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

Rbf1138,

I've got my Ohms in black finish, and thet look great. Another thing I wanted to say that the Ohms, properly set up, seem to use the room to their advantage, and when the room and speakers are interacting properly, wonderful things happen. I've never heard a speaker that turns the whole room into an immersive soundscape the way the Ohms can, and can fill the room at low as well as high volume. This is one of the qualities that I love about the Ohms. Much of my listening is done while the rest of the house sleeps, so I have to listen at lower volumes, but because of the way the Ohms fill the room, I never feel like I'm missing out. The soundstage remains intact, and the performance still sounds full bodied, but just a bit more distant. Hope you love the Ohms. I will give you a list of possible cd's to use for set up, and ones that make the Ohms really shine in another post. Joe

There are a few recordings that IMHO show the Ohm imaging trick off to great effect:

You might want check ' em out and see if any click for you. If so, pick one up for early listening. I think any of these will give you a great sense of the Ohm effect at its most dramatic.

Alejandro Escovedo. With These Hands from the CD With These Hands
Original Cast Theme From Shaft
Lindsey Buckingham It Was You from the CDUnder The Skin
Duke Ellington Far East Suite pretty much all tracks
Joan Armatrading Love and Affection from Track Record

These recordings (among many, many others) really allow the Ohm to "light up" the front of the room and create the sense of a performance space within your listening room. It's very cool and a lot of fun.

Marty

A few comments for Rbf1138: I agree with all the recent posts here. I would add emphasis on the break in period. When I got my new 2000s, the timbre of intruments was amazing right out of the box, but many other aspects of the sound developed over time. They had broken in enough by the end of the trial period for me to decide to keep them, but they continued to smooth out and become more dynamic for a number of months afterwards. Also, make sure the Ohms are level, and level with each other. And toe-in is counterintuitive on Ohms: Toeing them in reduces the treble output of the tweeter at the listening seat, while toeing out increases it. I have settled on a slight toe-in, but I am sure some would say the treble rolls off too much. I like it that way - I still get excellent detail reteival, but no fatigue from over-bright recordings.

I own the Neko Case CD "Fox Confessor Brings the Flood" and it is a marvelous, well recorded disc that really shows off my Ohms. I brought it to a local Hi-Fi club one time to use as a demo and lots of my audiophile buddies were asking to see the case so they could buy it.

My Ohms made sense of many recordings that had sounded horrible on my Vandersteen 1Cs. One example is the Gladiator soundtrack. This can sound like garbage on systems that are too forward in the upper-mids, dry, that lack resolution, or that compress at high SPLs. On my system, with the Ohms, the recording is indeed as good as Harry Pearson says it can be - very dynamic, detailed, and full of diverse orchestral textures. I can't count the number of pinched, congested, over-bright rock recordings that finally became listenable with the Ohms. My hunch is that the lack of a crossover in the midrange or upper-midrange at least contributes to this wonderfull quality. It's great to choose recordings based on one's preference, without being limited to audiophile-approved recordings (which sound incredibly good on the Ohms).

When I first had my 5000's, I hadn't listened to fine stereo in quite awhile and naively placed them near my wall (glass windows actually) towards the corners. I thought they sounded great of course, not having had a reference point for many years. I upgraded some components and following mapman's suggestions began moving them out from the rear windows and in from the corners. Now that I have them where I want them, I've reached a point of supreme satisfaction such that I don't wish to move them further. It's hard to explain in words, but when one reaches the correct placement it's a bit like discovering resonance; that is, you suddenly say to yourself, now THAT'S sweet. I find that I forget about right speaker/left speaker as it becomes completely irrelevant.

As to you setup, become comfortable with what you have for 6 months or so before changing or upgrading components. That way the previous experience will be well drilled into your memory. For me, adding a more powerful amp helped the low end, but these are 5000's and yours may be quite happy with what you have. The other big, big difference for me with vinyl was adding a step up transformer to the MC cartridge before feeding into the MM input. It just revealed the bass in the vinyl. Oh yeah, the speaker placement helped with that too.

"I find that I forget about right speaker/left speaker as it becomes completely irrelevant."

To take that a bit further, once dialed in the physical location of the speakers may be totally disassociated with the soundstage and location of things in it.

My 5s are in a decent sized L shaped room skewed to the left to fire mainly into the long dimension, about 5 feet from the rear wall. I sit at various locations within the long part of the room to listen anywhere from nearfield to ~ 15 feet back or so. When closer to the speakers, I can see the side wall all the way to the left in the short dimension. The further back I sit, I see less of the left hand portion of the rear wall, until about 7 feet back or so I only see the long length and the listening area becomes essentially a rectangle.

Despite the OHMs location being skewed well to the left of center of the short dimension to face into the long, the soundstage is generally symetrical with the width of the short length I can see. When close to the speakers, the center of the image can be essentially to the right of the speaker on that side. Listening from further back, the soundstage becomes more symetrical around the speakers and less wide. Where I sit makes a big difference in soundstage width and where the center of the soundstage actually is.

I mention this because I have found if you are used to listening to speakers, and expecting the sound to come mostly from where they are located, it can be disorienting and what you hear suffers. ONce the OHMs and your listening habits adjust and are locked in, it is golden.