Amplifier advice from Ohm Walsh 100 Mk. II owners

State of flux...I can relate to that. :) I've also heard from folks on the Harbeth owners' forum that the Exposure works well with Harbeth speakers, but have no personal experience of that match. I was considering purchasing a pair of Compact 7s or SHL5's a while back and was researching amp options for those. And I believe Stephen Meijas from Stereophile uses an Exposure 2010 with Devore Gibbon 3's. I've never heard the Veena but have read good things about it, and can imagine that would be a nice pairing.

So true about the Ohm set up. Those casters make playing around with placement a breeze. Experimenting to get a proper set up with the Ohms has been a joy, especially compared to the Vandersteen 1Cs I had before the Ohms. I have hard wood floors and dealing with spikes and discs and getting the tilt set properly was a bit of work, made especially slow because I was doing it alone. It's too bad they dropped the casters from the newer Ohms.

Here's to speedy break in on those Veenas. Cheers, Irc3479!

"It's too bad they dropped the casters from the newer Ohms. "

I agree, but I suspect they could be done by special request, especially with refurbished cabinets, or they may not be hard to add yourself.

I was never a fan of the casters on the Ohm Walsh speakers. Although very practical for speaker placement the casters just looked cheap. IMO it took away from the looks Walsh speakers which already some find not so visually appealing.

Now as soon as I have the money for a pair of Ohm Walsh 100s or Micro Talls I'll pounce on them. Power wise would a rebuilt Sumo Nine or a rebuilt Hafler DH-220 be enough to power them? I would only be sitting at most 6ft away from them most of the time. Thanks

What are the power, input impedance, current delivery and damping specs on the Sumo and Hafler amps?

Most any amp will drive them if used in the correct matching size room (see OHM web site for model to room size mappings).

To drive and CONTROL them to their max however (can be a BIG difference in results) in a properly matched room, I'd recommend a beefy 80 w/ch or higher amp with good current delivery capability and damping factor of 50 or higher to be safe.

Similar for larger Walshes but for those I would throw as much power and current with high damping as is possible at them. Class D amps are an excellent choice to accomplish this with reasonable cost of ownership these days.

Because the OHm Walshes have ben reasonably affordable over the years, a lot of people (including myself) have made the mistake of running them of similarly affordable receivers or integrateds that work OK but are not able to drive and control them to the max, which is needed to get the results that might be considered competitive soundwise with many of the "big boy" higher end systems out there.

Hi Mapman

Thanks for chiming in. Here are the specs of the Sumo Nine from the manual I was able to find.

Class A amplifier

Power Output (both channels driven 20Hz to 20KHz):

8 Ohms: 60W @ less than 0.25% THD
4 Ohms: 120W @ less than 1% THD

Input Impedance: 1 megohm

Damping Factor: 120 min, 20Hz to 1 KHz

I don't know how to calculate current delivery but the manual of the Sumo Nine can be found here.

http://www.davidsaudio.com/nine_plus_manual.doc

The specs of the Hafler DH-220 can be found on page 16 here.

http://www.hafler.com/techsupport/pdf/DH-220_amp_man.pdf

I pulled some specs that I'm hoping will help you.

Power Rating: Less than 0.02% total harmonic distortion at
any power level up to 115 watts continuous average power
per channel into 8 ohms at any frequency between 20 Hz
and 20 kHz with both channels driven.

Input Impedance: 47,OOO ohms.

Input Sensitivity: 1.55 volts rms for 1 15 watts into 8 ohms.

IM Distortion (SMPTE): Less than O.OOS’%, from 1 watt to 1 15 Damping Factor: 300 to 1 kHz into 8 ohms
watts into 8 ohms. 60 to 10 kHz into 8 ohms

Typical THD at 115 watts into 8 ohms: 1 kHz - 0 0025%; 1O kHz - 0.007%; 20 kHz - 0.012’/‘

Frequency Response into 8 ohms: - 3 dB. 2 Hz to 160 kHz at 1 watt, +O, -0.5 dB, 6 Hz to 60 kHz at 1 15 watts

Rise Time: 10 kHz. 60 volts peak to peak square wave, 1 0% to 9 0 % 2.5 us.

Slew Rate: 10 kHz. 60 volts peak to peak square wave: 30 VI’,~ s.

Typical Channel Separation: 20 Hz:> 75 dB
1 kHz:>85 dB
20 kHz: >6S dB

Signal to Noise Ratio, unweighted: Better than 100 dB at 115 watts into 8 ohms.

I'm hoping either amp works with the Ohm Walsh Micro Talls or the 100 series. I can't fit the larger Ohm Walsh series speakers in the listening space I have to work with.

I also like these amps a lot. I really don't want to sell them in favor of Class D amps. The ones in my budget that I've listened to weren't for me sound wise.