ATC SCM 40 mk2 vs Salk Song3 Encore

either way you’ll want to upgrade your dac.  A used schiit bifrost multibit can be had for $500 or a schiit gungir multibit, like what I have, can be had for $800.

Thats a lot of money for a DAC Bruce. How can you be sure there's really any difference?! 

Its only a lot of money to you.  
Your source and dac are very important.  Crap in crap out.

I know theres a difference between a $200 dac, a $500 dac and a $1500 dac because I’ve heard it with my own ears, which happen to be far more exceptional than yours.  My hearing is two to three times as good as yours K.  Its easy to quantify. People have been giving you sound advice for months here and you haven’t heard a thing.  Just goes to show that your hearing sucks.

Wow @b_limo Are you for real? With your attitude, you’ve just lost all credibility.

whoops! I just read some of K’s posts, And I get where you are coming from! Not worth any of our time.

jjss49 is correct in assessment of the two brands and obviously a bit of a cheerleader for the active ATCs.  So am I, but then it's not my system to listen to.  I've the ATC SCM 40A and have unabashedly touted their talents of immediacy, dynamics and accuracy.

If you go with the ATC passive, jjss49 is completely correct that upstream is particularly salient.  You need lots and lots of clean strong stable current to hold them together.

@m669326

the musical fidelity a308 should be fine in terms of power output, it should also match well with the atc scm40 sonically as the a308 treble is slightly rolled off with no grain... with atc’s what one is most afraid of is 'classic' solid state sonic artifacts of sibilance, grain and leanness of tone, which the atc’s will neither hide or beautify

the importance of source quality feeding the atc’s is high as well, not just the amp... digital distortion artifacts will also be played through... i don’t know that $400 dac you have... there are good ones and there are bad ones... generally speaking, one of the slightly warmer sounding dacs would mate better with the a308 ---> atc 40 system you are assembling...

good luck have fun