Merlin Master TSM

[egidius]

Hi everyone; I am just a bit ashamed to post this here, as I never thought of items as "the best".
However, after using a small TSM monitor for some years, then changing to a "big" VSM Mxe speaker by Merlin Music, i have now switched to their most recent incarnation of the little speaker; I believe you could call it "the best".

I wonder, what their is to be said about other bookshelf speakers that are the best -
this one is certainly so selfconfident, it does not even need telling about it - sorry for trying to!!

Remarks welcome

 

[fas42]

As Tim would also say, a good bookshelf sized speaker can easily beat a larger beast, simply because the designer has less room to get things wrong. He's forced to use better performing drivers to get a wider range of the audio spectrum covered by each, far less wall panel to wobble and add sound to the mix, the speaker is far easier to lock rigidly in place in the room. The only real reason to have a big box is to get extra bass extension, and impress people!

As regards stabilising a speaker, that's something I take very seriously. The number of huge, very expensive speakers that I've listened to that offer no resistance to being nudged when you push on them lightly at the top, they haven't got a hope of delivering high quality sound at high volume levels ...

Frank

 

[egidius]

As regards stabilising a speaker, that's something I take very seriously. The number of huge, very expensive speakers that I've listened to that offer no resistance to being nudged when you push on them lightly at the top, they haven't got a hope of delivering high quality sound at high volume levels ...




Frank

Well, have you tried out the opposite? A friend of mine puts all his speakers on wobbly feet, so they can wobble freely in all four directions as well as up or down, and these speakers are so "liberated" in sound, quite unlike before, when they esposed a certain hard edge, and we are speaking Ambiance Reference speakers, really silky character, no Wilson or such..Egidius

 

[fas42]

Well, have you tried out the opposite? A friend of mine puts all his speakers on wobbly feet, so they can wobble freely in all four directions as well as up or down, and these speakers are so "liberated" in sound, quite unlike before, when they esposed a certain hard edge, and we are speaking Ambiance Reference speakers, really silky character, no Wilson or such..Egidius

My belief, reinforced over many, many years, with a diversity of experiments on numerous speakers in different situations is that the "certain hard edge" is there in nearly all speakers, but it's not the speakers' fault! What in fact had happened is that the speaker is now projecting a truer picture of what's in the electronic signal being fed to the speaker's terminals, by being locked down solidly in place.

How do I know this? Because everytime I have heard that hard edge, which I still do to this day, I have not touched and do not interfere with the speaker at all, unless I believe there is an internal problem, a bad connection, say. I start tweaking the electronics, and, voila, the problem is exposed as being in that area of things introducing the hard edge, which is really that dirty word, distortion.

So if I go for wobbly speakers, I will get sound which is very pleasant and soothing at low levels, but as soon as I turn up the wick pretty hard, it all becomes a bit of a mess -- not my cup of tea. So rather than blame the drivers or room, I go to the real heart of the problem, the rest of the system. The benefit of doing things this way is that you then get real dynamics, ability to go really loud, cleanly, and difficult recordings suddenly become musical adventures, in the best sense ...

Frank