Ohm Walsh F Hope of Resurrection

mapman, yes, I concur; this has been rapid testing, and comparison of same location for a quick read on the performance of the Ohm and the King Tower soundstage. The positioning had nothing to fix the inherent problems I discovered and addressed. I would presume that somewhat different location of these omni speakers might be optimal over time. 

The speaker now "breathes" as I imagined it could. The upper end of the spectrum is transformed. I had been thinking, "Well this stinks; these would need super-tweeters to save them," but the fact is, they wouldn't, not with the speaker in that condition. It wouldn't tighten up the bass, or truly balance the frequency spectrum. I wouldn't add anything to the resolution problem cased by the overstuffed cabinet.

The additional treble now is sufficient that they sound pretty well balanced. I would say they lean to the soft side of treble, but nowhere near the faint treble they had before moving half the foam down to the cross member of the cabinet. The driver was literally being suffocated by operating with a constrained air space. It literally had nowhere to push the air! One can imagine how that would dampen the materials of the cone! How can one get a natural ring to treble when back force is pushing on such light material? It's stunning to think that the design gave so little consideration to it, considering how basic and immutable the laws governing it. But it's easy to be an armchair critic of the past when assessing with half a century of tech development in culture. I am guessing it was seen as a brilliant move, along with the driver design. 

Soundstage has such a pervasive influence upon the listener. When approaching a new speaker, I try to actively assess, then lessen attention to the character of the soundstage, as fixating on it can cause someone to overlook issues with performance. I am happy that I used my experience to pick apart the performance, because it has led to this speaker being upgraded quite nicely. 

Music is a 3-d experience to various degrees live. When a 3-d soundstage is maximized as I have heard uniquely possible with omnis, it is possible to discern a lot of detail that may be lost in the congestion otherwise.

Different forms of detail with different genres. Omni wins in terms of scale, atomization of images, which can seem to be more info. It loses when it comes to image density and localization, which is a loss of info. 

Douglas, in the restoration, did they do anything to the 'putty' like stuff that's lining the inside surface of the titanium portion of the cone? I doubt they did that. If nothing was done, as it's difficult to do this, the sound will be audibly different from the original F.  

pch300, no, nothing was done to the "putty", as the drivers were in what I would all good shape in that regard. And, if something was done, it would be different from the original, anyway. Perhaps someone is using the original putty and can claim it's perfectly restored. If so, good for them. I believe moving into that aspect of a rebuild would have been a wild card, an unnecessary opening of a Pandora's box. I'm glad I had the wisdom to avoid that. 

I don't see how, apart from measurement or direct comparison of two sets, you can say, "...the sound will be audibly different from the original F," if the putty is not replaced. What data do you have to reach that conclusion? I would not accept perception without comparison for such a conclusion. If a person had two units with fundamentally different condition, build, then it would be logical to assume there to be potential for audibly different performance. But, I am not ready to accept uncritically the suggestion that aging has so altered the sound of the driver that it is audibly/distinctly different from the original, at least in this case where the putty is in quite good shape.

I would think the matters addressed, the spider and surround, to be monumentally more important to the character of the drivers, given that the "putty", frankly, it appears more to be like foam than putty. If it is putty, I suggest that the designer had more issues to resolve than I thought! When you have to put a putty on metal to tame it, you have some very serious resonance issues to contend with. Frankly, it's probably a miracle this driver worked halfway well at all, given the oddball materials and construction. 

Regardless, the speaker was languishing, and showing warts. I have resurrected it and transformed in a striking fashion its performance. So, in the end I care much less about whether the rebuild is true to original, and more about the absolute performance. Imo, I won big time on that front. The putty removal would have done little to address the pervasive mechanical issues of the foam and tighter airspace for movement of the driver. I'm not saying a re-putty could not engender better sound, but I'm content to conclude that these drivers with original putty in great condition are not significantly negatively impacted. 

Now, we'll see over time; if the putty begins to break off and fall into the speaker, turing the titanium portion into a dinner bell, well, then I didn't do so well! LOL  So, maybe I'll not blow them up but crack them up! We'll see, but in the meantime, I'm enjoying the refreshing changes.  :)