How do the Merlin TSM compare to other speakers

Sorry to hear about your loss, Bobby. Hope that your wife & you find the strength to cope with it.

I'm not a Merlin owner but I feel that I own a speaker that has a similar signature to the Merlin & possibly uses the same or similar tweeter.

With a high Q speaker, a high damping factor power amp is not needed - I can see this. However, why does it hurt to have a high damping factor power amp driving the Merlins? Electrically, the lower the o/p impedance of a voltage source (power amp) the better (as it tends towards ideal). The lower the sum of amp o/p impedance + speaker wire impedance, the better the bass response should be.

or so you'd think but i have found that multiples of output tubes while reducing the output impedance tends to damp the bass more so. i prefer the tonality and presentation of amps with fewer output tubes and higher output impedances. control and tonal balance are two very different things and on a speaker like the vsm you can hear the difference very easily.

bombaywalla, thank you and thanks to the rest of you too.
b

Bobby

Truely sorry about your father in law.

Can you please explain the above in terms of ss output amps.What would the optimal damping factor be from a ss amp as a match for Merlin ? Would that differ from the TSM and VSMs ? Would that also differ between the MM and MX models ?

Chris

the tsm is less damped than the vsm and the mm version of each is less damped than the mx version of each.
as far as a specific damping factor that is most ideal, that is impossible to say because i have heard amps with low damping factors that are tonally challanged and over damped in the bass and other amps with high damping facors that sound lush, relaxed and complete. go figure. sorry chris but i can't give you the magic equation, wish i could but i can't.
all i can tell you is that i think that a speaker should control the noise, distortion and color so when you turn up the volume you you get louder music and not an increased level of the items mentioned earlier. damped speakers are a good thing imho and all we need to do is find a relaxed complete sounding amp to make them work their best.
b

Ach! Intuitively I can see (perhaps) what might be going on: high Q speaker + high damping factor power amp => too much of a good thing in that the amp is great at controlling the woofer that has already been damped by the speaker cabinet. So, I can see how this reduces the bass - the woofer excursion is curtailed very quickly by the low impedance of the amp.
By having a higher o/p impedance in the power amp, only the speaker cabinet controls the woofer excursion as the power amp is "sloppier" in this dept.

No wonder then that the Berning ZH270 sounds best w/ the Merlins w/ its feedback at the "low" setting, which creates a higher o/p impedance & a lower damping factor vs. the other 2 settings.