Merlin Upgrade Experience


I recently had my (very late production) VSM-SEs upgraded to current status and thought I'd share my initial impressions on the change for anyone who might be interested.

Bobby tells me that pre-upgrade my VSMs were among the last SEs manufactured, and thus were quite close to the MM although not yet so badged.

My context for commenting on the VSMs includes both "in a vaccuum" impressions of their sound as well as comparison to other loudspeakers that I own and use regularly.

Until recently, I've owned 2 homes and thus the Merlins were the main speaker in town and my Verity Parsifal Encores served the same purpose at the beach. Additionally, I own a pair of Sonus Faber Cremonas which live in my living room. From time to time, I have been able to insert all 3 into my main system and they now all reside in a single, suburban residence (alas the baby arrived and beach house went!) more easily allowing for direct comparison.

PRE-UPGRADE:

My personal definition of the distinction between a music lover and a music loving audiophile is that the music lover wants all his records to sound good, while the audiophile wants his bad records to sound bad. By this definition, the VSM SE was a classic audiophile device, while the Creomna is more a music lovers device. Bad sounding records (and I own way too many) have tend to sound bad on the VSM SE and less so on the Cremonas. Conversely, the distinctions between any 2 records show up much more vividly on the VSM - for me, this is not a bad description of a phenomenon that many people like to call transparency.

IMHO, the likely cause of this difference is a measure of mid-bass warmtn and low bass wallop on the Cremona compared to some mid bass leanness and deep bass limitations on the VSM SE. The overall frequency response graphs of these speakers may not differ wildly, but there is significant difference in the octave to octave balance and resultant tonal signature:

The Cremonas have significantly more energy below the midband than do the VSM SEs. FWIW, the Verity - which in many respects combines the best of both worlds -- is voiced much closer to the Cremona. I suspect that most of the criticism of the VSM SE is due to people who either prefer a warmer voicing, need more ultimmate deep bass capability, or both. People with larger, less damped listening spaces probably highlight these issues in their environment.

THE UPGRADE PROCESS

Due to logistical issues on both sides, the process took longer than either Bobby or I would have liked. While his enthusiasm for his product may strike some as a "bit much", say this for the guy: He looks after his customers with unusual energy. He kept in regular touch with updates during the process and followed up multiple times after delivery. By any standard, in any business, this is a very high level of customer service.

I actually decided on this upgrade somewhat reluctanlty. Almost 2 years prior to pulling the trigger, I heard the then current VSM MX (MM?) at a local dealer. I was impressed by the warmer tonality and apparently unchanged mid band transparency, dynamics, imaging, and bass pitch definition. As far as I could tell at audition - the speakers biggest shortcoming had been ameliorated (though not eliminated) while its strengths had seamingly all been reatined.

However, an in-store demo is not dispositive, and I was still concerned that the speaker might lose some of its "magic". For as long as I can remember, much of my favorite mid band reproduction has come from speakers which (like the VSM SE) featured less than full energy below the mids (from earliest Quad through latest Lipinski). Hence my hemming and hawing. Ultimately, I went for it - though I remained a bit conflicted.

POST UPGADE

These observations must be qualified by the change in listening environment attendent to my move and the limited (2 weeks+) exposure to the new speakers. The listening room environmental effects are somewhat reduced by the continued
opportunity to compare the upgraded VSMs to the Verity and Cremonas.

In short - I couldn't have asked for very much more.

This upgrade is a VERY skillfull balancing act from Merlin. The most obvious difference is improved deep bass dynamics - which are immediately evident on tuned drums. Descending drum patterns on Peter Gabriel's Last Temptation no longer evidence rapidly diminishing power. Kick drum
and bass drum (Putttin' it Down, Out of The Cradle, Sinatra Live at The Sands, "E"'s Shine It All On) all showed greater impact up through significantly higher SPLs.

Meanwhile all else is right in the VSM universe. The mid-band is still SOTA for me;
voices on Sam Cook's Night Beat, Marti Jones' Unsophisticated Time, Joan Armitrading, etc. etc. were consistently as good as I've heard.
massed horns from the aforementioned Sinatra through Duke Ellington's Queens Suite and Intimacy of the Blues are still stunning.
Individual Horn timbre still amazes (The Hawk Flies High, etc.)

My take - this is the same speaker with obviously improved deep bass performance. My gut impression is that little adjustment was made in the warmth region (maybe tweaked up a smidge) but that the overall signature feels warmer by dint of increased energy below 60ish cycles. This is just a guess - no measurements taken.

IN SUMMARY

Bobby likes to talk in percentage improvement. I can't say that I think that way and I would be at a total loss to attach a number. I would say that this is the same speaker with so much of its near SOTA capability retained and its most obvious shortcoming significantly redressed. If you liked the SE, I'm almost certain you'll love the cuurrent version. If you were lukewarm, you might find yourself convinced. If you REALLY didn't get the appeall of the SE, I doubt this new version will be your cup of tea.

Though true headbangers still need not apply - I suspect that just about everyone else will really like this speaker. FOR THE MOMENT, it has displaced the Verity P/E as my first choice for serious listening to high quality source material. It's new and that may change over time, but for me-for now- it's about as strong an endorsement as I can provide.

Marty

A Note; The speaker still seams amp friendly in a big way. They work like champs with Cary 805s (expensive) and Pancor Dyna re-issues (dirt cheap). Haven't yet had rthe chance to try my 300Bs.

Another note: Bobby uses BAX global which has about as good a rep as any shipper I know. Unfortunately, it seems that BAX subbed out the "last mile" in this case to a local company which, from the appearance of the crates, uses chain saws to move boxes. Notwithstanding serious damage to the cartons, the speakers arrived unscathed. Score on for for Merlin's packing/crating protocol.
martykl
The ARS is very good with all types of music, you (I) could certainly live with just it, but it is not 100 Watts of Class A triode. On the other hand, the CAT is not a simple, low powered amp, and in someways the ARS would have an advantage. The CAT is a world class amp with almost any speaker, the ARS is a world class amp with Merlins, but I wouldn't try to run a pair of Theils with them.
howard,
you are pulling the string off topic.
your question? a non issue at a responsible volume level.
b
I recently had the same upgrade as Bhoage (new batteries, jumpers, lead free power cable for the SBAM). I agree with everything that Bryan said, and for me, the improvement was well worth the small amount of money spent.

One of the nice things about living only 3 hours from Hemlock NY is that I can go down and visit Bobby. It is a wonderful drive and the scenery around Hemlock is stunning! While I didn’t get to see Debbie on this visit, I did speak to Bill and Bobby quite a bit. Anyway, I brought my SBAM that I bought with my VSM-MX 2 years ago to mainly get the batteries changed (change your batteries at least every 2 years guys). While there, Bobby discussed passionately the merits of his lead free speaker system. He now uses a 3 metal solder (tin, silver, and copper I believe) instead of a 4 metal solder (tin, silver, copper, and lead). To demonstrate the difference with just the SBAMs, we inserted 2 SBAMs in his system (mine and his newest lead free one). With both using RCA connections and just the batteries (mine now with the new fully charged ones) and Bobby quickly switching the RCA connections to hear his and my SBAM in the system, there was a noticeable difference. The new lead-free SBAM sounded fuller, more musical. I then proceeded to mention to Bobby that he was a f*cking jerk (that’s just the kind of relationship I have with him) because it did indeed sound better and now I had a decision to make whether to get the full lead free speaker system. He did mention that (a) he didn’t know it was going to sound this much better – he was just getting his speaker system RoHS compliant and (b) this could be done with my speaker system (replacement of the SBAM and scrape out the solder in the speakers and replace with the 3 metal version) to achieve very close the VSM-MXe speaker system.
Yeah, I'm in the same boat David. I think I'm going to be driving my MX's down to Bobby's to get the full treatment in the fall, (make a nice drive of it and enjoy the fall colours). If the few little changes I mentioned above made an appreciable improvement, I'm sure the complete job will be very impressive. Oh well, it's only money :-)

Bryan
Unbelievable Low-Cost Upgrade for Merlin VSM-MXs! I recently had an itch to do something to my system - perfectly happy with it's sound, but we all know the drill - gotta be something better to try! I decide to look for a tube amp to rotate in and remembered some discussion a while back on a new EL34 based integrated imported by Bobby at Merlin Music. I called and was very dismayed to learn of a long wait time (5-6 months), but decided to get on the list anyway - will be a nice Christmas present hopefully!

I knew of the lead free initiatives (as I work in a non-audio electronics industry we all are going through the process of revising products to "get the lead out") - we do it for no other reason than EU legislative mandate. So I was surprised and skeptical to learn of significant audio improvements of the lead free solder in the new "e" series Merlin speakers. Fortunately, there is a relatively low cost "test upgrade" that I was willing to try. Merlin offers a few minor upgrades - lead free power cord for the BAM, lead free jumpers and higher capacity (230 MaH) batteries.

Now this upgrade defies reason & all logic, but works! The results are very noticeable - this is not a minor upgrade. I did the upgrade in two steps; first the pc & jumpers - this provided more texture in the bass region and an overall smoothing of the sound across all frequencies - a more relaxed, musical presentation. Soundstage may have broadened in height a bit as well. The second step (battery upgrade) added more weight at the bottom. I didn't know I needed these improvements until after the upgrade.

If you are on the fence about the upgrade - just buy it! For less than $200, it's a winner! Merlin also offers an lead free upgrade to the speaker itself - based on the improvements heard with the above, I may just have to send them back for rework (if I can live without them for a few weeks).

System currently consists of McIntosh C200 or C220 preamp, MC-501 monoblocks, VSM-MX's w/Super BAM.