Not suprised there is no answer from Blackwillard. The Merlins were great 15 years ago and have only gotten better - don't know how to weigh the "marginally" comment, other than to say each generation has been an improvement and the VSM is one of the most "sorted out" speakers out there. The improvement may be marginal in some sense, the VSMs were always good and never a piece of %#$*& that one could improve by leaps and bounds. As to the amp issue, I did own the CAT JL2 which is a great amp that can perfom great with a very wide range of speakers, and did perform very well with the Merlins. However, after trying a lot of other amps, I ended with the Atma-sphere M-60 which are easily the best performers I have had with the VSMs - hard to think you'll ever hear them bettered, though the Joule VZNs I expect would be formidable and to some ears may be preferable, especially if you already the very excellent Joule LA150 MKII preamp. I'm sold on the magic of OTLs; with the right speaker - the Merlin is. The Music Reference RM9 is also superb amplifier for a Class A/B, push-pull, tranformer based amplifier - both with EL34 or KT88s; I slightly prefer the KT88s in the RM9 with the Merlins
