Who stay with Merlin longest time

Thanks for the enlightened heads up Jimbo. Yes sir, we're all just a bunch of weak minded dupes.

My take is a bit different Pubul. I think Jimbo was just bored and wanted to troll a bit to see where it went knowing full well the passion that Merlin owner's have. The real clue was attacking Bobby to add a bit of spice. Maybe he has an ax to grind for other reasons only he can chime in on, who knows, but of course we know he won't, he got his desired result, really not worth further comments or attention IMO.

My take is that bigger can be better but it then becomes a much more ambitious project and is extraordinarily difficult to achieve. There are too many considerations and most folks don't have them all (read room) to even start considering them all. The true advantage of large systems is their potential dynamic capability and bass. Having said that I find the VAST majority of the large cone based systems I've heard bring too much attention to themselves instead of the music to consider, electrostatics excepted but can be even more ambitious an undertaking. I have only personally heard ONE exception but view it due as much to the talent and hearing acuity of the guy that put it together as much as the speaker itself. The point is that Merlins are a speaker that can enamour the most jaded audiophile but like all things in audio they will not appeal to everyone, what they do well they do very very well. Audiophiles have different objectives and aspirations as to what is ideal and my observations, based on my opinion of course, is that they often have nothing to do with fidelity as much as taste.

Hey Jim, I really am looking forward to your review. It seems the reference is the culmination of this design and I am REALLY interested in your assessment and the progression of each of the upgrades.

I originally purchased a pair of VSM-SE's with battery BAM in 2000 and upgraded to the M in 2001, 12 years total. The system is well sorted out and very satisfying musically. I am curious exactly what I can expect to specifically gain going from the Millenium to the Reference, hmmm.