And Now, For All You Omni Fanatics

Doug,  thanks for this review.  On one hand, Ohm doesn't get much coverage and the coverage it does get often leaves the reader with unanswered questions.  On the other hand, they've been around for 50 years which says a lot about their products and service.  Add to that, you almost never see their products come up for resale and those that do seem to hold their value.

You've heard a lot of speakers and I'm sure that at the end of your review process you are left with a feeling of "this is a pretty good speaker and if I owned it, I could enjoy listening to it...or, this speaker has too many quirks that would drive me crazy"?

I'd like to boil all of my questions down to this one:  Assuming a potential Ohm customer is really into the big soundstage/immersion thing.....Is this a speaker that will make people want to listen to music because it just sounds good, or is it a speaker that will will have people scratching their head thinking the sound is lacking in some area/s?

The thing I like about Doug is he is a bonafide audiophile who talks about things like build quality, parts, engineering decisions and other technical issues relating to what is being listened to and he seems to have a lot of listening experience under his belt . Many Ohm owners are not necessarily audiophiles in that regard. So that makes what he has to say particularly interesting to me. The ohms were recommended to me personally by the late great reviewer John Potis, another bonafide music lover, audiophile and good guy who I think reviewed a pair he owned on sixmoons.com several years back.

Also the topic of Old versus new Ohm Walsh comes up often but this may be the first time a bonafide reviewer went to the trouble to have an old pair rebuilt and available for comparison. Good stuff!

Thank you all for the complements, I appreciate them. 

snapsc, regarding your ultimate question; for a person who values the bulbous soundstage and sense of grandeur above all, I believe the F5 would be very gratifying. Because it has a built in subwoofer, it can be downright impressive in presence and scale, two aspects that can yield a sense of an overwhelming experience. It's unusual capability to be contoured to nearly any set of electronics should satisfy all but perhaps the most hard core ESL or horn lovers. It is a legit dual purpose speaker for stereo and surround systems, should a person wish to use it for that, too. 

I was surprised by how handily the F5 outperformed the Walsh Model F - and that was with the vintage speaker being modified by removing half the dense dampening material and bypassing the fuse! The difference in capacity to perform at a very high level was strikingly in favor of the F5. Though it was not my intent to demonstrate it, as I had no idea how the comparison would turn out, the result once again supported my conclusion I reached years ago that vintage does not typically have the capability to perform on the level of contemporary designs. Looking into these older designs literally, there was nowhere near the fanatical attention given to cabinets, dampening, bracing, etc. that happens now, and the character of the performance is fundamentally different. Imo, modern cabinet making for speakers is on a higher level and my ears enjoy the difference. Imo, the appeal of vintage aesthetics is not enough to overcome the performance gap. YMMV 

I've owned Walsh 4's for 35 years so I consider myself as an expert on their sound.  
One aspect that has not come out much over the years by other Walsh 4 owners is the ability to tweak the sound to compensate for room acoustics and personal preferences.

@douglas_schroeder  I noticed that you modified the F by "removing half the dense dampening material". I can tell you from personal experimentation that this will alter the sound significantly... at least it does so on the 4's.

My original 'Tufflex' started to deteriorate in the late 90's so I began experimenting with different cotton batting of various thicknesses and density.  On the 4's this 'Tufflex' is placed on nylon straps which are held in place by 2" duct tape in a 'U' shape inside the cabinet approximately 1/3 of the way down from the top.

I have placed the straps both in a flat and 'U' shaped positions (always 1/3 of the way down) and then played with the batting to hear what the differences are.  

I can vary the sound from tons of muddy bass with hardly any treble to just the opposite.

What I ended up liking best to my ear in my room was 3/8" of dense batting in a 'U' shaped configuration.

I've ordered replacement 'Tufflex' from JS at OHM.
Curious as to how it will alter the sound, if any.

The more I read about the current design of these speakers, the F5s and their junior versions, the more convinced I am that these will represent audio nirvana for me. I just sent Evan at ohm an email earlier tonight describing the multiple places in my home I want to put speakers and am awaiting his response. cannot wait to try these out and truly expect to be overwhelmed with delight.