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

Ron,

You will not be the first to supplement the OHMs with a sub when driven off a tube amp. It may be par for the course.

Ron,
I owned a pair of micro talls for 5 months and never thought they lacked bass. Part of the problem is that most of your music is on vinyl. They just couldn't put that much bass on lp's, or the needle would be jumping right out of the groove, so if you wanted more bass, you had to supplement it with subs and room placement ect. CD's today are capable of almost unlimited low end extension. You might want to buy a few cd's that you know have a lot of low end and give them a listen. This will show you what the micros can do, and you might be a bit surprised at how much bass they can produce by themselves. You will probably want to re-add a sub to listen to your lp's as they will sound rather "anemic" without a sub, but this was the norm for the times and we hade no choice. Don't give up on your micro talls. I just sent mine back and upgraded to the new 1000. I'm breaking them in, but the Ohm magic is still there, great bass(on cd's), soundstage and overall presentation that will improve with time. I really loved the micros, but needed something that could handle more power. I'll be posting my impressions od the 1000's as time and break-in permit, but I'm convinced that I've got something really special with the Ohms, and if I choose to upgrade again, it will be with Ohms Good luck Joe

I'm very interested in hearing people's impressions of the new and improved 1000's series drivers versus the older series 3 drivers that I have in both pair of OHM Walshes and were used in MWTs from the outset, I believe.

Having not heard the latest drivers, its difficult for me to provide reliable feedback on those based on prior versions in that one cannot assume what is similar, different or improved sound-wise.

Joe-
I've always found I got MORE bass with vinyl, esp. the newer, remastered stuff. I actually gave up on cd's and sold my Rega Apollo (everything sounded lifeless on that thing). I'm not sure why- maybe my phono amp is the wildcard (although, it's nothing special- Jolida). Either way, my stereo is basically all analog for me (I have a Yamaha cd recorder to copy albums- I can play cd's if I really wanted, but it sounds similar to the Rega). I'm not giving up yet, but I don't want to go back to a sub- at least, not where I currently live (no room for one).

There is quantity of bass and quality of bass. Amps with higher damping factors tend to work well with the larger OHMs at least I believe. When I was amp hunting, I only considered amps with damping factors > 50. My old Carver was lower and had flat bass particularly at lower levels. The damping factor spec on the amps I'm running now is >1000 according to Bel Canto's specs. And let me tell you, the bass is by far the cleanest and most fulfilling I have heard on OHMs, though when I first hooked the Bel Cantos up, the bass sounded quite lean compared to prior.