Ohm Walsh Micro Talls: who's actually heard 'em?

t8kc:  Not to worry, this is THE Ohm thread on Audiogon, and many people lurk in addition to posting.  I think you've made some excellent decisions.  The new 2.2000 will need a lot of break-in.  Be patient, and you will be richly rewarded.  John has made major improvements in the power-handling abilities of the Walsh line over the years.  For a week, I had a loaner pair of 500 wpc Arion Class D amps, the sound was great, and nothing blew up or launched itself from the speaker cabinets of my Walsh 2000s.  IIRC, Mapman uses 500 wpc Bel Cantos on his Ohms.

BTW, in the future, you can get local and international radio stations via the web using many different audio streamers and computers.  Cheap and easy.  I have a tuner in my system, but never use it any more.

The tuner+remote is 100% for the WAF.
I don’t think having a computer hooked up in our living room is going to pass muster.

I emailed John Strohbeen asking "how does one know if the speakers are over-driven?" and he answered this.

"The upgrade comes with a 3-Year Limited Parts & Labor warranty. If you blow them up and we consider it abuse, we will tell you; but still cover it under the warranty the first time. After that you will know how loud is too loud and we can discuss moving up to mode with a Walsh 3000 size driver. I normally only have this discussion after the damage in done; but since you did in your Walsh 2s..."

I really didn’t try to over do it with the volume control, but I like to hear the live concert-level sound. Also, some music really only sounds good when cranked-up. Additionally, I had read on this thread that the Walsh type speakers needed lots of power to sound their best. I provided the power, but...

Hopefully, I can restrain myself enough not to do more damage. The highest I went on the Parasound amp was -10db. I know this is probably a meaningless number as it is source dependent.

I am looking forward to the new drivers after reading all the positive reviews on them. I also am aware of the break-in issues so I will be patient.

I had original Walsh 2s from 1982-2008, a long time.

Once at an outdoor party I had them cranked to max off a high quality Tandberg 80 w/ch receiver.   No problems.   The music sounded loud and live in the adjacent field over 50 yards away.   With good quality amplification, I always considered all OHM Walshes about as indestructible as they come.   They still sounded great in 2008 though I never cranked them that loud probably and age will eventually do in anything.   Plus its always possible to blow up speakers if one goes to extremes too quickly or an unexpected accident happens.  Caution when testing the limits is always advised.   I've always found a lower power amp that clips sooner is more likely to cause speaker damage than a higher powered one that can go loud without strain.   In general I think teh OHM walshes are capable of going full range louder and clearer than most any other passive speaker in their price range.   So you will be in a very good place to start after the upgrade.  I am very confident of that.

Rather than a computer for streaming music, for WAF consider a tablet with digital output to external DAC perhaps. Or I find analog sound out from my newer Iphone 6 running good quality streaming software to be very good quality these days. I use Plex to stream from my music server mostly with my systems. Plex runs on browsers, tablets, phones, and various other common platforms. Other apps that stream from internet music sources do as well.

Applying just moderate caution, I’ve used teh 500 w/ch BEl Canto ref1000m amps with all my speakers, large and small, at all volumes with no issues.

My speakers range from tiny Realistic Minumus 7s on the deck to slightly larger Triangle Titus to slightly larger Dynaudio Contour 1.3 mkII to somewhat larger OHM 100s to my big OHM F5 series 3. Sounds great with all.

The rule is to experiment with high volume gradually, especially with more dynamic recordings. You are usually good. If you hear any signs of audible distortion, then back off until the cause is clear and addressed.

500 w/ch is probably overkill for the more efficient Triangle Titus speakers, but I think the power benefits all the others to some degree as well, though I could probably get by with less.

The big OHM F5s in my larger room are teh only ones where I think I might feel I was missing something. The smaller OHM 100s could probably get by fine in most intended rooms with a good clean 80 watts or so. Once I used 180w/ch TAD Hibachi amps in place of the BCs when they were out for service. They did great with the 100s in my 12X12 office room. The big F5s in my larger listening room did very good as well but they definitely ran out of gas a tad in comparison at some of the higher listening volumes I do in there.

Remember that power demands increase exponentially with volume so having extra power in reserve when needed is always a nice insurance policy at minimum I find.

Just to correct the record, when I asked to John S. on the phone, he theorized that the damage I did to the walsh 2s was to the voil coils and not the surrounds. Even though the speakers are over 30 years old, he said that the surrounds were probably ok as they are made of cloth and are durable.