Thanks for your response Posbwp555. I had been considering a Joule LA150 MKII for the reasons you suggested. In speaking with Bobby at Merlin (I own VSMs) he suggested that rather than go that route I might want to try (I ordered it) the Ars Sonum integrated amp which he feels is very, very close to the separates considered to mate well with Merling (e.g. CAT, Joule, Atmasphere, Berning). This is somewhat of a leap of faith, since the Ars is a 30 Watt integrated costing $3,500, versus what some would consider SOTA seaparates worth $20,000. It would be very interesting to see if a synergistcally optimzed integrated and speakers can compete with some of the better separates. Of course the CAT will sound great with many different speakers with different sensitivities and impedance curves - it is a more universally "great" amp - that is not a point of contention. But the Merlins don't require a lot of power and have a very benign, easy to drive impedance curve, and Bobby know his speakers inside out. It will be an interesting experiment. After the trial I will be selling the little integrated or the CAT JL2. All things being equal, I'd rather run a small, simple integrated that can do the job (at least with Merlin speakers)- but I won't sacrifice musical satisfaction.
