Modern Shahinian Obelisk

I own a pair of Hawks and would be more than happy to entertain folks at my home in Marin County, CA for an audition.
All invited. Just send me an email and we can make arrangements.

Also, I had a pair of Ohm Walsh 200s a few years ago. My Shahinians were in the factory at the time for updating. The Ohms seemed to me to have much of what I loved about the Shahinian sound, especially the expansive reproduction of large spaces and the cohesiveness of the image without any sense of gaps or discontinuity in the entire sound field. Thus, for example, when listening to a symphony orchestra in a hall one hears a very integrated and unified orchestra. Many speaker designs tend to appear to --just a bit--break up the solidity and continuity. In my limited experience, I have found omni- or poly-directional reproducers to be less prone to this distortion. To me, the two principal differences between what I am generally calling the Ohm sound as opposed to the Shahinian sound were fullness (maybe richness or roundness would be better terms?) and timbre. When I got my Hawks back, I did unblinded aide by side comparisons (the differences between transducers are usually large enough to be effectively apparent without the need for elaborate masking techniques) and found the Hawks to be 'better' in both ways. While, for instance, both did a good job of making a string section sound spatially substantial and integrated with the rest of the performing group, the Hawks (and, I believe, other Shahinian designs such as the Obelisks) provided the rich overtones and mid- and upper bass support that give massed strings their irresistible beauty. As for timbre, again the Ohms did not reach the level of overall accuracy (which includes solidity and complexity) attained by the Shahinians.
It is true that my Hawks 'come alive' best at higher volume.I do not know about the Obelisk IIs but from what I have heard (and experienced also with a set of older Obs I once had) Shahinians poly-directional designs all seem to benefit from good, high-current power.
As for bass, Shahinian's modified transmission line/passive radiator combo, used on all his more expensive designs, provides depth, power, explosiveness and detail which usually greatly impress auditioners experiencing them for the first time. Also, for electric bass (read: rock and roll) the sheer dynamism of this kind of bass is quite satisfying.

My invitation to interested sound hounds is open and serious. Come hear my Hawks.

Rp,

I'm curious if when comparing OHm and Shahinian if you found that each sounded best in a different location?

Omni/wide range speakers tend to be easy to set up for good results, but I find a fair amount of tweaking is needed to get the best results in each case, speaker by speaker, room by room, and the placement differences with omni or wide range speakers in the same room can be larger than usual since the dispersion patterns and associated SPLs at any particular listening location can vary greatly compared to more directional designs.

you'd be well advised to return them to the factory for updating as needed. it will not be inexpensive but should offer listening satisfaction. vasken shahinian will not change anything that does not need it. see their site for contact info.

"I'm curious if when comparing Ohm and Shahinian if you found that each sounded best in a different location?"

To be sure. But the differing physical configurations made direct comparison a bit more complex. The Hawks are modular, with a large bass module covering frequencies up to 250hz, which supports a multi-driver pyramidal box that is movable by itself to distant locations. I have found the treble clusters function best on stands out into the room five feet or so whereas the bass unit gets boomy and peaky out there and sounds best out from the back wall only about 2 feet. You can't do this sort of fine tuning, of course, with the Ohms or most other designs. As far as the Ohms, They preferred to be in more or less the same place as I put my woofers. Their bass definitely benefited from the corner support and the image and sound stage remained excellent and even wider with no hole in the middle to speak of at all (just like the Shahinians). These things are very room dependent, as you say.

By the way, to my ears the sound loses not a whit of coherence with this spatial separation of bass and treble. If anything, the sound opens up even more and the image appears even more free of the generating source. Do not forget, the Shahinian designs do not depend on phase coherence for their sound. I do not really understand the mechanics of the (quasi-)single driver used in the current Walsh designs but I can't imagine they are phase coherent either.

I find much to like about both designs, the Ohm and Shahinian. They obviously are more alike than not for many reasons. I do find my Obelisk to be more detailed and the ability to have a more dimensional layering of vocals and instruments, maybe even more 3-D? I also find the top end of the Obelisk to be a bit more present and realistic, some may tend to think of this as brightness. But I also thought at times my Walsh 3000's could sound a slight bit "dull" on the top end with triangles and cymbals.

Both speakers obviously do the wall-to-wall staging very well, but again I find the Obelisk to be a bit more fuller and dimensional. Ultimately this can come down to placing of each speaker, as my 3000 seemed to be smoother across the bandwidth being closer to the wall behind it than the Obelisk.

I do think both speakers to my ears do enjoy a more healthy dose of power/current from the amplfiers, pretty much an even thing here. I never thought either speaker was particularly great at playing lower volumes and retaining the detail or overall musicality-and that is my own thoughts, as I have heard many comment and say they felt both were good for listening at low levels. Just might be my own preference here.

Again my observations come from Ohm 3000 vs. the Obelisk, and really a better comparison price-wise would have been the Ohm 5000. But the good thing about Ohms is they all pretty much retain the overall "house sound" of Ohm across the range in my opinion.

In my room I do have a bit more trouble getting the bass right with the Obelisk than the Walsh, and am still playing with this aspect. One thing I did find the other day, was taking up a large area rug which is laying on laminate flooring over concrete slab, improved the bass on the Obs to no end. It did however also affect the upper registers making things a bit brighter and more live in the room. So more time to play and experiment here. The Ohm did not seem to be so picky in this regard. Again, room tuning is every bit as important as any box, cable or tweek in my opinion.

Rpfef-your comment on the mechanics etc. of the Walsh driver is a toughie, it always seems to open a bit of a can of worms at times. I have seen the insides of quite a few of the current CLS drivers that Ohm uses now, a bit of a difference from the "real" Walsh single driver of the A/F. Regardless, the CLS drivers do indeed work, and very well I might add. I will leave the phase coherency thought to others though. Also, thanks for the invite to listen to your Hawks, would love to, if I ever get out your way to sunny Cali, will look you up! Thanks too for your comments, again, rare to find many folks commenting on Shahinians, we should start up a new forum....

Map-good to hear from you, haven't heard much from you on the Ohm threads recently, I still watch from time to time. Hope all is well with you! Tim