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

Yet another moment when I realized how fortunate I am to have the Walsh 2000s: I stopped by a local dealer the other evening to pick up something I'd had serviced there. This dealer (the excellent John Rutan at Audio Connection) offered to play the Vandersteen 7s for me. How could I refuse? He had them in a nice-sized and treated room, with Aesthetix amps and an ARC preamp, all SOTA stuff. The sound was indeed amazing. I'd heard these before, but not from the sweet spot. Incredible sound stage width and depth, just-right transients, deep, tuneful, tight bass, and timbre that was simply spot-on. These might be my "I just won the Powerball lottery" speakers. Nevertheless, all the things that I liked about these $45,000 speakers are simply more of exactly what I like about my Ohm Walsh 2000s. I noted the basic similarity of the way both speakers produce a palpable image of performers and instruments, of the accurate reproduction of instrument timbre, the ability of the speakers to dissappear into the soundstage, and the transients that were there, but never in-my-face. Were the 7s, driven by this SOTA front end, in a treated room, better than my Ohms? Yes, they were. But not by the margin that the price difference would suggest.

The item I had serviced should take my system to the next level. Stay tuned.

Thanks for the thoughtful comments and suggestions. I did just acquire a used NAD 512 CD player here on Agon. It's a fairly low end unit but distinctly better detail, tight and fuller bass and less bright than the Yamaha CD hanger I already had in place.

A couple of other recent tweaks and a new accessory have also made a noticeable difference. At a discount home improvement I got two 12" square concrete patio stones that are about 1.5" thick and look like stone. Put one under each speaker on the hardwood floors (there is a thick oriental rug with pad in room but it does not extend to the area where the speakers sit. Bass response is tighter and deeper. The second tweak may be sen as snake oil by some but I swear the sound - especially with vinyl - is a bit more open and has clarified and even slightly deepened bass response over what it was... all from a new turntable mat. I have Technics SL-1400 (kissing cousin of the Sl-1200.) The stock mat is a thick rubber and many seem to feel that rubber mats - or at least this one - don't allow the sound to open up as much. A lot of research on different mat materials... synthetic plastic, metal, felt, cork etc. yield the overall impression that most folks here no difference between mats which I believe.) The one exception was deerskin. Nearly every thread I found that discussed deerskin/leather mats suggests that they have a positive impact on the sound. Only place I could find them for sale was a few UK vendors and prices were high. I bought a compass style circle cutter with cutting wheel for drywall - at a hardware store,) an X-Actoknife, a roll of self adhesive cork at a craft store, and a 1/4" hole punch and a scrap of soft grained leather at a leather supply shop (deerskin was too pricey for an experiment but I will now buy some based on my sing the rubber mat for size I scored two circles of cork, one of leather and carefully cut them out. One cork circle was then cut to remove a 4" circle of material in the center. That piece was the center of the "sandwich, the smoother side of the leather faces up and the third piece of cork on the bottom. Careful pressure and pounding with a soft rubber mallet got the layers adhered and the center 4" area of leather is slightly depressed due to the cutout under it (for the label depression.) Last steps were to punch the center spindle hole and trim the edges even. I played Side A of Steely Dan's Aja on the rubber mat and then on the new leather mat. There IS a difference and the leather mat yields better sound. I was surprised that I could hear it but am convinced that it isn't my imagination. Followed up later tonight with side B of the Sony Legacy 180 gram reissue of Axis Bold as Love and damn!

Last change... I got an $80 Spin-Clan manual record washer and built my own jerry-rigged vacuum system form and old portable vacuum. I can clean about 15 records in one hour and the results are astounding. Thrift store finds and even vinyl from my own remaining old collection (much of which is gone) sounds so much better. Surface noise that I attributed to worn records was just dirt embedded in the grooves. Great investment.

Clean records->excellent tweak!

WIth their bottom ports, what the Walshes sit on can make a big difference with how they interact with the room and the resulting sound. I need to try something like that in my tile floor 12X12 sunroom where every speaker I try including the Walshes tend to have a bass bump.

I had stability issues with my uneven floor as well. I had Sound Anchors make me some three-point spike cradle bases for the 2000s, with similar results to what Phaelon got. Note that even concrete has resonance. My preferred audio guru likes absorption for source components and amps, but prefers coupling for loudspeakers - hence the spiked bases.

I added a K-Works Ersamat to my vintage Thorens table with excellent results. Not as exotic or labor-intensive as making a deerskin mat, but easy and effective, IME.

As for LP cleaning, I spent a little more than Phaelon on the KAB EV-1, which likewise does an awesome job on used LPs. Listened last night to a Denny Christianson Big Band LP ("More Pepper"). Not the best big band LP I've ever heard, but the sonics were spectacular, and the bass was equal to anything I've heard from digital!

I am going to hear KEF's The Blade tonight. I'll post my thoughts at some point.

Once again - I have heard a respected company's Statement Speaker, in this case the KEF Blade, and come away impressed, but not depressed. The Blade is a wonderful speaker, with excellent detail retrieval, image solidity and extension at both extremes. Of course, they sounded like a point source, a design goal that was met. Yet, the soundstage was confined to the area between the speakers. In that regard, I still prefer the Ref 205 & 207 to the Blade.

Bottom line: While the Blade is actually fairly priced at $30K, my beloved Walsh 2000s do not leave me with speaker envy.