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
Love hotmelt glue by the way, but not the last word in assembly science...

And  it burns.....🇸🇪
Peter I think JS goal as I read it is to give great sound for reasonable cost.  Not build a race engine.   Every engineer has a different vision.   Also a business must make a profit and ohm has been around and us based in Brooklyn for many years.   So it's a model that seems to work and hopefully continues to.   I will say prices have gone up in recent years but still us made.   I paid less than half of list for my 5s with sale price and trade ins a great deal for the sound.   Granted there are many good speakers at ohm retail prices these days but nothing like them.   
I could see the benefits of the hot melt glue to attach the braces to my old cabs.  Would help absorb vibrations I'd think.   In some apps more of s convenience perhaps but a very effective one.  Looks would be one downside but out of sight out of mind I guess.  

Maybe John will read this and adapt some of your ideas.   I'd love to hear the esotar tweeter in my ohms personally. 
Hey Mapman....

If you feel like fiddling I'll be more than happy to let you borrow the 
ribbon tweeters for testing. You might have to take things apart and do some simple soldering but it's worth it for sure. 
Just let me know.

You never know until you eff it up.....🇸🇪

Mapman - The 7 kHz roll-in for the tweeter, IIRC, was mentioned somewhere on the old Ohm web site.  Next month, I will be hearing the German Physiks speakers, which use a Dick's Dipole Walsh-type driver for all but the low bass frequencies.  No tweeter, just like the F's.  In fact, a dealer told me the inspiration for the German Physiks was the Ohm Walsh speakers.  The designer wondered what could be done with fewer cost constraints than Ohm was under.  They do roll off above 18 kHz, but I see no reason why the Ohm Walsh drivers can't go higher than 2 or 3 kHz.  The beaming you would get from a full range, forward radiating 8" driver should be ameliorated by the Walsh omni radiating pattern, I would think.  I would bet that listening to Walshes without the tweeter would not be as treble-less sounding as the graph suggests.  That said, just looking at the Fs is instructional.  It has no tweeter, but the tall cone shape of the driver suggests it can reproduce higher frequencies from the narrower portions of the cone, near the top.  Current Walsh drivers appear to be conventional, shallow cones that lack the tall profile of the Ohm F drivers.  Hence the super-tweeter.  That John was able to adapt the Walsh principles to a design using conventional drivers speaks volumes about his ability to design speakers, and to keep costs down, which is probably the reason for the change in driver design.  And, I fully agree, the proof is in the listening.  John simply knows how to voice speakers.  A production version of what Peterr53 is going to end up with would probably be priced in the $20,000 range, or more.  

Peterr53 - While I have no doubt the Ohms can be improved by using a higher quality tweeter, I do question the wisdom of moving the crossover from 7 kHz to ~2.5 kHz.  One of the things that makes the Ohm Walsh speakers special, IMHO, is that there is no crossover in that critical 2-5 kHz range.  Very few conventional speakers that I have heard with crossovers in that range sound good to me in the upper mid/lower treble range.  But with your digital crossover, you will have total flexibility to dial in the crossover as you feel it sounds best.