Every year, we choose one product to enter our hallowed Hall of Fame: a product that doesn’t just stand out in its category and price band, but one that also exemplifies What Hi-Fi?’s performance-per-pound ethos and will stand the test of time.
As we celebrate our 50th anniversary this year, there was only one product that it felt right to bestow this honour upon.
We have been using ATC’s SCM50 as our reference stereo speakers for the best part of two decades now. They have been connected to just about every piece of electronics that has passed through our various test rooms, from budget microsystems (just for fun, you understand) all the way up to monster pre/power amplifiers that retail for Porsche money.
In all that time, and with those many hundreds of components, they have never once let us down.
Our chosen reference speakers need to be a transparent window to the sources and amplification we test, and these ATCs fit the bill superbly. In short, they are honest, even-handed speakers that don’t put a significant twist on the signal they are fed.
Rated at just 85dB/W/m, these large standmount speakers aren’t sensitive, nor are they a particularly difficult load, meaning even budget amplifiers can work with them up to decent, though not ear-splitting, volume levels.
All three drive units are designed and built in-house. The company’s background is in the studio/pro world, where reliability and high power handling are essential. The company’s engineers value low distortion and dynamic ability, and have spent years developing these units, putting them into production only when they are sure that every box has been ticked.
When improvements are possible, the company usually follows through, and it has carefully evolved the SCM50s (now £11,950 per pair) through the years.
The brand also has firm ideas about using hard cone materials such as aluminium: it doesn’t like them because they ring. So the 25mm tweeter and 75mm midrange unit use well-damped fabric-dome diaphragms. A 23cm woofer with a stiff fibre and resin composite cone produces the lows and is tuned by a large, front-facing port.
“We haven’t found anything that’s as satisfying an all-rounder or as practical to use as a day-to-day review tool”
If we had to describe the ATCs’ sound in one word, it would be ‘honest’. They don’t flavour or try to make things more exciting by adding a little treble sparkle or bass thump. They simply try to reproduce the signal faithfully. The SCM50 aren’t fussy about musical genre either.
They have the dynamic punch and organisational abilities to make the most of Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture. They never sound fazed or stressed even when pushed hard.
Equally, there is no shortage of authority here, with the ATCs digging low and true, delivering a solid, meaty presentation when required.
They are even-handed tonally and image well, provided you take just a bit of care with positioning. In our test room, the SCM50s sound most at home well away from rear and side walls and slightly angled in towards the listening seat.
We prefer the offset tweeters to be on the inside to firm up focus. Positioned this way, we get a broad and layered soundstage that is solidly focused and pleasingly stable.
These ATCs dig up plenty of information, whether it’s a nuance in vocal delivery or the texture of a bass sound, and render it in a natural and unforced way. These speakers don’t go out of their way to highlight detail. They just present all the information in a balanced, natural and convincing way.
Every so often we come across rivals – usually pricier – that better these ATCs in some respect, whether it’s outright resolution, openness, stereo imaging or rhythmic precision.
Yet we haven’t found anything that’s as satisfying an all-rounder or as practical to use as a day-to-day review tool. Considering the SCM50 was originally introduced in the mid-’80s, that’s quite some achievement. It seems great engineering doesn’t date.
As we celebrate our 50th year, it is fitting that we have finally honoured these legendary speakers that have accompanied us for such a large chunk of that time, through thick and thin, giving us decades of service.
MORE:
See all the What Hi-Fi? Awards 2026 winners
Read the full ATC SCM50 review
