Merlin TSM comparisons

Yes,

I worked part time in college at a Tech Hifi in Jersey and sold many speakers. The OHMs were my favorite and I sold many pair, more than any other line. I bought my Ls there back then and have never been able to part with them.

Trivia fact: John Strohbeen, current whizbang for OHM, was an owner of Tech Hifi and Tech Hifi and the OHM line were affiliated.

So technically I worked for John Stohbeen once but I did not know of him at the time and never met him.

John told me this in a phone conversation a couple years back when I was doing some upgrades to my OHM collection.

Mapman you are right there is a big price difference, but the is also a big difference in performance. Of course they offer very different designs and sounds so as always personal preference is the key and I gave mine. The person I sold the Micro Talls to is using them for fronts in a home theater system with the Ohm 2000's and he said there is a strong family resemblance. John from Ohm is a real gentleman and makes a very fine product, I could walk to his factory in ten minutes from my workplace and I wish him success as I do Bobby from Merlin because they are both fine gentleman who give great customer support and produce great products. Ohm and Merlin are two great American companies that are easy to root for.

I found the Ohms like power. My 85wpc Unison Research Unico sounded good, but my Thule IA252B 250wpc integrated sounded better. The Merlins like tubes and I prefer tubes, butI tried the TSM's with my Redgum RGI35 35wpc solid state amp and it sounded very good, but I still preferred my JWN 35 WPC EL34 push pull.

Guppy,

Yes, power and also importantly current.

I've found high power, high current separate amps to be best matches to the OHM Walshes rather than integrateds because it is very expensive to build a high power and current power source into an integrated without having negative effects on the overall sound due to proximity of low level circuits in teh pre to EMI fields generated, etc.

IcePower and OHMs are a match made in heaven that several on this site have latched onto, including me.

Prior to Icepower, the amp requriements to max out OHMs may have made them less cost effective in teh end compared to easier to drive designs, as I suspect the MErlins are. Icepower breaks down those barriers though some better Icepower amps, like the BCs in my rig, are still not cheap. WYred 4 Sound is probably the best value in IcePower to drive OHMs, especially if one is using a tube pre-amp.

There are a lot of snafus one can encounter in trying to piece together a top performing rig alone.

Merlin seems like a practical fast track to high end performance for many. The design seems well thought out to work well for most user with most available equipment and Bobby provides teh guidance and expertise when needed. That is a very effective combo!