Color me skeptical for what little it’s worth.
I owned VSM Mxe for a few years and thought they were fantastic speakers. I never found them to be forward or bright. I did find them to be very revealing and sensitive to equipment matching but that was one of their biggest attributes and not a weakness. I didn’t always run them with tubes, they were sweet with Moon gear, not so much with a big Krell FPB 700 that a friend brought over. Even a lowly Cambridge Audio 850 integrated amp sounded wonderful (that’s a real underrated amp by the way).
I didn’t use the Master BAM module exclusively with the VSM, I felt on most types of music it really wasn’t necessary, but it worked well with other music where low bass was more of a feature.
This was a well reviewed speaker and mostly loved by people who own it, hence the reason for it being quite rare on the used markets, I think. If you want to make it “better”… well, good luck.
I had to sell my floorstanders when I moved south a few years ago but I’m now using the stand-mounted Black Magic Edition speakers, which share a similar design principle and similar components to yours. These speakers are among the most detailed, transparent, and musically engaging I’ve owned over the years and I’ve owned a few.
I ran them for a little while with the Ars Sonum Filarmonia, which is a 30 watt E34L design and one of the amps recommended by the late owner of the company Bobby Palkovic. It sounds a little too sweet and relaxed for my tastes so I’ve just replaced it with a pair of Audio Mirror SET45 monoblocks which use the 6C33C tube and they sound bloody marvelous with the little TSM BME. I wish I had owned these amps when I had my VSMs back in the day.
Anyway, my point is that Merlin speakers can and do sound fantastic when set up properly and paired with the right equipment, which IME is a prerequisite for ANY high-end speakers, regardless. If modifying the crossover can make them sound even better then I say hats off to you for trying, but let’s keep it real when describing the originals.
For those stumbling on this thread as I did, it’s worth mentioning that Merlin speakers are still serviced and supported by Rick Brkich of Signature Sound in NY. I bought a new driver from Rick and a brand new Master series RC network, and he’s a good guy to deal with. He was a close friend of the owner and designer Bobby P, before he passed away I believe in 2015.
Good luck keeping the brand alive in some sense and I hope your project ends in success.
Rooze
