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

Not to rehash old news but a Walsh driver is a bending wave based driver (look up speaker types and bending wave speakers on Wiki)  .   Bending wave drivers was Lincoln Walsh's concept and innovation.   Ohm was teh company that produced the first commercial implementation of a very wide range Walsh driver.   It was bleeding edge sound wise but a fragile design that blew out not quite as often as a fuse perhaps if not very careful.  It turned out to not be commercially viable as a result.

John Strohbeen's later Walsh brand "CLS" driver solved tat problem but sacrificed the "Walsh" driver producing sound above 7khz or so to make the product more durable.   So it is based on Walsh's principles but a totally different design that is more commercially viable.

Waves bend essentially when passing through any medium with variable density.

Like Bond said, the unique technology is interesting but its the results that has spoken for itself now for over 30 years.

 

BTW I would say JS’s design decision to punt on the coherent source Walsh driver above 7khz or so was a sound one.

Just take a look at the Interactive Frequency Chart

http://www.independentrecording.net/irn/resources/freqchart/main_display.htm

Some but not much happens above 7khz or so musically. That is not a bad tradeoff for a design that I have found to be most robust and durable as well as great sounding and practical for many.

Most conventional 2 way speakers have cross over much lower which if not done really well messes with the sound and coherency of a lot of elements of the music including vocals in particular.

Over the years I find I am seldom a fan of any but the best 3-way speaker designs out there when I hear them.  Its those darn multiple crossovers in  the business area of the music that is mostly the culprit I think.

Bondman, while one never seems to get really good details on the drivers even when talking to John himself, I think that at least with my early 2000 drivers, the main drive unit was an "aluminum coated" driver. So certainly a bit of difference from the typical aluminum formed drivers that you see in other speaker designs. Mine appeared to be an almost exact duplicate of one of Dayton's drivers at the time.

My tweeters were indeed a silk soft dome variety, very smooth, yet detailed. I could not see my 3000 series drivers, but believe they were similar to the 2000 units, but that has been awhile, when the "Thousand" series first came out, and we know John makes little updates and improvements along the way. 

Generally with regard to aluminum drivers, tweeters or otherwise, I find it isn't so much the driver itself, but the way it is implemented, the crossovers etc. that really matter to the "sound". 

On a hysterical note, the original Ohm cones used aluminum.  The center third of a 'F' was mated to a titanium top with a paper lower.  The 'A's were 3/4's +/- alum. on the bottom with a titanium top.  The cones had (and have to have) a rigid enough material for the physics to work properly.

The new Ohms are more like a Duvell, and they 'cheat' with a tweeter....MNotSoHO....

But they do work...*S*

Hmm my recollection of Dueval is nothing like ohm. Dueval drivers are mounted in cabinet and fire upward towards at an acoustical dispersion component which disperses the sound omnidirectionally. 

Ohm walsh drivers face down ward into the cabinet which is either ported or sealed. The driver is completely above the cabinet and the sound radiates omnidirectionally from the outer edge of the rear of the driver.  Just like original wider range Walsh drivers or the also limited range ddd driver used in German physics.  

I've never heard Dueval or original ohm a or Fs. So cannot comment on how things sound similar or different.