Ohm Speakers, thoughts?

Interesting review on updating Ohm 4's
http://www.6moons.com/audioreviews/ohm/ohm.html

Line: Most of my comments are based on the "antique" series of Ohm speakers i.e. the ones that used free-standing Walsh drivers, not the regular drivers that are housed in a cage that increases diffractional losses making them sound more "ambient". The newer "Walsh series" are of no interest to me what so ever. That is my personal opinion though, so take it for what it is worth.

Other than that, i do agree that power helps with these designs, as it does with most any other design. That is, so long as the quality does not suffer in order to achieve the quantity desired. Sean
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Ohm is high end, the misinformed 3x0 guy don't know what he's talking about.

I have the walsh 2, 2xo and pro 200 and happy with them.
I agree about the OHM F, they where considered in the 70's the best loudspeaker in the world according to a lot of reviewers.
I remember reading the stereo review articles on them.
I like ohm when they had the various models that last thru the 90's like the FRS, SOUND CYLINDERS and the F2, F3'S...
Besides the 300 MK 2'S, I wouldn't consider any of the smaller current ohm's like micro walsh and the 100mk2, or 200 mk 2...
I like the old design and cabinetry you find on the F'S, G'S, 2,3,4, 5.

I wished ohm went back to the original driver and cabinet designs with the many choices.
It sounds like a lot of old high end companies have downsized their designs. Infinity and polks are good examples. At least ESS SPEAKERS still uses their old design in both cabinet and driver.
Klipsch being older than these companies at least custom make to their OLD designs by special order.

What matters is that you are happy with what you have and what you hear both old and new. I love the old stuff myself.
When it comes to speaker designs, there are few companies who make new systems i admire, for the most part, i like yester years designs like i mentioned with OHM, infinity, polk, klipsch, ess, magnepan, acoustat, apogees, altec lansing, JBL, and many more. Newer is not always better.
There are things in life in which you don't need re invent the wheel. Some of us like turntables and no matter how many types of digital products come out, howbeit they're marvelous, they're not vinyl turntables and a different form of a music source, the same with cassette decks and open reel, you simply can't replace them by cd or dvd or mp3 digital players, totally different music source.
That's why it's hard to get rid of analog, there always be enthusiast and followers, and the same with vintage speakers such as OHM'S!

Sean,

The following is quoted from a Six Moons' review of Ohm's Walsh Micro speakers.

Ohm Acoustics manufactures two very different types of loudspeakers - the usual cone'n'dome variety (certain models incorporating different ideas on dispersion) and their claim to fame, a complete line of speakers using the Walsh driver based on the work of the late Lincoln Walsh. Years of refinement have created what Ohm calls the CLS or Coherent Line Source driver. Picture a typical cone woofer elongated in depth akin to a megaphone - but not quite. Now point this driver downward so that it fires into the top of the speaker's enclosure. Sound propagates off the back of the driver rather than front, and by virtue of its open-air surroundings, in a 360-degree rather than narrow-directivity dispersion pattern.

States Ohm Acoustics on the subject: "The CLS system uses an inverted cone driver with the speaker coil driving the peak of the cone. The sound vibrations travel from the top down and out to the rim.

By using a cone material in which sound travels faster than it does in air (supersonic) and by carefully aligning the angle of the cone, the driver generates a vertical wave front, radiating sound equally in all directions like an expanding drum. Because the inverted cone driver radiates in all directions, it sounds the same in all directions." In other words, the driver is naturally time-coherent and omni-directional. But Ohm feels that, with certain circumstantial exceptions, an omni-directional response in the treble is undesirable. Rear-wall reflections at these frequencies can become confused with the original sound and consequently blur imaging. Hence, in addition to the CLS main driver, Ohm adds a "super tweeter" mounted vertically at the Walsh driver's top and angled inwards so as to cross its main axis well in front of the listener. This tweeter is reportedly pressed into service around 8 kHz which eliminates a crossover network anywhere near the critical 2-6kHz range where human hearing is most sensitive to discontinuities.

IF the description is true to the design, I find it hard to believe that the CLS driver is not a derivation of the original Walsh driver and is just an inverted speaker. True, the Ohm F's had a longer ~12" cone (not including the motor), but it also covered the complete audio range (37 - 17,000hz). The new CLS cone (I am talking about the Walsh 5 Mk II) is only ~5" - 6" tall (hard to tell from the drawings) and only covers the claimed 20 - 8,000hz range.

Think of it this way. If you took a full range driver, mounted it into a cabinet ABW (ass backwards), would it still be able to produce the mid to high frequencies as a correctly mounted driver?

I am not saying I am right. There just seems to be too many inconsistancies posted. Just trying to find the "truth" (if that is possible).

I have the Walsh 4.5 Mk II and find them so very easy to live with. There is no divorce in sight, I am in love.

I heard the F's some 40 years ago and did not have the coin in which to buy.

What I have never come across is an A/B listening test between the F's and the 5 Mk II, but I would put my money on the 5 Mk II as coming out on top.