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Focal Mini Utopia vs Merlin MXe

Is this a fair comparision(sound quality wise ignoring price)? Looking for comments from people who owned both speakers for good length of time. I own mini utopia and Quad 989s and love them both. Trying to simplify and get full range speaker which will better both mini and quads (bass, imaging, stage depth & width, seamless in crossover transition) for 50% jazz and 50% Classical. This is new system building so open for amplifiers choice but leaning towards Transendent sound OTL. Please keep this discussion limited to these two speakers. Space limitation is making me sell my quads. Thanks.
celestial_audio
pubul57
3,712 posts
 
Arj, that sounds like a wonderful combo.
tabl10s's avatar
tabl10s
1,090 posts
 
'57,

How does the Pass compare to the Sonum?
pubul57
3,712 posts
 
One of the two has more flesh on the bone, I'll let you guess which one. If I had to own one with the Merlins it would be the Ars; obviously the Pass will sound great with wider range of speakers, but as great as it is, it is still not tubes if that is the type of sound you want - I do.
denvelle
26 posts
 
Sstalwar - I don't know of any Merlin dealers in Central Florida. I live in Deltona, which is probably more than a 100 miles from you, near the East Coast, but you're welcome to come over and listen to the VSM-MXe's if you're interested. I drive them with a Belles 150 Reference power amp, Bel Canto SEP2 tubed preamp with an inboard DAC2, and a McCormack UDP-1 CD player. So if you want to hear a fully tubed system, you'll have to bring your own amp :)

Cheers,
Denvelle
pubul57
3,712 posts
 
Denvelle, I've often heard that the Merlins work very well with Belles, did you ever compare them with a tube amp, or did you go straight to Belles when you got the speakers? Just curious, I would like to have an SS amp on hand that we makes magic with Merlins.
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