Just to be clear as well, I certainly wasn't complaining about the wait at all, just having fun giving another Merlin owner a hard time telling him to wait his turn :-) I shoot Bobby an email every so often to follow-up but it's not a huge deal by any means.
I too wonder about solid state. I have a Fila and it's great. It's more that I'd like to try something a little cooler for the summer I suppose. I've mentioned Luxman before and would love to hear about that pairing. There is a recent review with Merlin and a class A Luxman integrated that was glowing, (the review not the amp), but I think that class A solid state wouldn't do much to provide a cool summer alternative. I guess one of the Luxman AB integrateds is what I'm most curious about.... Anyone?