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

Frazeur1,

I decided to first try tubes I could walk into Guitar Center down the road and buy for $20 each first. The Groove Tube Gold 12AX7s I bought solved the problem. Also, surprisingly, I am hard pressed to hear a difference from teh previous ARC stock tubes that came in the SP16. Perhaps a tad more background noise in the phono section, but nothing of any consequence.

So far, I do not feel a need to order tubes from ARC. I could still decide to do that and keep these as an extra set, but I cannot justify it currently.

I picked up the 1m MIT terminator ICs on Ebay several years back for <$50 each, as I recall.

I also bought a pair of .5 m Harmonic Tech ICs from the Essential Audio Tweaks store on ebay for much more along with the DNM Resons, which were comparable to the MITs in price more or less. All of these are good but different with different strengths and weaknesses.

Whoops, sorry.

The correct name of the store on ebay I referenced above is

"essentialhifitweak", not "Essential Audio Tweaks" as I indicated.

http://stores.ebay.com/essentialhifitweak

I have found their stufff to offer good value and their descriptions of how the products I have bought sound to be reasonable and accurate.

Thanks Map, glad the tubes are doing the thing for you. I have also been tempted to try the Harmonic line of cables as well, but really, I have a hard time messing with cables. I guess when you find something that works so well, why change it? Tim

"I guess when you find something that works so well, why change it?"

I tend to agree.

ICs, particularly used ones that can be resold easily without taking a loss, are relatively easy things to tinker with though if one gets the urge to try some different flavors of good sound.

Well, I've just found this thread. Around '04 I was looking for some new speakers. I first bought a pair of Shahinian Obelisks- new. My rig was McIntosh MCD205/C45/MC252. Cut to the short, the Shaninians had a mid-range suck out I wasn't willing to live with, so I sold them and took a not too bad hit financially.

I tried the Ohm 100 (current model at that time) based on their in-home trial policy as I didn't want to get burned again. The 100s were chosen as they were the recommended the right size for my room.

All I could say was "Wow!!" Incredible sound for around $1400 IIRC- a fraction of what the electronics cost! I had owned/sold/reviewed about 35 pairs of speakers (up to $10k) and listened to at least that many more speakers in 35 years of audio and the Ohms were my personal favorites. They handled all types of music well and played loud, soft, in between. The Ohms did it all. Even when paired with much more expensive McIntosh electronics, they held their own. I was in nirvana.

As things go a number of events: a move, adopting 5 yr old twins, mother-in-law moving in resulted in my losing my music room. I now had to use the family room for music. The Ohm 100 were way to small and I couldn't afford the $$$ for a new larger pair (my audio "mad money" was now going for the kids' educ, inevitable braces, etc). I ended up selling them and building some nice corner speakers using GPA 604 and I enjoy them, but often wonder what the new Ohms would sound like.

I still believe the Ohms are one of the best speakers out there and when you factor in their low prices, they are a steal.