Merlin vsm question

I'll pipe in here. I had the Merlin VSM-M for 6 years. I used them with Melos, Karan and a high powered class D mono amps. They never did it for me. I did have a balanced battery BAM. I used a tube preamp in all cases except with the Karan integrated. I do not think they are full bodied. My opinion is they are leaner sounding, but do put out good bass. I had ProAc speakers before the Merlins and went back to ProAc speakers after the Merlins.

Stereo, FWIW Merlins are designed for tube gear. The result is that some of the characteristics of transistors will cause a lean sound in the speaker simply because the speaker design does not anticipate that the amplifier used will double power as the impedance is halved. for more info see:

http://www.atma-sphere.com/papers/paradigm_paper2.html

Atmasphere, Bobby from Merlin told me that too. My Melos gear was a MAT-180 amp and a Maestro preamp. I am sure there are tube amps that work better with the VSM speakers. The V4 monos may work well with VSMs. They will probably work well with ProAcs as well.

Indeed the Merlins are intended for tubes. So much so that at one point Bobby had a "tube" version and and "ss" version of the speaker. To me, the Merlins are unforgiving in the sense that they will let you hear your amp and it doesn't candy-coat (maybe to strong a word), put a great tube amp in front of the Merlin and you will get balanced sound. SS has always been a bit problematic for some listeners. Besides the impedance issues with SS versus tubes, the Merlin speakers do not need very much dampening from an amplifier, again, ideally suited for tube amplifiers that most users will us with the Merlins. Love ProAcs too. But that's why there are different products on the market. For me the Merlin is the speaker of choice for two-way speakers and the coherency of that, with enough bass to feel like you are getting a three-way level of bass for most music.

stereo, imho the vsm mme/sbam is much more room filling and dynamic than the m version. imo, they sound very good with solid state and better with a good quality tube amp.
these speakers like amplifiers with less damping and feedback because they are filtered from playing out of band energy below 28 hz. this keeps the woofer in linear drive much more of the time and at a louder levels. the m was more of a single ended tube speaker because that was my reference at the time, the synergy was right.
now i use different amplifiers in r+d so the speakers exhibit a fuller tonal picture. i do understand your lean comment.
best, b