I got some new monitors!

Lol! I actually like the Alesis! It's a modded Ashly CLX52.....

And you have the p1 amp? That’s truly awesome!

Right decision, who’d buy a Ferrari without a Ferrari engine and transmission: all in atc or not at all!

Atc design and build acumen and capacity is arguable second to none, no compromise, it costs what costs to do right, and that’s the only way they do it !

nick8801 - Did Alto take the APS back without issue? the issue you mentioned is weird. I'm asking to see if I had them and discovered an issue, if Alto as trustworthy as VK or SW. Congrats on the ATC's. You're good for a while I bet.

SOS's review was pretty striking and unique. It's rare they say Woah! about a monitor. Regarding the JBL 705P's, they mentioned bloat in the low mids so THAT review wasn't glowing. The review of the original Klasiks was good but not glowing so.... the Klasik 2020's are still on the radar for me. They do give a glowing review to the Hedd 07's. The Hedd's never catch any flack - nary a complaint.

I can't exceed $2K presently but am looking for a pair of speakers. Some of you guys, especially Dan, seem to have the chance to hear everything - lol. I am presently leaning towards:

APS Klasik 2020
Hedd 07
LYD 48 3-ways
Used Focal Solos
Focal Shape Evo 65
JBL 705P

My current thought is the 1st two are a toss up with budget making the decision. I think the used solos come next. Any one care to comment further?

I went back and forth a bit with their customer service, but they were understanding and took them back. It kinda sucked because I did really like the speakers. Spending what I did on the ATC’s wasn’t my initial intention. Having had a chance to have both in my room, I will say, you get what you pay for. I had to run sonarworks on the APS to get them to work in my room. Since getting the ATC’s I haven’t even opened up sonarworks. A lot of that has to do with the closed box, unhyped bass, but I find them super easy to work on. Good luck on your search!

I thought they were ported? You mean you can stick some foam in the ports to close them off?

Yes they are ported and have model specific plugs. I thought it interesting too

To an extent, I'll apologise if I come across strongly worded here. Especially because one person's gold is another's bronze and I've heard excellent mixes come from Senny HD650's alone (something I could never do). I spent a few years booking out actual studio's because simply put I didn't trust my monitors, to rectify said problem I took six months before the pandemic to review as many demo pairs as possible.

I can make a few $100.00 mic's work in a mix but a cheap monitor setup in a badly or semi-treated room? No, no chance I'd rather just mix on headphones. Originally I started out testing monitors in my immediate budget, bearing in mind the studio I was on / off renting had a pair of barefoot's w/ $10K's worth of treatment that was my "basis of quality".. The result? Everything I tested under $2K was a mix of mushy information, bad stereo responses, technical issues or compromise (not every one was bad but none were great either). Just to note besides HEDD and APS I've tried most of the monitors listed in this thread..

At this point somewhat disheartened I threw caution and budget to the wind, that's when I encountered Barefoot (other one's) / Dynaudio's upper end /  PMC / Geithain etc. and the gap / quality / performance ultimately saw the law of diminishing returns. Obviously diminishing returns stack but for the most part I could work on any of them happily and trust the end result. 

Even at the  5 - 8K mark there were still things about a certain speaker setup that I preferred. The Gethain's again for example, you could move your head in any direction / move your chair back / to the side and the 3D coax based stereo field would never collapse (impressive stuff). None of the others could match them in that specific way, although some had more "positive" clarity (not just analytical therefore steering a mix to over processing) etc. 

Ultimately I went for the LYD 48's because they were the best "middle ground", I've heard more impressive monitors, there's more analytical setups for sure but they have a certain sense of neutral clarity not too distant from their end goal to translate. They can sound impressive or bad dependant on the source material but they don't beat you over the head it, (like a notification every 5 minutes rather than a never ending stream of THAT'S WROONNG, IT'S WROONG CAN'T YOU TELL IT'S WROOOOONG) *Cough, in terms of performance / stereo field response again I've heard better but they don't sound compromised at all either. I don't think I'll ever "upgrade" them as part of the challenge is adapting and that can take years. New monitor time for me is a nightmare..

Of course this is my personal experience and YMMV..

Monitors are so personal. I felt the KRK V6S4 (what I’m using until the noisy plate amps melt) and recent Focal Shape and Arias (thanks Guitar and ericn for this rec too) were incredible workhorses and didn’t like the recent Dynaudios, Amphions, cheaper Focals and the CMS (there was always something totally wrong about the low mids) at all. The two way ATCs were super detailed but not big picture enough to be super motivating (you get lost in stuff that doesn’t matter even while listening on them) while the scm 50 shows that Billy Woodman is a bodhisattva of speaker design. I have no idea how people balance and sit vocals on JBLs or Adams despite them sounding good. They probably think I’m nuts for liking most KRK 6.5” woofer monitors but whatever.

The question to ask here is what was the system designed to be ported or sealed? It’s not very often that the optimum volume for a ported cabinet is the exact same as the driver in a sealed cabinet. So which one is compromised? Or are they both.
Also in the past every system I have ever seen that uses port plugs leaks like the Exxon Valdez and this is apparent when measured.
I did see one very rare system where you unscrewed the port and could then screw in a cap. The cap had a large beam on it that also screwed to the back of the cabinet. The volume of this tube was calculated to retune the cabinet volume for the optimal sealed volume.
These were frick genius, but I’m sure expensive as hell to build.

Alto Music is run by a great crew. They're incredibly knowledgable and helpful, and as into it all as much as we are, or more. Trust them, you won't regret it.