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

I haven't tried the "music in the round" yet, but I have pulled the 2's pretty far out in the room just to see what this would bring to the table. Bass suffers a little bit, but they still did the staging thing very well. I often wondered what they would sound like in that setup if the back of the driver can wasn't attenuated some.

I think positioning in general with the Ohm's can be as tweaky as you want to get, but they generally sound very good no matter how they are placed within reason. I love that my 3's have the casters on the bottom, makes it so nice to wheel them out from the wall that my A/V stand is on, and move them where they do sound best.

When I am not in the "critical listening mode", they can just stay put, which is about 10" from the wall in front of me, and spread about 6' apart. Pulling them out so the plane of the speakers are beyond the TV screen usually works nicely for video. If in the music zone, they get moved out in the room about 2' and spread apart about 8/9', which still leaves about 4' on either side of each speaker. My listening position is about 7/8' away. Still fine tuning though!

Still in break-in mode on the 3000's, enjoying them very much at the moment! Tim

Ron, I'm also in NYC, I've had my MWT's in a couple different rooms in my apartment, and never tweaked a thing. I think it's more about the sound of the room, vs. where you're sitting. As long as your room isn't too live, the MWT's are the best small speaker! The MWT's drop to about 4 ohms at the low frequency cut-off, but are over 8 most of the time. If you have questions about compatibility, ask John over at Ohm.

'I often wondered what they would sound like in that setup if the back of the driver can wasn't attenuated some"

I wonder about that too. They'd be an obstacle there for many and larger drivers might be needed to retain bass levels but would the soundstage depth and perspective match up to MBL closer then?

If I had my old Walsh 2s still around (I used them for trade-in) I'd be tempted to open up the cans and do some surgery myself there and try it.

Map, I might be able to play around with this option at some point. I have a lead on some old drivers/cans that would be fun to play with. I think most of the lower mids might already be somewhat omni, not sure though, and maybe it depends on what model.

I know the old 3XO's and maybe even the 4's had a layer of felt on the backside of the can that could be taken off, but again, not sure about inside the can and all those details. I would imagine the sound would vary some depending on what was behind them.

My room is a little odd in that when I do move the Ohm's out in my critical listening area, I have basically an entryway behind the left speaker, and a hallway behind the right one, so effectively an open area. I don't get much reflective sound this way, which I don't know how much that happens anyway and to what degree if the speakers were placed along a long flat wall behind them instead.

Map, what kind of differences do you get with your 5's and the switch settings when your speakers are placed in different positions, such as pulled out from the wall, or against a wall? I can imagine there are many possibilities but does it change the overall presentation/sound much? Just curious, maybe someday I will find out! Tim

'Map, what kind of differences do you get with your 5's and the switch settings when your speakers are placed in different positions, such as pulled out from the wall, or against a wall?"

When closer to the wall (<2 feet or so) the location setting (essentially affects the mid-upper bass) goes down a notch. Normally, they are out about twice that distance in that the long section of my L shaped room where I listen is a good 30 feet deep or so and the location setting is up a notch there normally.

My L shaped room where the speakers are located is not symmetrical The right speaker is always generally well less than 2 feet from the right wall. The left speaker is essentially free standing with the left wall another 10 feet or so to the left and in front of and just inside the left hand wall of the listening area (in teh length of the L shape, if that makes any sense, see my system picture to get the idea).

I typically have the placement control on the left Walsh 5 set to either free standing (highest) or wall (middle setting) and the right Walsh 5 set to either wall or corner (lowest setting) depending on distance from rear wall.

The separate "Room Size" setting is generally set to "medium" for a medium sized room. This is the low range bass control that you adjust based on room size. When I set this to "Large" room size, I find just a tad too much low end which tends to mask detail at higher frequencies somewhat.

The presence/midrange and treble settings are generally left at the middle level settings these days and both speakers have a slight toeout in order to consolidate the soundstage just a tad between the speakers and in front of my somewhat narrow (~ 10 feet or so) listening area.