A review on the Merlin VSM GenII speakers By Wing Cheung
Published in AudioTechnique, #267, July 1995, Hong Kong
Translated by Tony Chow

Merlin VSM - A Scary Little Monitor

When I first heard of the Merlin VSM at the 94 SCES, I was overtaken by its most pure and real sonics, and extreme resolution and transparency. As a matter of fact, I asked the factory right away for a review sample. Towards the end of 1994, the VSM was in production, but my review sample was still no where in sight. Another couple of months went by and I dropped by the Merlin room again at the 95 WCES. The VSM was in fuller bloom with even better bass than before. Since then, I had been waiting desperately for my review pair to arrive. I almost gave up waiting. It wasn't until June of this year that it finally arrived. After a lengthy period of break in and positioning, the VSM is well conditioned, and I am ready to put down my findings on paper. The wait was very worthwhile, for the VSM is a truly outstanding little monitor speaker. My colleague Lincoln did some serious listening to this speaker six months ago, and has gone through many of the intricacies. It would be most interesting if I can write another in-depth review with him at a later date.

Perhaps it is a bit intriguing as to why designer Bobby Palkovic come out with the VSM. The VSM is priced inexpensively. The appearance is quite conventional. Whether by size or by price, it is substantially smaller than the Excalibur or Pendragon. But every time the conversation drifted to the VSM, Bobby could get very serious. As a matter of fact, sometimes the atmosphere could get so serious that it's almost suffocating. If you take everything at face value, you may think that he was saying that the VSM is the best speaker in the world, even better than the Excalibur! In actuality, often he was just having a grumble about all the difficulties encountered in bringing out the VSM, and the endless list of well-intended efforts that ordinary people never seem to be able to understand. That's why every time the conversation drifted towards the VSM and deepened, the more excited and agitated he became.

Design Principle

The VSM is a 2-way system and uses two of the best available drivers in the world. The tweeter is the 1" silk dome DynAudio Esotar D330. Perhaps it is debatable whether the Esotar D330 is the best sounding tweeter, but it is certainly the most expensive. So far, only several speakers in the world employ this expensive tweeter. For example the DynAudio Consequence, the Sonus Faber Extrema, and the Venture Avant Garde. To give you an appreciation of the DynAudio Esotar, in the States it is retailing for $460 a pair and the production quantity is merely 1000 pairs a year.

The mid-bass unit 's a 6-1/2" ScanSpeak 8545 paper cone woofer. This unit has a large magnetic structure. Don't be fooled by the mid-bass categorization, its excursion can reach 3/4", exceeding even many 8" units. The ScanSpeak 8545 is a brand new development. The same driver is used by Wilson Audio in the Generation 5 WATT. The new sound definitely raised a few eyebrows and Bobby repeatedly told me that his utilization of the ScanSpeak 8545 is superior to Wilson's.

Crossovers and other accessories are the best among high end audio. For instance the capacitors are made of metal foil polypropylene with multi-strand silver plated lead wires. Resistors are the extremely pricey Caddock TO220, a non-inductive metal film type (rated at 20W dissipation) best suited for high frequency crossovers. On top of that, there is Cardas wiring, Edison Price pure copper Music Post terminals, . . . etc.

The cabinet is made of high-density MDF. Front baffle is 1.5" thick, and the rest of the cabinet is 3/4". The bottom is reinforced with 5 layers of 3/4" MDF, and further mass loaded with 25 pounds of sand. The VSM cabinet is fairly compact, measuring only 8.6" wide x 10.5" deep and 42.8" tall. But moving it around is like carrying a boulder, thanks to its 80 plus pounds weight. One better be very careful when moving one of these around, an accidental drop on your foot would be a most treacherous experience.

VSM is plain in appearance. Finished in carbon black, rounded edges, it is completely lack of any "gimmicks". Even the 3 brass rods towards the lower part of the front baffle (3 shorter ones exist on the top too) were installed for tuning the cabinet rather than for the looks. If they had been gold plated, I think it would look more attractive. Bobby insisted that the VSM has the best components, best music reproduction, and a best appearance to let the VSM fade away from sight amidst the moving music performances. That is why he didn't want the VSM to be flashy. And besides if he dresses up the VSM, it probably would be selling for $5,000 instead of the $3,500 as it is now, budgeting it out for a lot of people.

What does VSM stand for ?

Bobby has never explained what VSM stands for. I jokingly asked him once if it stands for "Very Small Monitor"? He smiled and then told me seriously that VSM is actually short for Very Scary Monitor, a literally stunning monitor speaker.

Friendly Specifications

More often than not, small speakers are less efficient and are therefore more difficult to drive. For example, the legendary Rogers LS3/5A, and the fantastic sounding Totem Mani-2 both posted an efficiency of only 84dB. These speakers usually require costly high power amplifiers to get decent sound. Such tipping of the budgeting scale can cause excessive spending on amplifiers. In spite of that, small speakers generally cannot withstand very high driving power. Problems like limited excursion or deforming of the voice coil can be common.

TheVSM has unusually high efficiency. Even when driven with a 35Waudio Prism Debut (do not forget to switch the impedance to 8 ohms), sound pressure is already quite adequate. When driven by a power house like the Krell 300 watter, the VSM was equally at ease. Bass was even fuller and more solid. I was really impressed by this "tiny" Scanspeak woofer. In the VSM this 6.5" woofer is designed with a front radiating port. The plain compact cabinet is a disguise of the complex structure within. Aside from the mass loading chamber mentioned earlier, there is also a separate chamber for the tweeter, isolating it from the mid-low frequency bombardment, and serving as an anchor for the crossover components.

Knowing the extraordinary capability of this woofer, I suspected the air flow from the tuned port to be quite substantial. The swift air flow actually blew out a match at 3 feet away from the port during an experiment. Even at 5 feet away, my hair could still feel the air current brush by.

One night during the course of run-in, I put on a disc, the "CITY", that has quite a bit of bass. The 3rd track was the real test. I closed all the windows and doors to avoid causing nuisance to the neighbors. I cranked up the volume and the VSM sounded very respectable indeed, granted that it may not be as "effortless" as a well designed top-class 8" woofer system. My listening position was over 10 feet away from the speakers. On occasions, I felt a breeze brushing by my neck. I was the only one within that closed room at the middle of the night - where can the air current be coming from? It was hard to believe the VSM was causing that from that far away! I verified afterwards that it indeed was from the speakers - fascinating !

In terms of ease of driving, the VSM is definitely a friendly speaker. It is small, yet it poses a 90dB sensitivity, and capable of reaching 110dB SPL. Unless one is deaf, no one can withstand 110dB SPL for over ten seconds. The impedance stays between a low of 5.8 ohms (at low frequency) to a nominal of 8 ohms, thus explaining why even a low power amplifier can yield quite decent sounds from this speaker. On the other hand, the 300 watter would not stress this unit into over-excursion. This VSM seems to have an unfathomable power handing capability. It's completely lack of the common shortcomings of small monitors. This is an indisputable fact.

Speaker Placement

Correct positioning is important for any speakers, and the VSM is perhaps even more stringent. First of all, the factory recommends that you put in the German Acoustic Cones that comes with the speakers. One in the front and two in the rear. If the speaker is placed over carpet, the factory specifies that it may need 3 days for the cone feet to fully sink in. This is because initially the carpet may be pushing against the cone feet and affecting its coupling to the floor. Sounds convincing - a separate run-in for the cone feet anyone?

The factory has a very rigid recommendation for the placement of the speakers. The distance between the L & R speakers should be 6 - 8 feet. The speaker should be standing vertical or slightly tilting back. The rear to wall distance can be adjusted to allow for bass tuning, from 2.5 feet to 4.5 feet. The side wall distance should ideally have 3 feet or more. As a last note, the VSM does not like being toed-in. It should be faced flat towards front. If imaging seems a bit blurred, one can toe-in the speakers just very slightly. But this angle should be kept under 3 degrees.

Preparation for the Listening

According to Bobby, the VSM does not require extensive run-in, one week at most. But my experience is telling me otherwise. In the first 5 days, the mid-highs were overly powerful, seriously suppressing the bass. Though it was quite resolving, clean and quick, it was a bit fatiguing to listen to. A week of a run-in is the minimum. The woofer requires a lot of bottom end signals to loosen it up. After the first 7 days, the harshness is about half gone. It was more listenable but still not for very long.

I was told that this pair was already listened to by another reviewer for two months. It should have been fully run-in, except that the factory put in a new pair of woofers. Furthermore, vibrations during transit might also had some effects on the internal components. Bobby mentioned that the tweeter requires longer run-in than the woofer. Since this pair of speakers is already run-in, the overwhelming mid-highs must be coming from the new woofers!

During the course of run-in, I found that playing the vertical angle (tilting backwards) can have an interesting twist to the mid-high harshness. Tilting it backwards slightly seemed to alleviate the harshness. After over a month of running-in, the woofer was more or less tamed, and I could lower the vertical angle to get back the proper balance and high frequency resolution. My conclusion is that the vertical angle played a very crucial role in the ultimate performance of the VSM. This is worth paying attention to. Another interesting finding is that the VSM does not like to be driven in reverse polarity by amplifiers.

The last crucial factor is the toe-in. If the vertical angle determines the low-mid-high balance, then toe-in is the determinant for the focus - stage width and image size. If toe-in is excessive, the VSM can sound very unnatural. I suggest that if you do not perceive any blurriness in imaging, or no voids in the center stage, then you are better off letting the speakers radiate forward. Otherwise one or two degrees of toe-in may yield a higher degree of listening pleasure. At least that was true in my listening room.

When adjusting the toe-in or vertical angle, it would be useful to record the changes. Perfect balancing of the two speakers is important. The vertical setting can be aided with a bubble level, while the toe-in can be measured by an appropriate protractor. Since the VSM is such an accurate (and also a relatively picky) monitor, sloppy set-ups may cost you dearly in terms of final performance. Thus setting up the VSM properly is a most demanding procedure. For example, even an eighth of a turn on the front cone-feet would produce a noticeable difference in the mid-high balance. This is no exaggeration, it is a fact. When I mentioned this to Bobby, he was claiming that even a tenth of a turn would make a difference.

For a while, the rational side of myself was questioning if the difference of this one eighth or one tenth turn was real or psychological? I pulled out my trigonometry and finally realized that the key lies in the small foot-print of the speaker. If viewed from the side, the distance between the front and rear cone feet is only 8 inches. But the tweeter 's a full 3 feet from the ground. Thus even if the cone feet is raised a little, say a hundredth of an inch (approximately 0.3mm), about the thickness of a thin piece of cardboard, when multiplied by the height of the speaker, the tweeter will have moved backwards by almost l/16 of an inch. About 20 years ago, I witnessed Mark Levinson personally doing a demonstration of tweeter phasing at Excel. He moved the tweeter a mere 1/16 of an inch, and everybody present was amazed at the difference that made. In the following years, many speaker designers paid special attention to the mechanical alignment of the drivers. Even Merlin's own designs such as the Pendragon or the Excalibur adhered to such practice. In fact I asked Bobby why he didn't do the same thing for the VSM. He said that such alignment is dependent on the phase relationship between the drivers and the crossover network, and therefore not every design requires a staggered construction. This tilting back of the VSM is really a fine-tuning for the specific room acoustics, and not an oversight in the design.

The Real Listening

VSM is a speaker that requires a lot of careful set-up and extensive break-in. An initial run-in of 10 days is the bare minimum. A better break-in is at least a full month, though this is still much shorter than the 6 months needed for the Excalibur! The DynAudio Esotar requires the longest breaking-in, 4 weeks is a minimum. The Scanspeak woofer is pretty close to full condition after 2-1/2 weeks. There is a little trick I learned during the breaking in of the Scanspeak unit. By driving it with some heavy bass signals, the unit is fairly "relaxed" within 10 days. The bass changed from light to full, the mid's transformed from lackluster to mellow. But to really get the best out of this unit, with those refined layering, and seamless blending into the higher octaves, will require more training with good quality music signals. You have to feed it with more orchestral pieces if you want it to be seasoned "orchestrally", similarly for great vocals, you need to train it with more vocals, and so on so forth.

I am ready to make some general comments on the VSM sonics. The VSM's high frequency resolution is first rate. It is able to capture the tiniest of musical variations. Strings were perfectly reproduced. But such accurate highs require comparable equipment and careful matching, otherwise it may become unwieldy bright or unduly dull. Bottom line is that the VSM has some of the best highs that can only be found in the ten thousand dollar class of products. To bring out the best performance requires careful matching and attentive set-ups.

The mids have a good control, low coloration, and sense of high density - a sense of substance & impact. Fidelity is very high, imaging is extremely sharp and clear. The mids tend to be more rational than sensational.

The bass is a bit shy in the lowest octaves, say 40 Hz and below. I really cannot blame this on the 6-1/2" woofer, for the VSMs bass is already beyond my expectations. There are very few speakers of this size that can make me feel the air brushing by from 10 feet away. Even when driven by heavy duty electronics, like the Krell 30OS, never has it shown any sign of stress nor increase in distortion. This is simply an amazing unit. No wonder Merlin said they would not mind giving a 10 year warranty. In my room of 350 sq. ft, it demonstrated some of the most explosive low frequencies (a female visitor was literally shocked out of the seat during the playing of Battle Star Galactica from the Telarc "Time Warp" CD!), nothing short of impressive. No doubt, in the bass region and especially upper bass, the VSM is very dynamic and can be very explosive.

Aside from the flying highs, mids and lows, the sound stage presentation is very wide, almost as wide as the Excalibur. The depth is also impressive, though not to the same extent as the width. On another angle, the VSM can produce very clean and high SPLs. It turns out that VSM displays more of its merits at higher volume levels. By this I don't mean deafening levels, just appropriately higher, much like listening to live performances at 20 or 30 feet away. In fact, this is a not an uncommon phenomenon among speakers. The VSM belongs to this category, and so is the AR3a from way back.

In terms of being smooth and clean, the VSM is obviously an edge above the Excalibur. Resolution is superior, but in terms of equipment matching and set-up, the Excalibur is much easier to deal with, not picky. The VSM sounds a bit forward right now. I think this will be "corrected" when the sub-woofer comes out in the future. The VSM is still a small speaker in my room of 350 sq. ft, but it has some of the most stunning and impressive bass ever produced. Bass and upper bass is clearly outstanding, but still a bit shy on the deep bass. When I tried the VSM in a smaller room, a 12 x 15 study, the bass volume was clearly enhanced. In spite of that, I would like to hear it with the sub-woofer one day. I believe that would make the bass presentation even more convincing and effortless.

As it is now, the VSM maintains good focus even at complex and high sound levels. It can maintain good tonal balance for rooms up to 300 sq. ft. To go beyond that, it is better that you have a sub-woofer.

The VSM is a rational rather than emotional transducer. Any indulgence or sweetness is overwhelmed by a sense of rationalness. It is also keen at capturing the smallest musical variations, exposing every tiny detail. This is a speaker that places accuracy above everything else. If there is any problem within the system VSM will not hesitate the slightest to expose it. Complementing such characteristics, I would be inclined to select amps or cables that are on the mellower or sweet side for the VSM. Be careful that they are not merely sweet and low in resolution, otherwise the VSM will tell you that right away. In my set up, I used the EAD9000 Pro to drive the Krell 300S directly. The system was connected exclusively with NBS Pro Master cables. Sound was very neutral over a diversity of music programs. Only the upper highs showed a slight forwardness. After changing to the Cardas interconnects, this was improved, but at the expense of a slightly looser and slower bass. The trailing edge of the sounds seemed to be more attractive. If the Jadis 200 monoblock was used in place of the Krell 300S, then I think the sound would fit perfectly. As another contemplation, using the ALTIS Ultima Processor, driven through First Sound passive preamp, and using Krell 300S or Jadis 200 for power amplification, connected via NBS Pro Master, the final effect should be heavenly.

The above were my observations during lengthy listening. Basically, the placement and equipment and cable matching can have profound effect on VSM's performance. This is a quality small monitor that demands full attention. On the other hand, the VSM is fairly easy on amplifiers and is never difficult to drive. Its capability of handling large amounts of power is also impressive. During the high SPL sessions, I have always wished that the VSM had a bit more leeway in bass dynamics to complement its already outstanding performance. This is essential for larger listening rooms. Stage width is one of the strengths of the VSM. In contrast, stage depth, though quite acceptable, does not stand out as much. Its capability in capturing details is very high, fine, and noble. This may easily go awry if one is not careful in their set-up. Overall, the VSM delivers much more than its price indicates.

VSM

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