Merlin owners who have modified x-over?

david, everyone knows who i am here, just as you do.
i have posted on this site for years.
i have nothing to post on my site about this because the r&d has not been completed and duelunds are not used in my product at this time.
i reponded to pedrillo and told him what i was doing. he knows me because he owns merlins. this conversation started between the two of us. there was no need to be more transparent.
i was asked by two individuals to say what i have found. they asked so i responded.
i am working with some other cap brands too. no comment.
i elected to go with the vsf because my speaker systems are q circuited and the size of the cast versions. it was my call.
you may not think so but i am very transparent and have always been. why else do people know what i am doing.
you cannot make everyone happy obviously but i will continue to do the right thing for those that are interested.
and david, there are many here that seem to be.
best, b

David P, As Alice said, it gets curiouser and curiouser. Now a post by someone who lambasts a manufacturer and a dealer, has no Agon-listed system, and provides a pointer to a 20% off sale at PCx... BTW, see my system for Merlin modified with Claritycap MR, Duelund, and Mundorf-- all excellent piece parts in this context.

Dgarretson,
Congratulations on your outstanding work on your crossover networks. Your use of both Duelund and Clarity caps combined with a Duelund resistor are sure to provide sonic bliss. Have you been been inclined to vary inductors? There have been conflicting reports on the sonic attributes of the Solen and the North Creek inductors, and maybe nothing written concerning the quite expensive Duelund Inductors.
I hope you will take the time to tell us the changes you heard as you made your changes or did you take the plunge and do your upgrade in onestep?
I do not feel I have lambasted any party at Audiogon (a verb meaning to wack or pound). I only wish dealers and manufacturers would identify themselves as such.
I do appreciate Bobby identifying which Duelund cap he is evaluating and why, and not leaving it identified as a Duelund proprietary.
I am sure when you bought your expensive Duelunds you would want to know if they could be bought at a discount instead of their everyday price. I have no affliation with Parts Connexion. Since June 30 is the last day of their sale, I thought people buying Duelunds should act promptly.
David Pritchard

The Duelund copper VSF are amazing caps. I just put one on the tweeters of my speakers and it has completely transformed my speakers. Never have I heard cymbals sound so real and palpable. Thanks to Dgarrettson, SNS and other Merlin owner's experimentation with Duelunds in their speakers, their excitement, I believe, has carried over to convince Bobby in trying them out. I'm not a Merlin owner, by the way. My mini-monitors are the Reference 3a Dulcet. Duelund copper VSF caps are the real deal. The Cast models are supposedly better but for a much greater price. Parts Connexion probably have the best price going now, especially with their monthly discount sale.

David P., Actually I use only Claritycap MR and Duelund resistors in xover. Elsewhere in system I have used Mundorf Silver/Gold, V-Cap, and NOS Russian teflon caps-- all excellent and significant improvements compared to stock caps found in even very high-priced components.

The stock inductors in Merlin VSM are heroically large, custom-wound affairs that I don't plan to replace. My only experience with aftermarket inductors is with Alphacore aircore foil types that I use as 95kHz noise filters in analog domain of my modded CDP. I have a switch on that player that allows alternating between filter vs. straight through-- so I can hear what those inductors are doing. They are very transparent, detailed and smooth.

As great an effect as piece parts can have on a system, I have been reluctant so far to accept the significant upcharge for Duelund capacitors. The marketing that accompanies these caps seems to position signal caps (and particularly xover caps) much like standalone audiophile components-- with commensurately exhorbitant prices. My experience modifying every component in my system does not wholely reject this idea, but in the end it seems to me more likely that the psychology at work resembles the marketing of very expensive cables. With cables I know that relatively inexpensive DIY designs can get very close to uber-priced commercial cables. The marginal return (for the DIYer at least)may be is greater putting the expenditure into some other improvement. Of course if cost is no object then anything goes.