Speakers free of grain, glare and steel?

They need tubes to really shine. I have found the TSM to be wonder. Very easy to place ,as it is a sealed design. Easy to power. I've had mine with a lot of amps and even the mighty NAD 320bee sounded wonderful. Many terrific choices listed above. You could go jolida 202a or cayin a-50t and TSM. With a nice source you'll be there. I use a w4s dac-2 and i added a jla f110. One of the biggest keys to a sealed design, that is often overlooked, is that they are easy to place and play well in poor rooms. Since most of our rooms are poor they really shine. Of couse you could always add room treatment, but often wives a GFs don't allow it and it is somewhat tough to get good guidance on doing it correctly.

As always listening yourself in your room is the only real way to tell. If your near NYC you can listen to my setup.

Cheers.

Sorry if you're near NYC.

About Merlin TSM needing "tubes to really shine"... I have a tubed dac and a tubed preamp, but ss monoblocks (albeit designed to sound like a tubed amp). Hmmm.

Don't let your solid state amps dissuade you from Merlin or any other brand. Case in point, I am in the minority when I say I preferred solid state amps with my Spendor speakers rather than tubes. However, the combination worked fine and I'd gladly do it again. If Merlin interests you call Bobby and ask him what works best with his speakers and whether your amps would be suitable. He's a straight shooter.

Overly "polite" is not desirable either.

Do any of these options qualify as overly polite?

My tubed preamp does give me some leeway for "tuning." And I have a large menagerie of NOS flavors.

I wonder how the various recommendations stack up in terms of speed, density, layering, note decay, imaging and air?

Balance is the key. No gaping holes...