Excerpt from the Las Vegas 1999 Standout Room Report

Standout Room: Merlin Music Systems, Joule Electra, Cardas Audio

Once again, the magical combination of Merlin speakers and Joule Electra OTL amplifiers have earned recognition as a Standout Room. Merlin and Joule Electra have been exhibiting together at the CES since SoundStage! first began covering the event. This year, the Merlin VSM-SEs with battery-powered BAM ($5950) were driven by Joule Electra VZN-100 Mk III Marquis OTL monoblocks ($9800 per pair). The preamp was also from Joule Electra, the LA-100 Mk III ($4095), and the digital source was the Resolution Audio CD-50 24-bit CD player. Cables were all from Cardas -- Golden Cross and Neutral Reference. As with previous shows, the sound was transparent, fast, clean and emotionally involving to the nth degree. SoundStager Ian White was the latest to applaud the synergistic combination of this equipment, saying that it had the kind of "immediacy" he liked.