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

In the middle of a project but I will get back later for more info, and a continuation 
of the project....🇸🇪

Among whatever other differences there might be a ribbon tweeter would be significantly more directional than a soft dome.  That alone could make a difference in regards to intelligible vocals especially depending on room acoustics.  

I would wonder if it if it affects the size of sweet spot for music as well?.    

Back again...
Bondmanp If you did hear my changes you would be blown away.
Suddenly I have total and utter Transparancy and speed, could it be better? Yes I could I wish for more dynamics, but the Walsh driver is tiny and can't hang with my fronts...Wish I have more space to expand the unit to a larger one. By the way, it looks like the tweeter
is the same as the 4/5k's  1" softdome tweeter.
I'll get back to the driver and my thoughts in a bit.

Now to the surrounds....
I have six spread out as, front heights, surrounds and rear surrounds
enveloping me in a lovely sound field.
**********************************************************************************
If you don't want to hear anything negative please scroll past the next few sentences.
**********************************************************************************
As I previously said I took the can opener to all (9) of my Ohm's
and I had no idea what to expect, but what I found inside the  
Walsh Satellites was.......shocking and absolutely sub par, total
diy a mess of proportions  that was way below the worst I ever seen.

For some reasons Ohm thinks that out of sight is out of mind (I will not post any images) but let's say that hot-melt glue was liberally applied to the point of glue dripping everywhere like stalagmites 
In a horror movie. The Walsh driver looks cheap and the paper tweeter is an incredibly cheap ($2-$3) retail driver, two out of six had collapsed dust caps.
As this is a $700 a pair of speakers, there's no excuses for this kind of horrible craftsmanship and I hope someone at the factory take this to heart and make some changes.
**************************************************************************************

After getting over over the shock, I decided to replace the tweeter
with a $17 Dayton ND25-FA-4 unit. To remove the crap paper tweeter I had to break lose the glue with an exacto knife and a sharp chisel and un-solder the driver without trying to ripp out any caps or 
resistors that were hot-glued to the tweeter.
Installing the tweeters was easy peasy and I was able to aim the tweeters to my required situation due to a slopping roof line.
Result: Smoother tweeting all the way around, with more air and refinement and less stress at high levels. Now we're talking and I feel much better about my investment.
PS. I still had to use hot-melt glue.....lol

Just got a few Robert Shaw CD's in mail so I'm signing off
for now and I'll get back to the big boys in a bit....🇸🇪

It’s true aesthetics don’t matter and are out of sight and mind inside those cans. A nice design advantage for sure. Even hot glue can be used to good effect apparently since you don’t have to look at it. I suspect it might even have some useful damping qualities sonically but just a guess. French speaker maker Triangle uses paper for bass drivers in their speakers which are some of the fastest and most detailed around for the money but those are in plain sight and made to a higher aesthetic standard as well accordingly.

If the sound is not up to par for the money then that’s totally different.

I still run Ohm Ls with paper tweeter over other newer much fancier and expensive models from other brands. Ribbon tweeter would be nice there I’m sure. Paper ain’t fancy but can sound surprisingly good. Of course a lot of cheap bad sounding speakers have used paper and other tweeters over the years as well.


Did the the center channel speaker use paper tweeter also?

I’m a two channel only guy so can’t really vouch for anything when it comes to surround sound.

Did the surrounds all sound similar bad or were issues with just some?

You should ask JS why he uses paper tweeters in the surrounds other than for the fact they likely help keep manufacturing costs low.   I find it hard to believe he would use bad sounding parts in his speakers.  

im pretty sure he does not use ribbon tweets because ribbons tend to be highly directional which is not the Ohm Walsh thing.

Back again and I figure I would go over my equipment driving the Ohm's.

Amps: Two Emotiva XPA-1 Mono blocks and a Marantz MMA 8003
eight ch amp.
Pre-Amp: Marantz 8801
Sub Amp: Behringer EP 4000 2x2000 watts
Blu Ray player: BDP-93
Equalizer: Behringer Ultra Curve Pro for center ch
Power distribution: Silver Circle
Powerchords: Pangea Amp and low power units
PS Audio: outlet receptacles with independent (3) 15 amp curcuits
Projector: Epson 5020ub
Screen: Electric Elite 120"Wide, 1.0 gain 16:9 aspect ratio
Subs: Four 18" drivers in a Two custom cabinets vented in under my house (Infinite baffle).
Roku Ultra
And a Fios 150/150 internet connection 
Interconnects and speaker cables are a mix of God knows what
and I spent to much...
*********************************
When I originally decided on my 4/5k's I had gone through a period 
of extreme worry as I had been told I had kidney cancer, so I felt very nostalgic about my choice I.E. I wanted something cool reminding me of my youth. So I decided on the Ohm's after listening to some modern Maggie's. As a matter of fact I called JS on the way to my surgery to let him know what style of wood I wanted...lol

A looooooong time later the units arrived in boxes bigger than expected wow, I do have to say the packaging was amazing and
we'll conceived. But the plan is to keep the speakers until my ultimate demise so who needs big boxes.

As I got to know my 4/5k's I did have some reservations, mostly about the finishing , fit and finish and the CASTERS, as for the
CANS  I could only guess what was hiding inside the murky innards.
I used a bright flashlight, but it was very very hard to figure out.
At this point I decided to concentrate on the cabinet. 
The vener finish was very boring and just OK nothing special
so I called a friend who paints cars and before you know it the cabinets were painted in a charcoal metallic grey high gloss finish.
I made two concrete molds 3" thick for a heavy dense platform.
Next I had a frame made up to rest the speaker on and four CNC machined stainless steel posts....It does look freeking cool and with
painted cabinets it's looking like 2016 not the 70's. I rotated the can
independently from the cabinet, as it would look weird toed in.
At this point I had to bite the bullet and with that I opened them up
leaving the back half in place as all the switches need to stay as is.
Again WOW! It's like an Easter egg when you were a kid, it could be amazing.....or not.
Compare to the small units some care had been taken, but Damn
its 3rd world industrial design at best. At this point I knew there was no going back and forget any warranty...lol
The plan was simple "control the stuffing" dampen the platform everything was attached to, clean up the design, add silver wiring
extensions and solder in the new tweeter.

Here is a verbatim explanation.

HiVi RT1C-A Planar Isodynamic Tweeter
The vibrating element of a planer tweeter is almost weightless in comparison to a dome tweeter. The element consists of Kapton film with a pattern of aluminum conductors which is placed precisely between two Neodymium bar magnets. It provides an immediate and precise response to any transients in the original signal. These drivers are magnetically shielded and feature a linear phase response which provides time coherent reproduction resulting in accurate musical rhythm and imaging. Unlike other conventional tweeters and electrostatic speakers, the RT1C and RT2a have an extremely wide sound dispersion in the horizontal plane. At the same time, they have a well controlled sound dispersion in the vertical plane. This helps to avoid disturbing floor and ceiling reflections in a home environment thus enhancing clarity and imaging accuracy. The RT1C features a radiating area of 50 x 13mm and a round cast aluminum face plate. Although designed to be used with either the F5 or F6 bass/midrange drivers in a small 2-way system, it is also well suited for 3-way applications. Recommended second order crossover cut-off frequency - from 3kHz.

Got  to eat dinner " I'll be back"