Ohm Walsh F Hope of Resurrection

Repair now underway. It seems one driver is original and the other not. The original does not have ferrofluid, as it had not been invented at the time. A different lubricant, such as a grease, was used. At some point one driver failed and was replaced, the new unit utilizing ferrofluid.

The drivers are having spiders and surrounds rebuilt, the one with hardened/tacky ferrofluid has been cleaned, and both will be reconditioned with new ferrofluid. My understanding was that the original units were prone to failure, but the addition of ferrofluid ameliorated that problem. 

I may have reconditioned Ohm Walsh Model F’s for Christmas! That would be fun! :)

Very cool!

22 hours of driving, 1,370 miles, and total for project, including travel costs, of $400. DONE! 

Speakers are warming up (slightly; they were in car cabin, of course), and will be assembled tonight. Perhaps a first run this evening, too. We'll see. The hard work is over, now it's RELAX TIME!  :)

Now for the vintage Ohm community, a question; I have heard the joke re: 200/300 wpc wakes them up, and 301wpc blows them up. Ok. I have a super-clean class D that puts out 600wpc into 8 ohms and 1KWatt into 4 Ohms. Is this inherently a problem for these speakers, or only� relatively a problem, i.e. temptation to play them too aggressively? I see mapman is using plenty of clean power. 

I wonder if it was coincidence; my pair of Ohm Walsh Model F were the only ones at the repair facility when I dropped them off. Today, when I picked them up, mine was one of four pair! They had never seen such a thing with that speaker. Perhaps our enjoyable brainstorming is motivating some owners? Or, just a freakish occurrence, which is certainly not beyond probability bounds. 

Douglas John Strohbeen has stated in interviews the issues with driving Fs well without damage and maintaining them properly is supposedly the reason why the design was dropped. Not practically supportable.
I think with any amp you just want to be very careful.
It’s the CLS design driver that replaced the original Walsh driver that resolved that issue. Every CLS Ohm I have owned will take whatever you throw at them and deliver effortlessly. I have never heard or owned original Fs. Mine are newer CLS design on refurbed F cabinets. Totally different. So I can only repeat what I have read there. Ferrofluid was introduced into the F design as I understand it to help address that issue as well. Clipping is never good either hence the challenge. I would try a higher power amp like a Class D for more bang for the buck if needed . But be careful.