Why Merlins sound better then Sonus Faber

These are two very different house sounds - particularly if you're talking older SF. Anyone who thinks that one brand has it right might well be inclined to believe that the other has it wrong. I own both brands and believe that different recordings are better served by one or the other. On a very good quality recording on which bass extension, bass impact, and ultimate dynamics aren't critical, I'd actually agree with the OP that Merlin VSM is a "better" (obviously, my opinion only) speaker than my SF Cremona or my SF Minuettos. I certainly can't speak to other SF models.

Sadly, three quarters of my record collection doesn't completely satisfy that standard, so I mix 'n match. I own many records that I prefer to hear via my SF Cremonas and a few others that send best on the little Minuettos in my office. I'd add that the delta in sound between the Minuettos ( a tiny monitor) and the floorstanding Cremonas is, itself, quite significant.

If I only collected smallish scale, acoustic music that is very well recorded, I'd personally choose Merlin every time. Since my taste in music is more varied, then compromises are evident in either choice.

My take, anyway.

I love the Rolling Stones and the Beatles...or am I wrong?

Thanks all for the input! Is it true that SF are more transparent now. I know before they had a distinct warm sound as their signature basically. And no i am not a merlin dealer :). Just trying to figure out what to go with... SF i admit are dead drop gorgeous especially the new models.

The Merlin VSM is actually about the same price as the stave-constructed Sonus
Faber Olympica III. If you are looking at high performance 2-way towers, the
bargain in the bunch would be the Odyssey Lorelei, a 90-lb. 2-way that uses the same very expensive woofer as the Merlin, but is only $2700/pair. The second page of 6 Moons Audio's review of the Odyssey makes several comparisons
to the Merlin. I find this paragraph particularly enlightening concerning your original premise of accuracy vs. musical communication:

Compared to the even dearer Merlin? Thoughts on what a speaker should
accomplish would now diverge in opposite directions. Bobby Palkovich's (Merlin)
design is the quintessential and now evolutionary progression of a
recording studio monitor. Its key criteria are honesty and absolute transparency,
the twin poles of the mastering engineer's trade which, incidentally, has made
them very popular with certain writers as a reviewer's tool par excellence. Proac
and Sonus Faber designs -- and now the Lorelei model -- disagree with this
notion. Their designers don't believe that the home-based music lover needs a
ruthless microscope to sift through the molecular layers of the musical matrix.
Hence their creations favor the grande gesture over the minuscule, the overall
flow to the individual ripple. The Meadowlark Shearwater would fall somewhere
in-between these two camps. That first-order design was inherently leaner and
less overtly buff than the Lorelei - drier yet more pellucid.

So it's more a matter of listening goals and taste, not of superiority. I find SF
speakers to be seductive and captivating. They elicit a strong emotional
connection with the music, and for me, that's what I'm looking for when I play
music at home. At the same time, I completely understand if someone were to
prefer the Merlin. But since the Olympica III is the same price as the Merlin, I'm
willing to consider them of equal quality, if not in philosophy. However, I'd tend
to think that a $65,000 Sonus Faber would have noticeably superior dynamics,
bass extension, and room-filling power, even if the presentation were more
romantic than the Merlin.

Does Merlin offer a neutral floorstanding speaker with bass down to 40hz for $3500? The Venere 3.0 screams potential! I heard the 3.0 being pushed by a Integra 125w/ch HT amp, it sounded fine but I could hear the potential lurking. The SF Venere 3.0 is one of a handful of new "affordable" speakers that with careful component matching could create a near "SOTA" system at a very modest price point.