review, which compares the Atohm GT1 and the B&W PM-1. You can read the full review at http://www.6moons.com/audioreviews/atohm/1.html Whether it's the KEF LS50, the B&W or the Atohm, I think you have three really good possibilities!
"The Atohm monitors delivered a much larger soundstage than their very compact size would have let on. It is thus truly possible to use the GT1 in a listening room up to 50 square meters without benefiting from any relevant room gain. The cherry on the cake resides in the ability to recreate the sound of many floorstanders at realistic scale without impacting accuracy. In the same way I was recently amazed by the open sound provided by the small B&W PM-1. The sensation of opulence was quite comparable between these two excellent compact monitors.
"They are two designs (my note, not the author: Triangle Duetto's and Atohm GT1)—three if I consider the B&W—which I could easily live with. The GT1 sound is truly prodigious for a speaker with such a small footprint. It produces no particular waffling on bass notes and no apparent pseudo harmonics of cabinet talk. Here timbres are very decent and clear. Naturally this isn’t the most transparent speaker extant but if you attempted to identify true rivals on size and price, I’d expect you’d meet some very real difficulties. I would highlight the consistency of this Atohm model which represents an interesting compromise between dynamic involvement and listening comfort, between punchy élan and laid-back personality."
Devialet Expert 220 Pro Kinki EX-M7 power amp tethered to a fiber-fed Lumin X1 streamer via Grimm XLRs, Vivid B1 Decade speakers in Rosso Barchetta red (only 200 produced in a limited edition), Roon Nucleus with a Samsung 860 EVO 2TB SSD, etherREGEN switch fed by a Sonore opticalModule (and Sonore-supplied transceivers and 1M optical cable) with a SOtM dCBL-Cat7 cable to my Nucleus and a DH Labs Reunion Cat8 to my Lumin T2 streamer, Keces P8 linear power supply feeding a (to come) NUC and EtherREGEN switch with an external AfterDark OCXO clock., and opticalModule (5V/1A), AudioQuest Niagara 1000 power conditioner, ASI LiveLine loom (purchased directly from Franck Tchang when I lived in France), Less Loss Firewall for Speakers and Roon lifetime license with Tidal streaming.
