Tenor Hybrid v. VTL MB-450 Sig.

Hello Mike, I'm truly and honestly very happy for you and that to your ears you find the hybrids that much better than the OTL's. Now as strong as you feel the hybrids are better then the OTL's, I feel the exact opposite. In all the aspects that I find most important to me I found the OTL's to be superior. To be honest it wasn't even close to my ears. The one thing that we do agree on is that they do sound different. There for it is possible for people to disagree on which sounds better to them. I would sincerely hate to see somebody spend their hard earned money on my advice or others and be disappointed and lose a significant amount of money on a resale. So please, Brooks or anybody else, find a way to audition the gear in question and let your ears decide. Best wishes to all! Tom

This thread is a great example of how well these forums can work. Every one of you has given me a little different perspective, related experience that would be impractical/near impossible for me to get on my own, and offered me excellent advice. It is very cool that a common interest can get a bunch of kind, intelligent people to help an unknown guy, across the county, make a difficult decision. Here it is: Even though my VTLs are crated in CA. ready to go to a dealer as a trade, I am going to have them shipped to my house. I will fire them up for a few months while I listen to the Merlins with all of the amps suggested - The Hybrid, the OTL, the Joules, and I will listen to the Berning. I still cannot believe that a 10lb shoe box sized amp can be in the same league. With that reputation, I want to hear it. Then, if I choose the hybrid (assuming a weaker dollar), I will just have to suck up the price increase. Such is the opportunity cost of a molases moving audiophile. However, when the decision is made, I will definately know which amp is the right one and not be thinking about what the other ones might have been like. This really minimizes the risk of another sale at a loss. Thank you all for your help.

Brooks, in case you are not aware and to put his comments into perspective, Crump makes big solid state amps/preamps. In my opinion his advice about your speakers is way off the mark. But Bob is a big speaker/solid state kind of guy. Not my cup o' tea...

30hz and tonally accurate is "full range" enough for me.

Jim2, glad the size of the presentation of your Merlins is large enough for your tastes. Most of us prefer something closer to realistic size.......I'll stand by my comment as think the 20K could be better spent on full range speakers than a new amplifier......My speakers are not much larger than your Merlins BTW and they only go to the mid thirties, but have a closer to full sized presentation than your Merlins which are, of course, tonally accurate to 30hz......

I thought the Tenor Hybrid 300 and the EAR Hybrid were the “hit” of the show. Both companies are seemingly on to something; both sound much more like real music than any other amps I have heard and I have heard a great number of them. The EAR is an integrated at 100/100 watts per channel. The retail price is around $3600; I don’t know what the Tenor 150 sells for but my guess it is considerably more.