solid state amp for merlin tsm's ?

04-22-11: Samski
"after doing some research, it looks like the merlins are not for me,"

I would not come to that conclusion based on the fact folks recommend tubes - they sound fantastic with SS as well, but not all speakers sound great with tubes due to impedance curves yadda yadda, the thing is when a speaker also happens to be tube friendly, like the Merlins, they tend to sound better with tubes because tubes tend to sound better than SS IMHO. Don't miss out on one of the truly great speakers for fear of the tube buzz, try'em with a high quality SS amp, you won't regret it.

The Luxman is definitely on the radar, I do wonder if any Merlin owners have actually tried; I suspect few.

Just to avoid confusion, the Merlin speakers sounds superb with an quality amplifier SS or tube, but becuase the Merlins are desinged to be easily driven by tubes, and if you believe tubes sound better than SS, then it explains why so many Merlin owners seems to use tubes; the Merlin is a very refined speaker that speaks the truth about what comes before it. It seems what they have been telling me these many years is that I like the sound of tube amps, and no SS amp is really going to do that, not even the great Aleph and XA.5 amps from Pass, for some the finest sounding SS amps ever made (subject to debate of course).