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

"Once fully broken in, were the vocals from your Walsh's still very laid back? "

They are very neutral, not inherently bright or forward I would say, but
I think it will depend on room, setup, electronics and other factors, but no, not inherently.

Break in will make a lot of difference in this regard, whether its the speaker breaking in or your ears adjusting to the new sound or a combo of both (most likely the case).

The OHM Walshes are inherently more laid back than forward sounding in general, but the vocals themselves are not relative to the rest. They are generally very clear and right there where they should be on my system.

Now the Walsh 5s are highly adjustable at the speaker, including presence/midrange, but I do not find myself using these much to compensate for anything.

The toe-out trick, exposing the tweeters somewhat more directly in fron of you main listening position, can always be used to brighten things up a bit as well if needed.

IC tweaks can also have a good effect if needed.

Tizzy cymbals should not occur in any case.

At locations well off axis from the tweeters, the top end will drop off but everything else should remain clear and highly coherent.

Lesser recordings in general will sound more laid back than others, I would say.

The Walsh woofer is deficient at the extreme ends of it's bandwidth until it is fully broken in. So before breakin, you will not get the extreme bottom end thundering bass. And the upper treble range from 4-8 khz will sound recessed. Rest assured, this range will become quite vivid and nuanced when the driver is fully broken in. My suggestion is to play lots of piano music - let a CD repeat at moderate levels overnight. This will break that woofer in nicely at the top end. Better yet, get a CD of Bach music and run that for 24 hours at moderate loudness - you will hear a difference!

I find the treble on my Walsh 5000's to be clean, resolved and extended. But it will all depend on what's going on upstream. My expereience with the Walsh drivers has been that the highs can sound recessed if gear upstream does not match well and if your amp is lacking in current. The 5000's require current, watts, the right cables, you name it. I have been going through trial and error to dial in the sound. Now that it appears to be dialed in the supertweeter up top is the cleanest and most grain free of all the speakers I've had. These are super smooth in the top end but you can sure here the blat of trumpet or the grit in the reed of sax.

Foster, how is the McCormack amp working out?

That, Bryston, a beefier MF, or one of the better Class Ds are the top contenders for me for an upgrade to an even juicier amp for my 5s.

Mapman, the DNA-500 is finally working out well. It would appear on paper that the 500 paired with the Walsh 5000 speakers would be an easy slam dunk. But we know that what's on paper is meaningless. I have still had to do plenty of experimentation to get the system sounding special. It actually has taken a power cord shuffle on the amp, and the addition of a top flight parametric equalizer that I've reconfigured several times. Getting the 5000 speakers to sing with force and power has not been easy (partly its the room). Finally, last night I was listening to a Horace Silver disc I recently purchased, "Paris Blues," and the beauty and refinement of this live recording hit me hard on an emotional level, really sounding incredible! I never felt anything like this before listening to music on any earlier rigs. Other guys have mentioned experiences like this, but I never experienced it before. The funny thing is I had the World Series on my TV with the sound turned down, but the game was almost irrelevant since "Paris Blues" was tearing me apart.