Ever discover cheapo speakers actually sound...

Sns, yes I do and prefer things that way.
But I still recognize when things are just awful or not good enough. I must have certain priorities that I don't fully understand.
I'm sure others agree when I say we all have different priorities. That probably is part of our preferences in flavor of sound.
But why do showrooms fall short if that is the case. I remember enjoying most setups untill I brought my system up and got to hear the mbl's, which I should probably revisit.

Pedrillo, I've always noticed your decoupling technique with the Merlins. I believe what you say about decoupling them as I hung a cd player with fish line from the ceiling some years ago, best isolation I ever acheived with a digital source.

Still, don't we voice our systems based on inherent isolation of certain components, ie. my speakers sit on a suspended floor, ie. resonate more than optimum. I then increase the focus on the rest of my equipment through various isolation schemes in order to balance out this greater than optimum resonance in the speakers. In the end I get optimum results from balancing resonances. On the other hand, perhaps not, perhaps you can only fully optimize your system by hanging all equipment in space, ie. optimizing each and every piece. I think I need an anti-gravity listening room :-)

Pedrillo,

Your reaction to hearing MBL reminds me of my own reaction 30 years ago when I first heard Magnepan compared to box designs.

Some designs are just so unique, for better or worse that they will always stand out in the crowd, either for better or for worse.

Perillo, I suspect you like the MBL's imaging capabilities, much different from our Merlins. When I first went to my Merlins from my previous Alons (2 different models over many years) I was somewhat disappointed, they sounded closed in compared to the Alons. The Alons open baffle on the mids and highs give them a really open sound, larger and less defined images than the Merlins. I took me a while to get used to the Merlins, but now I love the way they image. I suspect I could go back to the Alons and again be very impressed with their imaging.

As for the Merlins, sounds like you're thinking there's something you're missing. Be careful of what you wish for, I have yet to hear a more coherent speaker, this kind of resolution and coherence is very rare. One improvement you may want to try is Duelund VSF in the SBAM. Wow! Read my impressions in my virtual system. I even think I have Bobby convinced to try them.

Sns,
Thanks for the heads up. I don't plan on moving away from the merlins. I just want to try building speakers, but I figured I should do something that will resemble a speaker that I liked meaning the bolzanos.
I plan on going all atma-sphere just for the sake of getting the merlins to sing their best.
By the way I will consider your bam tweek.