BEAUTIFUL with a warm tonality to it. Highs are still quite extended with just enough smoothness. Midrange is full with the right amount of presence to made vocal "pop" out at you. Bass...well, i give it a decent 7.5/10, I know what the sub is capable of, but the room is causing alot of issues from 60hz and below. Still have a nice punch to it and quick. Just not "full" enough.

Now for the best part...soundstage. The image is great, with great width and depth. The speaker just disappears and nothing seems to be coming from the speaker, which is a good sign. Everything is either happening outside the speaker plane, behind it, in front of it, or in the middle, creating layers and layers of sound.

As you can tell, i have a 2nd CD player which is the rotel. Even with tubes, ATC is still quite a raw and powerful speaker. Bad recording will always sound like bad recordings on them. Modern CD players motive is to project the sound as accurately as possible to the preamplifier. However, old CD players like the early rotels round out the sound to compensate for bad recordings in the early 90s, creating a fuller midband and cuts off alot of details. This makes it great for crap pop recordings and older CDs of the 80s and 90s.

next upgrade: a new room...but i have to move first!!! a more reasonable upgrade is a turntable and a phono preamp.

any opinions are welcome!!!