Price Paid:  $0.00

Summary:
decided to recently sell my beautiful pair of refurbished Quad 57 ESL's. I have had a few pairs and have had a love affair with these speakers but the warmth began to grate on me after a few years. I always thought of my room as bright so I gravitated to warm speakers, Quads, Spendor, Harbeth. Once I sold the Quads I was not sure what to do. I did not want the speakers already mentioned and I had tried Martin Logans and Proacs and was not going back there although I really liked the Proacs. I did not know what to do but while cruising the Audiogon I saw a pair of Merlin VSM MMe speakers for sale very close to my house. I had never heard these speakers but I bought them and set them up in my room. What I heard just blew me away. I have always loved monitor speakers and these were the best I ever heard. Come to think of it these are the best speakers the I have ever heard. Anyone who thinks that the Quad 57 is the best ever has never heard Merlins. They far surpass the Quads in all areas. The sound is so clear. No added anything, just music. I now understand neutrality. I have some good equipment and use a Nottingham Dais turntable. I finally am hearing the real beauty of this table. The interesting thing is that I have not got all the cables matched up yet. I am using some old Goertz speaker cables. It sounds so good that I am afraid of messing with the system. I am using VTL TT 25 amps, Rogue 99 Magnum pre, the Nott. and a Cary 303/300 CD player. The Merlins have made this nice system really first class. This is one outstanding product.

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Price Paid:  $0.00

Summary:
These speakers arrived in February, so I am now about 6 months into them. I am still amazed by how they good they sound. I had on Cowboy Junkies ~ The Trinity Session the other night and was truly impressed. The depth, stage and presence was all there. I can spend a lot of time writing up a long review on how these speakers sound, but it will not say much more than what others have said about these speakers all ready. They are truly fantastic.

I will say that care needs to be taken in their setup. The first pair of Merlin Speakers I heard were the previous revision, a pair of VSM-MX. I'm not sure what it was but it sounded like the high and lows were coming from separate disjoint speakers. There was absolutely no cohesiveness with the sound. I pretty much discounted them until a while later when I heard another pair of VSM-MX. I was taken aback. I could not believe how good they sounded. I had a hard time believing that they were the same speaker. I attribute it to their setup and the room they were in, but it could have also been the equipment/cables driving them. Something was different and the second time around they sounded great.


The customer service from Merlin is top notch. You can call them up and talk with Bobby himself. If he does not answer the phone himself, he will soon be on it. His support does not stop at the speaker terminals. You can talk cables, amps, sources, music and so forth. Bobby wants you to get the best possible experience out of his speakers and your equipment and he will offer suggestions to get you there.


= = = Associated Equipment = = =

Marantz 7
Marantz 8
Joule Electra Ops-2 Mk4
Thorens TD-124

Price Paid:  $0.00

Summary:
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
After a year of ownership I am more delighted with my Merlin VSM-MXe loudspeakers than ever. One could easily spend more and be left wanting. These accurate, engaging, and high quality transducers form an excellent basis for a high end system and are enthusiastically recommended!

COMPLETE REVIEW
I’ve just finished a three year project to put together a two channel (stereo) sound system that could satisfy me for years or perhaps even decades to come. I must confess to no small relief at having achieved this goal. Only a maniacally obsessive music lover who can relate to optimizing each piece of audio hardware to the point of having every note of several different reference recordings etched into one’s brain from relentless and repetitious comparisons can appreciate the feeling of freedom that comes with disembarking from the merry-go-round. I believe that no system is identical to a live performance (I have attended hundreds and play a couple of instruments myself) any more than a television can fool a person into thinking that they are in the scene but the system I have now creates a very convincing illusion rich with satisfyingly accurate detail, texture, and dynamics that provide a sense of realism palpable enough to be eerie at times.

While every component influences audio character and quality it is perhaps the speakers that, more than any other single component, define how a system sounds. Conventional wisdom is to put your money into the speakers and amplification. Regarding amplification I’ve had the BEL 1001 MkV for three years now. I had owned about eight others previously and have never been tempted upgrade from BEL (though I did get a second one so I could run monoblocks which brought me from merely excellent to truly world class in that department). My three year quest spanned countless changes but began and ended with a speaker upgrade as the intervening upgrades had rendered my Vandersteen 2Ce Signatures (a great value in their price range) the weak link in the system.

I ordered a pair of Merlin VSM MXe’s after exhaustive research and a long conversation with designer Bobby Palkovic. I had just auditioned another pair of speakers in the same price range and found that they fell a little short of my expectations. Like many high quality durable goods the VSM’s were made to order and it took a couple of months for them to arrive. Though they sounded fine and detailed straight out of the box, thorough break-in required a good 200 hours. After that the bass in particular was fleshed out and tonal balance more satisfying.

Bass took on even greater weight and realism after upgrading from a very good FET/tube hybrid preamp to the excellent Joule Electra LA-150 MkII preamp. The bass output (quantity and quality) this speaker design achieves with a 6.5” driver and SBAM bass EQ module is astounding and will cause educated listeners to look for side-mounted drivers or even a subwoofer, but it will not rattle your teeth like a 12” or 15” woofer. What you get instead is refinement, elegance, delineation between instruments and voices, imaging, and sound stage that add up to an intriguing sense of sheer credibility that is, for lack of a better term, fascinating. It’s detailed yet smooth, intriguing but not fatiguing, entertaining and toe-tapping. Female vocals are silky and seductive, and various instruments including drums, piano, upright bass, acoustic guitar, brass and strings all seem to sound just right. Jazz, classical, acoustic, and female vocal music all sound very realistic, drawing the listener in to *feel* the emotion behind the performance. Of course with electronic/highly processed music or distorted rock and roll accuracy can be difficult to judge but even there the speaker's resolution and imaging are spellbinding. Vocal harmonies are not all melded together but actually sound like distinct voices (another nod to the fantastic BEL 1001 MkV monoblocks is due here). Listening to these speakers in my system is truly a remarkable experience. They are not inexpensive given the componentry but in my mind the physical implementation is only a means to an end; a five-way speaker system for the same price that has more bass but sounds less convincing is NOT a better deal than this outstanding two-way in my humble opinion and by my yardstick these are a great value.

Finally this review would not be complete without giving due credit to Bobby at Merlin for his relentless and tenacious efforts in optimizing the VSM design over the past 15 or so years, his contagious passion and enthusiasm for music and its proper rendering in reproduction, and last but not least the patient, generous, and responsive coaching and sharing of wisdom that I sought out and which was invaluable in choosing an efficient path in optimizing the system upstream of the speakers. We agree on at least 90 percent of what we have both auditioned and I am forever in his debt for his having spent long, tedious hours auditioning all sorts of components, tweaks, and ideas so that I will never have to and can enjoy listening to music instead!

= = = Associated Equipment = = =
Transport: Music Hall CD25.2 w/Underwood HiFi T-mod
Digital Cable: Cardas Lightning 15
DAC: Audio Aero Capitole SE (tube output)
Preamplifier: Joule Electra LA-150 MkII (tube)
Interconnect Cables: Brown Electronic Laboratories (BEL) The Wire P1
Amplifiers: BEL 1001 MkV (solid state)*
* I believe these to be among the best sounding amps ever made, period.
Speaker Cables: Audience Au24e
AC Cords: Audience PowerChord & PowerChord “e”
AC Power: Dedicated 20 amp circuit w/hospital grade receptacles
Vibration Control (internal): Herbie’s UltraSonic tube dampers on all tubes
Vibration Control (external): Symposium Ultra Platforms, Svelte Shelves, Rollerblock 2+ & Rollerblock Jr.

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Price Paid:  $0.00

Summary:
I’ve owned several versions of the Merlin VSM speaker. They have been the foundation of my system building the past 9 years. This past summer I exchanged battery in my BAM and switched to LF jumpers with great success. It was step one of my upgrade path to MXe. After a late summer trip back to the factory for the upgrade, the VSM MXe returned in September for extended burn in before evaluation.

The VSM MXe upgrade with LF BAM has been cooking in my system for 3 months and break in is complete. The Mxe is the most relaxed sounding speaker to grace my listening room ever. The soundstage is wider, fuller and taller. The drivers are seamlessly crossed and sound like a single source speaker. They are coherent, transparent and dynamic. High frequencies reach the stratosphere without any glare or etch. Bass is fuller sounding with excellent control and snap. The midrange is simply stunning. Strings and brass have the correct textures and bite. Female vocals have that “your there” experience that make listening so enjoyable. When you close your eyes, the MXe simply disappears.
The Merlin Mxe upgrade is yet another significant upgrade to helping me achieve the Absolute Sound in home music reproduction.
Current Rig

VSM MX
JE LA 150 mk 2
JE VZN 100 monos
AA Cap II SE
Wavelength Cosecant v3 Async Dac/Apple Itunes
VPI Super Scout Cardas pick up
Cardas GR wire, power cords, Elrods Sig 2 & 3
Sound Application PLC w/ Elrod Statement

Price Paid:  $0.00

Summary:
I just wanted to share a happy rant about my experience with a new pair of VSM MMe's. I've been into serious hi-fi (and a music lover) for many years and I just didn't think speakers could change a system this much.

There are no Merlin dealers over here and I originally came across VSMs back in 2004, when my boss (an American working in the UK) was planning to move back to the US and convinced me to buy his VSM SEs. I took a bit of persuading, as I loved my KEF Reference Model 2.2s. But the SEs were in a different league to my KEFs - shockingly un-coloured, much more detailed but sweet and very spacious with great soundstage.

In terms of making music sound like music, the SEs left my KEFs way behind. They played so much more of what was going on - atmosphere, space, emotion. And this was the first time I had ever heard bass that truly played tunes - remarkably deep for relatively small speakers and unfeasibly tight, fast and musical. So the VSM-SEs made music and I was hooked.

OK, back to the present. After reading a lot about how much VSMs had moved on since the SEs, I took the plunge and ordered a new pair of MMe's (MMe's rather than MMx's as I have solid state amps). When they arrived, I knew they would need burning in, but the difference over the old SEs was dramatic even in the first hour. Much bigger, weightier sound, wider, more detailed, and so, so sweet.

I now have well over 300 hours on the speakers and they have improved enormously on what I was hearing in the first week. I should add here that I listen to awide range of music: from classical through Jazz, singer-songwriter, folk, pop, electronic, dance, R&B and hip-hop.

The MMes seem to break all the rules by sounding breathtakingly detailed and airy, while also sounding incredibly sweet. If it's your thing, the soundstage is about 30% wider and much deeper. Now it's a believable place that's with you in the room, not just some impressive hi-fi artefact

You know that over-used hi-fi mag phrase about speakers disappearing? When the music plays, the MMe's really do just disappear. The music has nothing to do with the speakers - it's just there in the room. Wall to wall, 3-dimensional and palpable.

But it's what MME's do for music, rather than hi-fi, that really strikes me after living with them for a few weeks. Music I know well suddenly has a new piano line, plain as day. And it's not just any old piano line, but piano being played with incredible emotion that just wasn't there before. Same goes for a favourite vocal at the beginning of a song - now there's a second voice quietly harmonizing, and very beautifully. I always thought you had to change your front end to get these kinds of changes.

I've always loved listening to the voices of talented female singers and, where the SEs were already remarkable, the MMe's take texture, emotion and 'there-ness' to new levels. This is the kind of texture that is touchable and addictive.

I was told to expect deeper and more tuneful bass. It turns out this was a big understatement. Yes, the bass really is deeper, bigger, more tuneful and controlled than before, but now my system has rhythm and drive that it never had (I always thought my ageing CD player was the problem here). Suddenly, music makes sense as music - it all hangs together rhythmically and in every other way. It just sounds right and it makes you smile.

As for bass extension, there's a lot of talk online about a slight lack of weight at the bottom end. I'm probably using very different amps to most VSM owners, where fine valve amps are common. I use two big Meridian 557 amps running bridged mono and I guess they may play a part in this, with practically endless current and control. In my system the MMes go deeper than they should – very deep indeed and with absolute weight and conviction. This is all the scale I could want.

Strengths:
Supremely musical
Incredible delicacy and air
Remarkable detail, but always sweet

Weaknesses:
None at this price

Similar Products Used:
KEF Reference Model 2.2
Old Merlin VSM SEs
Various other high-end speakers over the years