Dynaudio or Ohm?

Martykl, the fact that your Ohm's SQ can compete with your collection of such fine speakers says a lot. (btw, I believe Merlins use Dynaudio drivers).
It's also good to hear another recommendation for listening to orchestral music on the Ohms.

I'm thinking the T-2000s in my room should supply an ample amount of bass.
Your post is much appreciated.

I don't think anyone brought this up yet, but with qualities such as imaging, staging, level of detail, bass, and what ever else you are looking for, your choice of electronics is equally responsible, if not more so, than the speakers. You can take a normally good imaging speaker and if you don't match it to the right electronics, you won't get those qualities. The speaker may be able, but you need well matched components to get the best from them.

Zd, that is very true; I think it was mentioned early on. I feel that my electronics are up to the task. I've worked on creating a low noise floor with a Blue Circle Thingee FX2 PC, Blue Circle Power line filters, Furman PC, Audience PowerChords, and Purist Audio Aqueus Luminist speaker cables.

My modest system; ARC CD, Rogue Pre, Sunfire 300 has a synergy that currently creates a warm, wide, deep soundstage with deep bass with my PSB Synchrony Twos. I get terrific separation of instruments, but the overall system lacks some detail, a smooth midrange and transparency. This is a known weakness of these speakers. As I said earlier, a later upgrade will be the preamp.

Thanks to all the good advice, taking the plunge into purchasing the Ohms sounds like a safer move than going for the Dynaudios.

Thanks for your post.

High current SS amplification is key to best bass with the OHMs.

Marty, correct me if wrong please, but you use tube amplification with your OHM/sub setup. That's another good way to go but most tube amps will not cut with the OHMs alone for best bass I suspect. Definitely not with most Dynaudios. Or most any other speaker design that attempts to maximize bass extension out of a smaller package. You need larger speakers with extremely benign impedance curves for that.

Map,

I've used a half dozen different amps with the Ohms over the years, most of them tube designs. Over the last five or so years, I've used solid state amps pretty much exclusively. I still use tubes with the Merlin and sometimes with the Verity.

I use an RTA to measure on-axis FR in my listening room and the 100s get down pretty close to 40hz, (which is actually not at all bad - better than most folks think, I'd imagine) before dropping off quickly. (For context, the Verity P/O cannot get quite that deep, tho it feels more dynamic in the bass than the Ohm). It's quite likely that there's some destructive interference at work in the room, limiting the Ohms' output below 50hz. Obviously, the equalized subs can extend that (pretty much however deep I choose), but they also provide some welcome punch in the kick drum region (50hz). For orchestral music, the subs add weight when the recording provides it (not always).

In my room, depending on speaker position, the bass response also gets quite lumpy below 125ish hz. I can re-position the Ohms to smooth things nicely down to 75ish hz, but I lose some deep bass response. Hence, I use room correction software on my subs to fix that while extending the bottom end (vs stand-alone Ohms) by almost a full octave. This improves integration between the Ohms and the subs, as well as smoothing and extending bass response. The subs also relieve the Ohms of the heavy lifting down low, which seems to provide better dynamic performance when the SPLs are modest.

Like any speaker, the deep bass output from the Ohm 100 is going to be room dependent. In my set-up, the subs make a world of difference, but YMMV.