Merlin Owner's...

Thanks for you rcomments, but I am going to have to sign off. My posts take hours to show up - it's just too difficult to discuss something in batch mode.

Way to go Bobby,
Keep recommending other vendors speakers to everyone. That should help my VSM-MX order move quickly up in the queue. ;-)
JB

baddabob, sorry this is not working for you and i really hope that you find what you are looking for. it is all about the music after all.
and jb, you are a humorous man, glad you are part of the family.
:-P
B

Thanks for your comments, Bobby. You're a classy guy. How does damping factor work? I get this sense that tubes and class A's have sloppy signal degradation so a properly made speaker will sense the point at which they should stop responding and do so before the end slowly arrives. Perhaps by relying on the signal curve slope. A high damping factor SS amp cuts the signal precisely so the speaker, essentially a signal slave, stops responding. Is this your understanding?

Baddabob,

I have had a pair of Merlin VSM-SE and VSM-M hooked up to a Bryston 4B-ST amp and, as Bobby said, it just was too damped in the bottem end. The Bryston worked wonderfully with previous speakers (Gershman Acoustics Avant Garde RX-20, Revel F-30, Paradigm Studio 60 v2) but just not with the Merlins. Sold the Bryston upon Bobby's and seemingly everyone else's recommendation and bought a used Belles 150A Hot Rod amp (~$700 US). Solid state, 125 WPC, MOSFET transistors.
Much better fit, and less money to boot!

From a fellow Canuck,

David