I thought the Luxman 590aII with Cardas GR on the VSM-MXR with Master BAM and Master RCs to be way too smooth. Tonally, that amp favors the mid-low end, not the mid-high end, like a Pass or First Watt, neither of which I was able to try with the Merlins. But anyway, switching all of the GR cables over to Clear didn't help. Some folks might really like the sound that I got, however -- I'm happy to concede that. For me, it was like swimming in honey (or a "hot mess", depending on how you like your analogies served up). I felt that I was getting too little detail, the treble was too rolled off and while the bass was very strong, it felt a bit bloated. I worried that perhaps it was the BAM working against the amp, but I whatever it was, I never got it to sound the way I wanted it to.
Ultimately, I found that the Class A/B Luxman amps to be a better match, perhaps as a function of how the Merlin's mid range was voiced, these amps just seemed to make the entire range seem to sit more of a piece. I was able to get extraordinarily strong, solid bass out of the Merlins this way ("shocking" was a word I tossed around at the time, though "best ever" would have done it too), and that was in a large, fully damped room with little or no wall reinforcement (I've since dumped a lot of my damping in favor of a more lively room sound).
Don't take this as a knock against the Class A Luxman amps, though, as I find them to be very fine indeed. And for leaner speakers or speakers that lean that way (if you'll pardon the phrase), that extra bit of warmth and smoothness and tonal density is quite magical.
But for speakers that are voiced warm in the mid range, adding an amp that's voiced warm in the mid range to a cable loom that's voiced warm in the mid range, well, to me that sounds problematic. Someone else might call that heaven, though, so who knows? YMMV.
