Leben integrated amps and Merlin VSM

i bought the berning from enjoythemusic, who at the time used the leben, which was the reason he sold the berning, which shows:

at the time he preferred the leben.

at a later time he tried to buy back the berning.

fwiw ;-)

I love these Merlin posts.I'm getting a little,not much tired of my Mcintosh stuff with them.They are timeless those speakers..........Berning and Leben,where's the justice?Where's the cash?Who killed Cock Robin........MC,Bob

i use the Leben CS600 with Merlin TSMs. They work pretty well together.

Egidius,
Seriously, the guy sold you his ZH-270 and then wanted to buy it back?! I wonder what flipped him. I would never sell my ZH-270 unless I was absolutely sure I preferred the new amp. I'm the one who generated this thread and I've since bought a sold two more amps, but I still have the ZH-270. I'm afraid my next move is to compare the ZH-270 to the new Berning ZH-230. And with regards to Leben CS-600, skip the integrated Lebens and listen to the CS-660P. I haven't heard the ZH-230 yet, but at this time I've narrowed my upgrade path to one of these two.

As for Usblues's comment, ones tastes can become more refine over time. I think it sort of depends on what you listen to and what you listen for. My musical tastes go in cycles depending on the season, but my love is mainly for acoustic guitar and jazz piano, and the piano is a difficult sound to reproduce very accurately IMO.

I recommend listening to a Leben before you buy -- I would guess that they will sound quite different. I used to own a Leben CS-300x and have had OTL amps in my system at the same time. The Leben sound is quite a bit different than the OTL sound (I know arguments that the ZH is not a true OTL amp). The Leben is warm and I believe a little wooly, while OTLs generally have a clean and open sound.