I've got the 1 plus 1s and love them

I bought a used Spectral Preamp from your father when he had a store on Alexander Street:)

@@alexhanna3921 You are a dark and unpleasant person. Go back your mom's basement and leave the discussion to adults.

@@alexhanna3921 Who hurt you?

How is it not relevant? He said his dad helped Palkovic start Merlin. That's literally saying his dad helped the founder of the speaker brand that is the focus in the video.@@alexhanna3921

Own it... LOVE it. I design and build power amps, the speakers are so truthful, used to evaluate my builds and careful build comparisons, and component (parts) selection. I trust this tweeter.

Give SC Revelator and/or Ellipticor a listen, prefer the former myself, but the latter has that kind of silky smooth, yet painfully revealing nature.

I like the Belisma T25B.

@@paulb4661 Scan Speak you mean

@@luisrodriguez8639 Indeed, one obviously cannot reliably compare, unless having them next to one other, but the general impression of unconditional clarity is certainly similar.

mixed feelings about kapton formers 🔕

Bravo….May the truth be spoken

For some people, poorly measuring speakers are not enjoyable. Do you sing one note much louder than the other when it's not a strain or climatic part of the song?

@@RennieAsh if really bad speakers like some of those old 8 track systems yes that's a draw back

@@RennieAsh yes I do I have a certain range that I'm louder but only use it in crescendo when needed

Likewise, I really enjoy listening to music, but listening to a speaker with ringing issues, cabinet resonances, amplitude problems, smeared sound, etc, is like trying to play a piano that is out of tune and missing some keys. The measurements are tools used to see what we will hear.

The part regarding x-overs would be true, if you were dealing with non-reactive loads.

@@paulb4661 what part about the crossovers do you refer?

@@daleboylen6427 Just that the drivers would be 180 out at fg, if they were 0 to start with, which is not necessarily the case.

@@paulb4661 Yes, I realize the drivers in many (most) speaker systems do not start/stop at the same time.

They aren't suckers if they think the speakers sound good. That's all that matters.

They sound great I've heard them

They're not necessarily suckers. Try not to be a jerk. A lot of people (likely most) will choose speakers based on how they look and/or sound, or maybe based on price or a bunch of other things. They're not all audio engineers. I bought home theatre speakers that didn't sound all that great, but because they were build out of alloy with metal grills... I had a 3 year old son. They needed to be bullet proof.

@@toby9999 Exactly right. There are dozens of reasons why people choose speakers, and as I've said, if it sounds good to them, who am I to judge? Just because someone on KZfaq says they suck is kind of irrelevant.

At the same time, sometimes you can get something that's better without the high cost. But applies more to cables and even dare I say overly boutique crossover components. Speakers are usually the biggest differentiator

Or just get pro audio monitors, which are no-nonsense.

@@abbobergExpensive though.

Agreed. I've put most of the money towards good matching drivers which are easy to cross so no notch filters needed and sound smooth as butter. The 50 ltr boxes are just some 18mm beech multiplex board with bracing, nothing special but it still sounds great! Another set with 22mm MDF and 2mm oak veneer sounds just as good. That base driver in the video, if you look at the impedance plot with the peak around 900hz tells me the base driver is at resonance there. This speaker shouldn't be used in a 2 ways system, 3 way would be more appropriate and crossing it at 200-500hz with the mid range driver.

@@imqqmi It depends on how much you want to spend, but pro monitors are easily the most bang for your buck . If your time has no value, then DIY is "cheaper". I spent 60 hours on my GR-Research upgrade. Was it worth it? Well, the B&Ws were clearly taken to a whole new level, sound-wise. But those small speakers didn't sound good enough to replace my non-WAF vintage speakers that were 4X bigger. Had I purchased, and upgraded, larger speakers, then probably, but I just don't have time to be messing with this stuff anymore with a baby in the house and working full time. I ended up getting the Adam Audio S3V monitors for my living room system and gave my large vintage speakers to my son. These Adams were $4500 per pair (a "no box" deal from Guitar Center). I don't see ever needing an upgrade from here. These speakers are phenomenal.

DIY speakers, only way to go.

Amen bro Danny personally upgraded my crossovers ,but the mod was more for the newer post COVID tweeters which luckily I had a set and installed,after listening a few days with older T26 the improvement is awesome Thanks so much Danny

Seriously think these speakers are in my future... Dannys efforts are exemplary. I trust him.

Cool! I've owned 2 pairs of Merlin TSM speakers. That will be interesting to see what Danny thinks of them.

Gotta stay tuned for this. Also love my TSM's for nearfield studio but always wondered what they would do with like a Totem-esque phase response/room dispersion or whatever Danny would come up with. Morel drivers seem to have smoother response for starters.

It is.

Highly regarded? I doubt it.

@@ikarus30449 Google Silverline speakers.

It’s a Dynaudio T330-D Esotar.

The Dynaudio Esotar T330-D is a very highly regarded tweeter.

You know what they say about big magnets! 🙂 Seriously, I have owned Merlin TSMs since 2004 and have never been disappointed with them. As Danny is reviewing the floor-standing VSMs, it may be comparing oranges and apples, but I haven't heard the "ringing" he makes reference to.

@@JonEckleben Look for Danny's video about the Eggleston Works Fontaine speaker. I believe it uses the same driver. I own that speaker and have owned 2 pairs of Merlin TSMs. If Danny is sent a pair of TSM, I suspect he is going to find a ringing issue. I was disappointed with the Morel and it was touch to correct. We'll see...

Imagine Danny's *previously used* part bins...

It is.

It is indeed the unforgettable D330!

Only if someone sends one in.

@@dannyrichie9743 ok, here’s hoping. If I lived in Texas, I would send to u for sure.

@@1moderntalking1 We have looked at a few of their models. Here is one of them: kzfaq.info/get/bejne/aZqKf7J-08qmmoE.htmlsi=Dc9kppXwibYT5yvT

The first step was optimizing the response of each of the drivers. Both had rough responses. The woofer needed a significant notch filter to get rid of the peak. The tweeter needed a tricky circuit to get rid of a dip and knee at the bottom of its response curve. I think look at impedance, spectral decays, and vertical off axis response to check time alignment. The parts planed have a well known and proven effect, and they take clarity, and detail levels well beyond the twenty year old parts used back in the day. So I know there will be big improvements in imaging, sound stage layering, depth, etc. from the preservation of the input signal. We then did a little mono listening with the crossover clipped together to get a feel for balance and off axis listening. As per what I said in the video, a little tweaking was done in that regard. It is also a given that it will sound even better when everything in hard wired. The results on this one will be very impressive.

@@dannyrichie9743 Thank you for the additional info.

I have not heard them.

If you look Danny has similar more expensive caps. available in his up grades

I realize that, he used them here.

There are a lot of factors to have to consider beyond just the response in a given cabinet. It would not be easy.

I have not worked on one.

I would really like to heard the Prelude Plus one day.

Email me at info@gr-research.com

Our phone number is in the video description, plus we have contact info on our website.

I own this Merlin VSM and dug into this exact thing with The Speaker Exchange in Tampa. Their opinion was that if the tweeter was not exposed to harsh elements and it if did not have a large amount of power put them thru over an extended period of time, there were nothing to worry about. I also brought this us with Danny and Hobbs and neither of them had concerns. I think fluid in poor condition would affect the extended output of the tweeter. The tweeter tested doesn't appear to have any issues.

Bass Augmentation Module

First: If you like your speakers, just enjoy them. Don't upgrade, don't worry about measurements, or any of that stuff. On the other hand, everything can be "upgraded". Whether or not you like the result is entirely up to your ears. Don't denigrate someone else, just because you don't believe what is presented.

@@obijuan8466 Agree mostly, but to be fair, isn't that part of Danny's vibe - denigrating name brand speakers? Or is 'cheesy' a compliment?

So they sounded just fine until they got a bad review? Sounds to me like you are easily persuaded. That's going to cost you dearly.

@@edgarortiz4681 Ha.... i think he's being sarcastic. Sometimes that doesn't translate well in a comment. 😆

My 1991 Mustang 5.0 ran just fine and I was able to bring it to a stop when coming up to a red light. And it did get me from point A to B. But it was just a Fairmont underneath, and a parts bin car. It had Pinto drum brakes in the rear. At that time, it looked and sounded bad ass. However, when pushed a bit its shortcomings very quickly manifested themselves, and the car I absolutely loved when I first drove it home from the dealership lost its luster in very short order. Thousands of dollars later, and a complete upgrade to the entire drivetrain, it was the car it should have been when it rolled off the assembly line. Ford could have (and finally did) built it right from the very start as all of the parts were readily available in the Ford Motorsport catalog. We audiophiles have fallen for the hype and the shiny new body work. But dive a little deeper like Danny does, and you see the cheapness inside, the "built to a price point" mentality even the most revered speaker companies seem to have. I can enjoy music on an old transistor radio and did for years. But I know what a world class orchestra sounds like in a state of the art symphony hall, and replicating that sound in a home environment is all but impossible. So, we spend our money trying to get as close as we can while expecting all of the manufacturers of the various parts and pieces we need to get to that point to give us their best stuff. Ford used cheesy parts on my Mustang so they could make an extra buck or two. I can understand them doing that on the base four cylinder model, but not on the GT or LX V-8s. The same holds true for stereo speakers. I expect compromises of budget speakers. But when I shell out ten grand for a pair of speakers, I expect the good stuff inside and out. And I expect them to reproduce sound in an exceptional way. I expect Danny to open them up and say, "Well, there's nothing I can do here, they are as good as they can be." Unfortunately, that's almost never the case. And that's a problem.

See tube connectors: gr-research.com/product/electra-cable-tube-connectors/ There is a video on them there too.

You mean first order 😁

Why buy a $500k Bentley when a $5k Chineesium delivered on a pallet will do the basic A to B. Which would you rather travel in

@@st170ishNot a good analogy and im a car guy who drives a tuned BMW with a B58 so a car is more than just an appliance for me as well... Im not saying why buy a soundbar what im saying is the law of diminishing returns kicks in at some point.. I run ADS L910s from Apt Holman preamp stage 3 by Audioproz feeding two hafler amps in mono. So its not like I dont like good sound, but there comes a point where it starts to get a little ridiculous even for people who love audio.

​@@quiksr20 You are making a silly assumption that people who like to try to get the best sound out of their HiFi don't do it for the music. People who care this much about 2 channel music are probably people who are emotionally moved by music more than the average person, and great HiFi sound takes that experience to the next level. It's like saying people who tune their BMWs only like trying to show off from a stoplight and don't enjoy driving on a nice twisty back road...of course that would be a silly assumption.

@@adamfrost9048First of all I like your profile pic I drive a tuned BMW with a B58 and also own an E30 & E36.. Im not saying my soundbar sounds fine what im saying is the law of diminishing returns kicks in at some point.. I run ADS L910s from Apt Holman preamp stage 3 by Audioproz feeding two hafler amps in mono. So its not like I dont like good sound, but there comes a point where it starts to get a little ridiculous even for people who love audio.

@@quiksr20 yes you are correct there is a point of diminishing returns, being a hobbyist speaker builder its pretty easy to recognise that point 😅 That point a lot audiophile's miss is the crossover, Danny gets these upgrades to that point and any more get ridiculous... hence his analogy to flat earthers.