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


Hi,

I'd love to hear the impressions of people who've actually spent some time with these speakers to share their sense of their plusses and minuses. Mapman here on Audiogon is a big fan, and has shared lots on them, but I'm wondering who else might be familiar with them.
rebbi
With my F5s in large L shaped room, I have three 2X2 foot absorbing panels on my sidewalls at prime reflection points based on my two main listening positions. These help narrow and focus the soundstage a tad to my preference. That’s all.

Omni speakers naturally diffuse the sound especially in comparison to others, no?
mapman - interesting post. I had put a lot of foam panels up on the front wall and side walls at the hieght of the Ohm cans. I found I had too much center-fill, and not enough of a soundstage width. I removed some, and noticed an improvement without losing too much of the center fill. Since my listening area is small and asymetrical, I speculate that some diffusion might exapnd the soundstage even further. Not that I suffer from a compact soundstage now; on the right recordings, the soundstage is absolutely holographic and, as The Donald would say, HUGE! Guilding the lilly? Perhaps. But I want to hear for myself what the diffusion panels will do.
My front wall of L shaped room is 22’ wide and sound stage extends wall to wall and beyond with most recordings. The panels reel that in just a tad. They might soften things up just a tad as well. I’ve debated added two or 4 on the ceiling at prime reflection points there but no rush to try.

I’ve found isolating from floor interactions as I have mentioned to be much larger in magnitude in terms of sound improvement when needed. Total night and day differences there when floors are suspended and lively, not at foundation level.

Of course every room if different as are personal preferences, so one has to carefully choose their weapons depending. No reason to rule out diffusion either if called for.
For all here.
I would really recommend taking up GIK Acoustics' offer for free room consultation. I doubt many of us here (myself included) are acoustical engineers and if you contact GIK they will let you work with one on a custom room solution. I went this route and it was pain free as I trouble issues for the room were identified and a variety of products to fix the solution were given to me to choose from. At this point I feel confident after the next batch of treatments arrives on Wednesday and I make one more order for some ceiling difusion, i.e. I followed the plan laid out by the acoustic engineer that I should have considering the confines of my room a setup that takes care of most of the issues.

Anyway just my thought. :)
Well the panels came in yesterday and I got the polyfusors setup in the side walls. Definitely an improved blackness in the room and the speakers blend more seamlessly into the room and soundstage. Imaging is also greatly improved. As solid as the anchoring of the center voice and instruments were it is now even better locked in sounds have far better separation. Everything has a separation sonic sound and things are less homogenous (Not to say they were by any stretch before). Bass is even airier and taughter. Bass just seems to float in a way I typically associated in with dipoles/planars but it has the huge advantage of the dynamic driver punch.

On the objective side there was a measurable difference in the 200 to 500hz range that levels out 3 nulls that were being measured pre Dirac correction and in the post Dirac impulse response was smoothed out with the panels in place.

Tonight I will be installing the monster bass traps with the range limiters in the rear since the hardware that came to mount them wasn't sufficient and I need to get some from the hardware store.

One lesson reinforced to me is that regardless of digital room correct you need a solid acoustic space in the room. Dirac only improved in the latest acoustic installation, but with the added panels in place there is a clear improvement in the sound even with Dirac on. So before buying $1500 interconnects spend however much you can on room acoustic treatment and then put the icing on the cake.

Looking forward to installing the monster bass panels tonight. :)