solid state amp for merlin tsm's ?

I had a friend over last night and we did an a/b comparison of the Merlins with and without the RC network. We started with it on, and they sounded great, and we were both fully prepared for there to be little or no noticeable difference when we took them off, but we were both struck hard by the difference. Without the RC network, vocals had a little more air, there was more separation of sounds and instruments, particularly in complex passages with a lot going on, but the biggest difference was a significant increase in the bass.

I would highly recommend that all Merlin owners try their speakers with and without the RC network, but particularly those who have amps that terminate with a Zobel network. The difference was far more than I expected, and the speakers now sound even more amazing than they did before!

Dazz,

Your findings do not surprise me. I would expect the BC amps to have no problem handling the natural impedance curve of the Merlins. No additional tweaking of the impedance matching between amp and speakers should be needed.

Your findings correlate to what I have found using BC ref1000m amps with various speakers of similar design. The BCs lean towards the leaner side of things when presented a fairly benign impedance curve but bring out the best in speakers that are more of a challenge by design, which is the case with many popular smaller designs that also have good low end extension capabilities these days, like Merlin. You just have to throw the kitchen sink at them power and current-wise to enable them to do their thing to the max.

The efficiency of Class D in general allows that to happen these days in a much more compact and hopefully affordable package than is possible otherwise.

Bobby, I would love your 2 cents. Or even a nickel's worth if you're willing.

dazz ok, an rc network is a resistor capacitor network. in my case the rc filters above 1.6 mghz to reduce rfi and emi. perfect for city use due to radio stations and high power lines. the network also applies a 10 ohm load at 100 khz. all speakers become more of an open circuit the higher they go in frequency (unless they use a similar network or the amp is terminated with a zobel) the amplifier sounds strained, resonant in the hf and far from the best it can because it is, unstable. using a termination or hf load will settle it down so it can sound its best. if your amp is terminated with a zobel on its output, do not use the rc. if it is un-terminated, then use it. if you use my rc with a terminated amp (depending on the freq of termination and amount of impedance applied), you may hear a resonant top end. two filters in one circuit with inductance (speaker wire) between them makes a tank or hf resonating circuit. no harm will come to the amp but the sound will suffer. this resonance will stick out in portions of the bandwidth and may un-weight the sound. that is why you heard more bass without the rc.
this device does not alter the impedance of the speaker within its audible bandwidth and it matters not, if you use tubes or ss.
best, b@merlin