Why Merlins sound better then Sonus Faber

The Merlin VSM is actually about the same price as the stave-constructed Sonus
Faber Olympica III. If you are looking at high performance 2-way towers, the
bargain in the bunch would be the Odyssey Lorelei, a 90-lb. 2-way that uses the same very expensive woofer as the Merlin, but is only $2700/pair. The second page of 6 Moons Audio's review of the Odyssey makes several comparisons
to the Merlin. I find this paragraph particularly enlightening concerning your original premise of accuracy vs. musical communication:

Compared to the even dearer Merlin? Thoughts on what a speaker should
accomplish would now diverge in opposite directions. Bobby Palkovich's (Merlin)
design is the quintessential and now evolutionary progression of a
recording studio monitor. Its key criteria are honesty and absolute transparency,
the twin poles of the mastering engineer's trade which, incidentally, has made
them very popular with certain writers as a reviewer's tool par excellence. Proac
and Sonus Faber designs -- and now the Lorelei model -- disagree with this
notion. Their designers don't believe that the home-based music lover needs a
ruthless microscope to sift through the molecular layers of the musical matrix.
Hence their creations favor the grande gesture over the minuscule, the overall
flow to the individual ripple. The Meadowlark Shearwater would fall somewhere
in-between these two camps. That first-order design was inherently leaner and
less overtly buff than the Lorelei - drier yet more pellucid.

So it's more a matter of listening goals and taste, not of superiority. I find SF
speakers to be seductive and captivating. They elicit a strong emotional
connection with the music, and for me, that's what I'm looking for when I play
music at home. At the same time, I completely understand if someone were to
prefer the Merlin. But since the Olympica III is the same price as the Merlin, I'm
willing to consider them of equal quality, if not in philosophy. However, I'd tend
to think that a $65,000 Sonus Faber would have noticeably superior dynamics,
bass extension, and room-filling power, even if the presentation were more
romantic than the Merlin.

07-05-14: Unistar99
Macrijack, i am actually trying to understand when paying for SF is it actually that you get ba etter sound or are paying directly for the craftmanship, material and design more then for the reproduction of the sound and that is why there is such a big price difference.

Why do you keep insisting that "there is such a big price difference" between the Merlin VSM and a floorstanding Sonus Faber?

The Merlin VSM series 2-way floorstander in all its permutations ranges from $9,020 to $13,600/pair. The Sonus Faber 3-way Olympica II retails at $10,000/pair and the 3-way floorstanding Olympica III retails at $13,500/pair.

Their prices couldn't track much closer had Merlin and Sonus Faber colluded on the matter.

Yes, there are far more expensive SFs in their flagship Aida ($160,000) and "The Sonus Faber" ($200,000) models, but they compete in the Focal Utopia Grande/Wilson Alexandria/XLF stratosphere.

Unistar99, I'd hardly call the Olympica II and III lower end models. You might call the Venere series lower end in that they're all made in China and $3500 or less. But the Olympica series use the staved construction of the higher end models and are made in Italy. They use a pinned soft dome tweeter that converts a dome radiator into a smooth, linear, and extended ring radiator. They have very low cabinet resonances thanks to the staved construction, and--unlike the Merlin VSM--make use of the entire floorstanding cabinet for higher efficiency (more dynamic range) and deeper bass extension without need for a BAM module.

I heard the now-discontinued Cremona M at $10K and it was an extraordinary speaker and value at that price. The Olympica series replaces the Cremona series and would have to equal or exceed it to stay competitive in that market.

07-06-14: Yogiboy
Another shill in the crowd!

Who are you talking about?

07-15-14: Denvelle
The Merlin speakers have a tremendous past history of development effort and
fine tuning. I've not heard all the SF models, but the ones I have heard (the last
being the Grand Piano) sound nowhere near as "real" to me as the
various Merlin models I've owned.

Seriously? The Grand
Pianos are from 17 years ago. SF's current lines are mind-blowingly musical,
natural, and most of all, seductive and involving.

Anything from their Homage, Olympica, and top lines are friggin' awesome now,
and the entry-level Veneres aren't too shabby either.

08-30-14: Uncledemp
I'm curious now!

I own the SF Concerto Grand Piano and enjoy them a lot. In my own experimentation I have heard them sound awesome (like now) and so-so with some gear/cable.

For you guys that have heard the Grand Piano, should I seek the Merlin?? Or do you feel synergy is key to these huge differences in opinion?

I have a pair of Mirage M5si's that I bought in 1996. I still have them and use them as L-R in my HT 7.1 array. But even when I play stereo audio playback I still marvel at how real they sound, how quick, accurate, and deep the bass it, how honest the midrange, and how natural and unaggressive the treble is. But they're not Concerto Grand Pianos, so why am I telling you this?

Not long after I bought these, I heard the Sonus Faber Concerto Grand Pianos and was struck how similar they sounded in tonal balance, responsiveness, frequency extension, etc. Like my Mirages, the Concerto Grand Pianos simply get a lot of things right--coherence, tonal balance, soundstage, imaging ... They are very easy to listen to for long periods of time and musically very satisfying. I have been satisfied with my Mirages for 18 years, and it doesn't surprise me that you still have your Concert Grand Pianos. They're that good.

Over the years I've found that the better the upstream components and cabling, the more I'm rewarded with the resulting sound. The Mirages have proved to be remarkabley durable in sonic satisfaction over such a long time. I don't doubt that if i had the coin, I'd hear even more benefits with better amplification and cables. I suspect you'd get the same with your Concertos.

When you have something that sounds so consistently right, it's hard to find a reason to switch out.

Check the pertinent audio forums and you'll find that the original Concerto Grand Pianos are highly prized and the most sought-after version of that product offering from SF.