Speaker Asylum: REVIEW: Merlin Music Inc. TSM-M Speakers by cooper8168 General speaker questions for audio and home theater.

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This review was originally posted in the Speaker forum back in February. I didn't realize that there was a "Reviews" section at the time, so I am re-posting this review. I will make one additional comment: I am more and more pleased with these speakers every day that I use them. I recently paired them with the model B-20 stereo subwoofer from Vergence Technologies (formerly NHT Pro), and can only say that if you are looking for a subwoofer that niceley compliments the TSM without being too slow, look no further than the B-20. Here is the original review:

I am in the music business. I record and mix albums and film scores for a living. If you care
about what I’ve done, please visit my web site at www.chrisfogel.com. It’s a great job, but
every so often I get to a point that, after listening to music for 16 hours straight in the
studio, the last thing I want to do is listen to even more music at home. As a result, I have
a huge book collection and a pretty killer home theater system.

I recently decided that one of the reasons behind my disdain for casual listening was that I
didn’t like the monitors I was using in the studio. After a number of hours, my ears would
become tired and close up. I listen at moderate levels; never more than 100dB SPL and
usually at about 85dB SPL, which is the level at which my studio monitors are tuned. For
reference, normal speech is about 60dB SPL, so obviously I don’t listen all that loud. Still,
at the end of a long day, my ears would close up, and in order for me to hear anything when I
got home, I had to turn the volume way up. When I’m working on a film, I usually don’t get
home until about midnight, so my girlfriend obviously wouldn’t be too pleased if I busted out
Radiohead at 110dB while she was in the middle of a dream about Bora Bora.

During a recent break between projects, I decided to start experimenting with different
bookshelf-sized monitors, also known as near-field monitors. I tried them all: Dynaudio,
PMC, Joseph, Spendor, B&W and Genelec, just to name a few. I wanted to see if mixing on
these monitors was less fatiguing over many hours, thus increasing the likelihood that I
would listen to more music at home. To my surprise, almost all of them greatly reduced ear
fatigue, so my hunch was correct. This was in January, so I happily jumped in my car and
drove to Las Vegas to check out even more speakers at CES. My hope was to find a
speaker that I could audition at home for a few weeks and then, if all went well, take that
speaker into the studio and run it through its paces. I was all set on going with one of the
Spendor monitors until a friend told me to check out the Merlin booth. I did, and was
knocked out at what I heard.

The Merlin TSM-M is a bookshelf-sized monitor consisting of a 6.25" pulp-cone woofer and
a 1" silk-dome tweeter. The speaker is a sealed enclosure and utilizes internal wiring from
Cardas. Merlin shared a booth with Joule-Electra at CES, so the system I initially heard was
powered by tube amplification, of which I am not a fan. However, the TSM’s depth and timing
were extraordinary, even in the hotel room where I first heard them. I went home and
immediately sent Bobby Palkovic, president and founder of Merlin Music Systems, an email.
Since this review has already run way over budget, I’ll just tell you that about two weeks
later I took delivery of a pair of Merlin TSM-M’s that were hand-made by Bobby himself.

I’ve had my TSM’s for about two weeks now, and I love them more and more every day.
Since my next project was pushed back another two weeks (lawyers!), I still have the
Merlin’s set up at home powered by a Simaudio I-5 integrated amplifier fed from a Rega
Planet 2000 CD player. Cabling is Audioquest throughout, and power is conditioned by a
Monster PowerCenter HTS3500.

The Merlin’s imaging is absolutely perfect, and while the speakers are only rated down to
55hz, the 10dB down point is 35hz, so they seem to go much deeper. On Radiohead’s "Kid
A", the relationship between synths and voice on the first two tracks is excellent – the best
I’ve heard. The analog synthesizers on "Kid A" sound like they are coming from a church
behind the speakers and the percussion sounds like it was played in my lap. On
"Idioteque", I feel like I can reach out and touch the ring-modulated keyboard in the intro.
The drums have a great snap and are punchy enough that I can actually hear the
compression used on them in the mix. And on "Morning Bell", Thom Yorke’s vocal sounds
like he’s sitting in the room with me. On a similar record, Massive Attack’s "Mezzanine", I’m
hearing so many sounds and effects that I never heard before that I feel like I’m
experiencing the record for the first time. These speakers are great on this kind of music.

Next, I listened to the Beethoven String Quartets as recorded by the Emerson String
Quartet. My cousin is one of the violinist’s in this 6-time Grammy-winning ensemble (two of
those coming last night!), so I have become intimate with this excellent CD set. To me, the
hardest thing for a speaker to get right on this kind of music is the relationship between the
violins and viola, but the Merlin pulls it off flawlessly. Granted, this also has a lot to do with
the Rega CD player, but a speaker can very easily cloud the middle, thus making it difficult
to pick out the subtle nuances of each instrument. I have yet to hear a so-called
"professional" monitor get this relationship right, but the Merlin TSM-M does it effortlessly.

Finally, I listened to some of my own recordings on the TSM’s. Sadly, I realized that I wasn’t
a very good engineer when I listened to Alanis Morissette’s "Jagged Little Pill". Where’s the
bass? Where’s the depth? Where’s the width? Oh well, at least it sold a boatload of copies. I
guess the lesson to be learned here is that the Merlin’s will make a bad recording sound
worse. Next, I listened to Robbie Robertson’s "Contact from the Underworld of Redboy" (for
which I received a Grammy nomination in 1998). That’s better! The presentation was
exactly as I remember it in the studio, and the vocal even sounds better to me on the TSM
than it did on my $6000 Genelecs! Excellent! Now I know that, thankfully, I’ve become a
better engineer over the years. Lastly, a quick listen to my reference CD from the "Charlie’s
Angels" score proved that the TSM’s are one of the most dynamic speakers I have ever
heard.

In conclusion, the Merlin TSM-M is one of the most detailed and balanced speakers that I
have ever heard, regardless of size. It’s soundstage is enormous, and paired with the right
amplifier, has a depth that must be heard to be believed for a speaker of this size. I will say
that I don’t think I could have done any better than choosing the Simaudio I-5 for
amplification. It’s a wonderful amplifier and is almost a perfect match for the Merlin, in my
opinion. Thanks go to Bobby for making me enjoy listening to music at home again. Now if
the lawyers will just work out their wrangling, I can get the TSM’s into the studio.

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Sonic Craft

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