BEL 1001 amps. Specs and ordering

I've heard that BEL, Belles, Ayre, and SIM work well with Merlins, by I've only personally tried the Pass XA30.5 in my system and it sure did sound fantastic. I think this Pass amp may be the best sounding amp Pass has ever made. The Ayre has Zero NFB and is likely to mate well with the Merlins that don't need or want a lot of damping from the amplifier; which is one reason they usually perform better with tubes. Among these you should find something that works well - but I loved the Pass when I had it - yes, 30 watts was enough for me.

Reading this and just want to say that I have heard the Merlins with Ayre.In a word"Transparent and layers of sound".Good luck,Bob

One more ss amp to check out with the Merlins - TAD hibachi monos. I don't know for sure, but I believe that this design violates most high end dogma (including it's relatively modest price tag): It's class A/B, won't double its output into low impedence loads, and eschews boutique componentry. OTOH it sounds very good with my VSMs.

Good Luck
Marty

One additional argument for the Ayre is you are very likely to find a 5 series used on Audiogon - the BEL and Pass I mentioned not as likely.

I used BEL 1001 monoblocks with my VSM-MX's for quite awhile and was very happy with them. They are much better as mono's than single stereo, with better bass articulation. I also have Odyssey Stratos Mono SE's and this is a nice combo too, though slightly less transparent/detailed and not quite the clean bass definition of the BEL's. The best I've heard on my VSM's other than the Joule VZN100's is a Bella Extreme 3205 Platinum tube amp from Response Audio. Amazingly, it's only about $1k. Something about the little 40wpc PP tube amps that just works very well with them. Lovely combination.

Tom