History on ohm A's and F's.

Spike,

Which Marley live recording?

Were the Fs possibly being over-driven? It was not hard to do this with Fs from what I have heard.

If the source was vinyl in particular, was it possible that low frequency noise (rumble, etc.) was present? That might contribute significantly to a problem as you describe if so.

Hi Mapman,
It is the Babylon by Bus album, specifically remembering "Punky Reggae Party" as the worst offender, which I had recorded to maxell XLII tape with an Akai glass head tape deck using DBX NR. Shouldn't have been any appreciable rumble since it went straight from Technics SL series TT, w/ Ortofon Concorde cartridge through an Apt-Holman preamp with subsonic filter on, into the deck. I had a pair of Dynaco ST-400 bridged amps driving the F's, so probably (definitely) no clipping. I am sure the soft spider contributed to the excessive cone movements, but when the bass notes hit, you could see those cones really dance, and that's when the distortion set in.

Spike,

My educated guess is that the Fs were starting to be overdriven at that point, which as I understand it was common and easy to do with the Fs, and their acknowledged achilles heel that Strohbeen tackled by switching to the CLS design with Walsh driver not as wide range as the F Walsh driver.

I may still have a similar cassette recording of Babylon sitting around. I'll have to give it a play on the latest and greatest Walshes from OHM and see if I hear anything. I have not noticed the sonic artifact you describe on any CLS OHMs I have owned, however.

Spike,

Is it also possible that the cassette recording was audibly distorted, oversaturated or something along those lines?

In general, cassettes were never a great medium for capturing low distortion recordings with good dynamics.

OR maybe a combo of cassette recording distortions combined with OHM F overdrive?

Mapman,
the F's were definitely being overdriven at times. I often played them as loud as I dared with bass-rich material and had considerably more power on tap than they could safely handle. I would watch the cones achieving very large excursions; probably exceeding the limits of the surrounds. I am sure that this also contributed to the distortions I heard. If you have listened to a pair of these being played then you are also familiar with the visual performance they can provide. The actual source material is largely irrelevant; the BMW recording is simply the one I remember most clearly. If there was music combining loud, low bass notes with midrange such as voice or saxophone, this issue could appear. I myself have 4 pairs of the later Ohm walsh speakers and have not noted this phenomenon with any of them, even at high volumes.