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

Hey check this out. An exotic omnidirectional speaker from Italy.

http://www.themodernstyle.com/item.asp?id=alkemia_kedo&ver=en¤cy=eur

Interesting design, but it doesn't appear to use a Walsh driver. The only other manufacturer of Walsh drivers that I know of is Physiks in Germany, who produce frightfully expensive and prodigious (the top of the line weighs nearly 1000 pounds) speakers. Part of the appeal, supposedly, of the Ohm is that the Walsh driver in original form produced coherent waveforms across the spectrum. Electrostatics should do the same. The only other "omnidirectional" speaker I've heard was the Bose 901 series, which actually uses direct and reflected sound- I never cared for them much.

I had their original series Bose 501s in my college dorm and although they had some real limitations - for the $250 I paid (used) they had a great soundstage in a small room and served the purpose at the time. The Bose 901s used too much reflected and not enough direct sound for my taste. I listened to them back in the day around the one and only time I heard Ohm F's. My buddy's parents had 901's with the active equalizer, McIntosh for power and a high end turntable. Within a month or so of hearing their system I listened to the Ohm F's at a tech Hi-Fi store. They demo'd them with the grilles off. I was sold on the sound and the pair I just acquired.... 39 years later... sound just as good to me as when I first heard that sound. That was a great article on Bill LeGall - sounds like an amazing guy. Apparently he was only doing one set of F's per year and now no longer does them at all. The seller I dealt with lives 20 minutes away from Bill and bought them directly from Bill so I know the provenance is legit.

I repositioned them yesterday to be across the 14.5 foot long wall and they are now roughly 21" in (at the base)from the back and side walls. The only material I threw at them that was problematic was Shirley Horn's album "The Main Ingredient." Steve Novosel's acoustic bass lines were going so deep that I was getting funky resonance from the hardwood floors and the bass was crazy boomy (played a dozen or more other albums over the weekend and this was the only one where it happened. Today I bought a couple of 18" square concrete pads (look like stone but are cast concrete.) Painted them satin black, put self adhesive furniture "Super Sliders" on the bottoms and put the speaker bases and cabinets on top. Boominess is gone and the bass on Shirley's disc. although to still goes insanely deep, is taut and controlled. An audio forum I perused suggests to use two of these pads with a barely inflated inner tube between them (just enough air so that it forms a 5mm gap between them when the top pad and speakers are in place. Not sure I'll even bother with that - the improvement is so dramatic with the single pad. That being said... I think I need to start trying some homemade tube traps etc. and see what else will improve this already stellar sound.

Mapman. What ICs do you like with the Ohms? I had been using LAT ICs and speaker wire with nice sound.

Sndsrtaud,

IT can vary, but I use DNM Reson ICs throughout my system. I like these for their flexibility, cost effectiveness, coherence and overall clarity. The bass tends towards the leaner side compared to some ICs but is very articulate and full and a nice match to the OHMs.

For a fuller low end, I also like MIT networked ICs. I use the older and less expensive Terminator series ICs. I tend to prefer these more with my monitors.

FOr speaker cables, I have no clear preference. I use industrial grade in wall speaker wire to my f5s which reside in the room adjacent to my gear. The results are very good having tuned everything accordingly.

In my main room where my gear resides, I use more expensive AUdioquest cv6 speaker cables. I have had my 100s and Triangle monitors in there. My Dynaudio monitors are in there currently. The CV6 sounds very open and dynamic in there with all, but the OHMs tend to respond to tweaks the most.