They sure aren't beautiful!
Seriously, though, my dear friend and loudspeaker guru, Bill Legall of Millersound, finally completed rebuilding his Ohm Walsh A loudspeakers. There are only a few pairs in the world, as Professor Walsh unfortunately died just before the prototypes were completed. At any rate, Ohm decided to try to finish them, and bring the product to market.
While some may say the rest is history, Bill maintains EVERY pair of Ohm Walsh derivatives was literally broken the day they were made. I don't want to go into too much detail here, but suffice it to say that their double edged sword reputation of being tremendously power hungry, yet giving them a few more watts than they require to get moving will kill them speaks to their implementation.
Now, Bill will not, under any circumstances, go through Ohm Walsh speakers for customers, but he had to get his own pair up and running. All I can say is that it is perhaps the finest loudspeaker ever devised. When one actually sees Bill's analogy of how it works in regards to just about every other driver created, apart from maybe a horn, every other driver looks flat out WRONG. It simply is a night and day better impedance match with the air.
Unlike the stock Ohm Walsh speakers, Bill's get by on just a few watts (they're tremendously efficient), and even driving them with a cheap satellite radio and $200 Kenwood amplifier, I hear and feel things no other speaker I've been around can do. Believe me, having the contents of your intestines rattled is both scary and awe inspiring. Never felt a speaker do bass like that! He claims they must go down to just about DC. And, this same driver produces the highest of highs. As the single driver/no crossover people believe, the seamlessness, coherence, and naturalness of such a design is simply without peer. The dynamics and speed are just flat out explosive. No need to go into the imaging, as it's what made the speaker legendary. However, the greatest compliment I can pay the speaker is that it simply is natural sounding and easy to listen to.
