Tabl10s,
Reviews probably aren't my thing, because I tend to qualify my opinions to the point where I'm not sure they're really useful for evaluation purposes. I will offer descriptive accounts though, and to that end I compared the Merlins with the Verity a bit on a thread called "My Merlin upgrade experience". To recap and expand a bit on those comments:
IMHO The VSMs and P/Es are 2 wonderful speaker systems, each among the best performers I've ever heard - again, qualified by my preferences. (I'd call my Cremonas very, very good speakers). The Merlins are more revealing - for better and worse - of what's infront of them. Better, because that's the point of the game (at least in one respect). Worse, because so much of the stuff in front of them is revealed to be lacking-particularly recordings, and more paricularly rock recordings.
The P/Es are wonderful, musical, and pretty revealing in their own right, just not to the same degree as the VSM. The Cremonas are the least transparent, most forgiving of the three. They are both warm and alive with a bit of a bump in the presence range to offfset the bump in the upper bass. Even mediocre records tend to sound decent on the Cremona, and for this reason they are probably a very good choice for many people.
The Verity walks the middle ground - just a smidge warm of neutral. The VSMs have evolved from slightly lean (SE) to damn near dead neutral (MX) IMHO. To my ear, the MX with the current BAM, sounds an awful lot like old Quads seamlessly mated to a very good subwoofer with extention to +/- 30 hz.
Since I had the Merlins upgraded, they have pretty much replaced the P/Es in my main system. When I do switch over to the Verity, I enjoy what I hear. The sound is different and may show a new "take" on a recording that is surprising and pleasing. But the truth is, thus far, I usually flip back to the VSMs pretty quickly. I could certainly live happily with either, but I live more happily with both.
Marty
PS - Bobby, at some point I'll rationalize all my stuff (i.e shed some gear) and then figure out the best mate for my VSMs. I'll be sure to check out BEL.