Merlin TSM comparisons

One of the things I like about Ohm (along with a recently auditioned pair of Duevel Planets, is they are great for playing music when I'm having a party! Few speakers fill rooms with good sound the way Ohm speakers do. Mirage has also tackled that concept with some success.
The Merlins are a "sit down and listen" type of speaker.

Robbob,

My experience exactly.

Ohm rightly promotes one of its advantages as being a huge "sweet sweep;" sit (or stand) anywhere in the room and get the full stereo effect. But owning Ohms for about 18 months taught me that I am much more of a "sit down, close my eyes and listen 'into' the music" kind of guy. I want to be swept away, so to speak. I don't mind speakers with a more conventional "sweet spot," as long as I don't feel that I have to keep my head locked in a vise to get the full effect.

Mapman has written elsewhere that some listeners will "dig" (my word) the unique Ohm spatial presentation, and some won't. Over time, I found that I got frustrated with how the Ohm's interacted with my room (I'm guessing that was the issue) and with what I'd sloppily call a kind of "vagueness" in their imaging, especially.

The Merlins can throw an enormous soundstage, given the right source material. But they seem (thus far, and I'm sure I'm not yet getting the most I can out of them) to really excel at tone, texture, nuance, and the sense that the music is all of one piece.

Guppy:

I agree tubes don't work well with the OHMS, but the Unison Research Unico hybrid did a nice job. I thought the Triangle Cometes performed much better with tubes.

I ran my Ohm Walsh Micro Talls and my Ohm 100's with a Unison Unico. It sounded sweet, but when I switched to separates (a Manley Shrimp tube pre and a Bel Canto S300 with 150 w/ch) it really kicked the Ohms up a couple of notches. Yeah, the Ohms like power and current, for sure.

I had another long session with the new TSM-XMr's this evening. I swapped out the Skylan stand pegs for spikes and experimented with placement. After about 40 minutes I had a none-too subtle improvement in the mid bass and the speakers tightened up even more.

I went to some well known material....Fleetwood Mac, Joan Baez and a revealing acoustic of Everlong. The Merlins are amazing. Name the audiophile phrase of approval and they were there. What's exciting is that I'm still missing the Cardas interconnect and a better CD player in the mix. And of course break-in is far from complete.

I finished off with another old favorite; Copland conducts Copland (version with old American songs).....absolutely splendid.

Cheers and goodnight!

Rob

mapman because you are using ss with the ohms then the tsm i would recommend and the most reasonable is the mmi version. this is the one that rebbi is using and he uses a class d amp i believe. hoever both versions would perform very well with ss.
thank you, b

Yes, as Rebbi pointed out, OHM Walsh (and omnis in general) do imaging differently than monitors, planars or any other more directional designs. I will not say necessarily better or worse, just different. Some will take to it and never look back and others will not. To me, it is more like what you hear at a live event and less like a typical stereo presentation. The large sweet spot is a unique feature as well.

I like good monitors for their ability to allow you to focus into recording details, particularly at lower volumes. You can do this with properly set up OHMs as well, but it is different. Also I like to play music at realistic volumes and delivering a live like presentation at live like volumes is a forte of the OHMs. If not for that, I may have been satisfied with my Dynaudio monitors which I acquired prior up trying out the newer OHM Walshes.