Ohm Speakers, thoughts?


I have long dismissed Ohm speakers as anything that could be competitive in todays state of the art. But of course I want to believe that this "old" American company still has some horsepower left to compete with asian built speakers built by people that take in less money in a week than my dog sitter takes in the couple hours it takes to let my dogs out to crap when I am away for a day :)? The reviews I have read here and there report incredible imaging but what about other aspects of the Ohm 5 II. Any thoughts?
nanderson
Years ago one of the first speakers to wow me was a pair of Ohm's.
I have been experimenting with a second "budget" system an recently decided to try the new Walsh Sat's that they advertise on their site. In my mind it solved some of the problems they used to have with loose bloated bass as they filter out 80hz and below.(You must use them with a sub.) That also allowed me to use a tube amp as before you needed an amp with high damping.
I have had the Walsh Sat's for a week and the sound is incredible!!! I have owned or auditioned many speakers over the years, most at considerably more money, and in some regards it beats them all. Took me quite a while to position it correctly and had to use some room treatments but has been well worth it. Sound just seems so more real than other speakers. Before this the only thing that came close was Magnepans. I am having a couple of my musician friends over in the near future to give them a listen. If anybody is interested I will post a review with their comments. For my ears there dosent seem to be any better for the money.

Good listening,

Bin
Sean,

I never opened the sealed can so I can't comment as to what is inside. Whatever it is it works great in my opinion.

Best regards,
7p62mm
I am facinated with the prospect of hearing these speakers.
Years ago I heard them at dealer, but only briefly. The next time I went back, they were gone. I assumed they went out of business. Is it fully omni-directional. Are they time and phase coherent? They seem to need power, what is the impedance range? Has any one seriously measured them? Is it truly a single driver speaker system. If not, do they use cross-overs? What kind? To what other drivers. If so, are they bi/tri ampable? What type of box do they use (sealed,vented,transmission,other)? What is the suggested room placement/requirements? How far does the listener need to sit from them. Has anybody used them with digital room correction/cross-overs? How about surround sound? Sorry for all the questions, but the web site is not that informative. From what little I know they seem to offer so much promise, especialy if all the new digital options fufill thier promise. Sean, please share your impressions of the Huff stuff. As always, thanks in advance.
The Walsh driver handles the low end up through the midrange. It is crossed over to a tweeter for the high end. Not sure about the crossover point or what order filter it is. You will have to contact Ohm for this info. The Walsh driver acts like a line source and thus is omnidirectional. Ohm installs a piece of felt on the driver to reduce its emmission to 180 degrees. This is done to prevent back reflections. The driver is phase and time aligned. According to Ohm's literature this results in a single arival from each speaker. From my experience this is true and results in excellent imaging. You can hear both channels even when you are not in the listening room. The nominal impedance is 6 ohms. The drivers are round cans and are installed in a vented column enclosure. There is a single set of contacts on the bottom of the column and the crossover is internal to the can so it is not biampable. Placement is very simple. You need to set further back than the distance between the speakers. If you use them for surround sound then will want to go with a processor and separate amps as you want a least 250 watts to run them.

Overall I like the speakers a lot. My only complaint is that it takes a lot of power to make them play loud. There are other speakers that are more efficient with better dynamic range. I doubt that anything else will provide better imaging though. Hope this helps.