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

Moth my current OHMs sounded totally foreign to me when I first hooked them up despite having owned Walsh 2s for years. The thought that they sounded like crap at first listen probably crossed my mind. It's a combo of the speakers breaking in and your ears adapting to listening to music in a totally different way. Hang in there and tweak as needed! You will either make the transition or not. I suppose that's one reason why John offers such a favorably long audition period.

Map, that is exactly what I thought when I first got my 3000's cahnged over from the original drivers. I thought "My goodness, what have I just done?" But knowing how good the 2000's ended up being during that trial period, I just kept on with them. Have had a few difficulties along the way, but all is paying off. It is nice to have that very generous trial period for sure. Tim

I acquired my 100S3's second hand first as a test. THese may have been somewhat broken in by the prior owner but nit certain. Totally foreign sound at first listen. Then I gradually got tuned in and tweaked. Based on that, then eventually I bought the 5S3s from OHM as my new cornerstone speakers. My ears were adapted more somewhat but it still took several months for these to really break-in I would say. Then I changed pre-amp, amp and tweaked ICs and setup as needed. It's been dialed in now for well over a year, going on two, and I am hesitant to change or touch a thing! Sometimes, the smallest thing can lead to a whole new sequence of tweaks/changes. I hate that when things are finally sounding just the way you want them too!

Anyone who does not believe in break in should audition ohms for a month. Mine are a few weeks old and they have taken on different sound aspects. Right now they seem to be going through a "dumb" period as a bit congested ......but they have certainly floated my boat thus far

I actually think that the vast majority of "breaking in" is just getting used to the incredible sound stage that these speakers offer. It truly is a foreign sound when one first hears it. A good analogy would be headphones. One can put on a pair of topnotch headphones, and listen to music that has a flat frequency response curve from 20-20,000. But some people don't like them and prefer speakers. Sam thing with OHMs, but as in headphones one needs to put in 100 hours of listening to see if this does it for you and for many it will- just look at all the earbuds that one sees.

Having said all the above, I admit to fiddling around with speaker placement, switch positions (I have 5000's), etc until I was happy. Now I'm at the point of, "if it ain't broke, don't f*** with it". As a confession, I switched out the WWII 6SN7's for the Black Treasures from Shuguang- the RCA's were too microphonic, but they did give voices a dreamy quality, like being transported back to the 40's.