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

Winegasman, This is another interesting comparison! Once I heard time coherent speakers, I had a tough time going back to most dynamic speakers. I listened to Meadowlarks and Vandersteens, and I liked how the music spilled into the room, drawing me in, instead of being fired at my ears. But like you said, the sweet spot can be small. The Ohms remind me of time coherent speakers, but with a sweet spot that allows more than one person to listen.

Rebbi wrote:

"Have you played around much with the positioning of your Ohm's? I'm wondering if you've noticed the changes in tonal balance and imaging specificity that I have, in response to changing the speaker-to-speaker spread distance.

Also your room isn't that much larger than mine. Do you find the 100's to be well suited to that room? I thought that the bass out of the 100's might be too heavy for a room that size."
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Positioning -- I spoke to John at Ohm about this too -- he said rotate the speakers from tweeters facing straight ahead (inner edge of speaker is then facing straight ahead) to tweeters facing each other (outer edge of speakers facing straight ahead), and listen for most preferred highs. He also said to experiment with distance from rear wall -- the speakers do well when close to the rear wall, but can benefit from some air behind them. (By the way, the lighter weight of the Ohms, compared to the GMAs, makes this experimentation much easier; the GMAs, heavy and on spikes, are tough to rotate.) Here's what I've come up with so far:

when sitting in old sweet spot, critically listening, I have the speakers pointed so the tweeters are crossing at about where my head is. I also bring the speakers out about an extra foot from the rear wall -- their resting position is about 14 inches from rear wall, so for full-attention listening they're just over 2 feet from rear wall. That extra foot really deepens the soundstage. I wonder if folks who find the front-to-rear soundstage of the Ohms compressed are keeping them too close to rear wall?

for non-critical or off-center listening, I orient the speakers as originally recommended by Ohm -- tweeters crossing in middle of room, fronts of speakers pointing straight ahead. If I leave the speakers oriented with tweeters pointing more straight ahead and then sit off-center, I find the width of the soundstage collapses and I'm hearing mostly the speaker I'm closer to. But, get this -- with speakers pointing straight ahead, I can sit in recliner that's directly in front of the left speaker and the soundstage is maintained! That's a great trick and has made everyone in the family happier, since if I get home when they're already hanging in the LR I don't have to ask everyone to move -- just point the speakers straight ahead and sit off to the one side and get great stereo soundstaging and pretty plausible imaging.

As for size of the room and the bass of the 100's, I couldn't be happier. I was debating trying the micro talls to save money, but knew I'd be always wondering about the extra oomf of the 100's, so I just went ahead and ordered them. I find the bass from these speakers incredibly satisfying, fully integrated in the sound, fast, and articulate.

Hope that helps.
Rich

Here's my homespun recipe as best I can describe it for best locating the Ohms based on my experience.

I find the sound overall is most balanced, focused and natural when the tweets are oriented so that two imaginary perpendicular lines projecting out from them cross just in front of your listening position.

Also, regarding best placement regarding soundstage and imaging, I go back to my observation in my Ohm f-5 review that the Walsh drivers act like sound projectors.

The imaging is best "focused" by placing these away from the rear and side walls so that reflected sound from each symmetrical location on these walls relative to the each speaker location arrives at your ears in the main listening location more or less at the same time, which is equivalent to saying that the overall distance the reflected sound travels is the same.

Regarding tonal balance, adjust the top end by orienting the tweeters accordingly and adjust the low end by moving the speaks closer or further away from the rear wall as needed.

Only much larger and more expensive speaks can match the overall lifelike presentation of the Ohms when set up properly, IMHO.

Martykl says :

"Ironically, many people have described the Ohms as very dynamic, while I find this to be their sole significant shortcoming."

What amplification are you using, what is the room size, and which drivers in the Ohms?

Room size mismatch and difficulties some otherwise very good amps might have driving complex loads are the most likely culprits for less than stellar dynamics I have heard.

Map,

I've used 150 wpc Bel Canto and 200+ wpc TAD ss amps with similar results from my Ohm 100s - in a large room with dual Velodyne subs. To address your curiosity from a previous post, I'm now experimenting with KT88 (and KT66) based Prima Luna amps. So far it's plusses and (more) minuses, but I'll post further on this tube experiment when I've got 'em dialed in a little better.

Marty