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

Just scored a circa 91 Denon DRA-545r stereo receiver for $20 at Goodwill and man I can't believe that it bested the zpre2+niles si245 separates. It even sounds better than my main system which is the marantz avr+b&k amp. I was just testing it using pandora in kindle fire and compared it to the three setup and it bested them both (using the ohms as the speaker). It just sounded so airy and holographic and to think that it was just a 64kbps pandora stream.

This leads me to believe that the newer avr with all the bells and whistles crammed into it are not up to par with the sound quality of the old when it comes to 2 channel music. I think I'm going to use this as my preamp along with the parasound amp as my main 2 channel system.

IF a newer amp has lots of bells and whistles and sells for a price comparable to comparable powered gear with less b+ws sold 20 years ago, I'd say there is a fairly good chance the older unit can outperform the newer since the newer unit does more things and cost does not reflect the impact of inflation on a design from 20 years ago.

I noticed during spinning class at a brand new gym yesterday that the newer Crown Class D amps were being used with Peavey (horn) speakers there. Sound was very good, much clearer and dynamic than older non Class D Crown amps in similar setup at my older gym. Amps are more commercial looking in design being for professional use mainly but I think they could do quite well in a home application for very reasonable cost.

Disclaimer: OHMs and Peavey commercial horns are opposite ends of the spectrum in terms of design, but I still would be interested to hear how the Crowns might do with OHMs. From what I read they use some Harmon International proprietary Class D chip circuitry that may or may not be up to the task of driving a less efficient and more difficult load than most pro speakers present.

I just got through making a cradle around my OHM 5000's. Let me explain. I have them sitting on 15" X 15" granite slabs and 4 tip toes underneath. Even with the wheels locked they were a hazard of falling off. I have better bass response under the granite. I took a 1 X 6, stained them same shade as speakers and used L brackets to connect. Looks pretty cool. I will post pic later on my page. Has anyone placed granite underneath their OHMs and could they tell a difference?