Listening volume

Mofi, you describe the problem perfectly.
Sadly, I never could afford the custom made listening room I need.
Also, I never found a remote sensitive to dial it in either.

If it's a solid state amp, it's possible that based on the speaker and amp sensitivity that the amp was clipping.

OTOH, I have also experienced what Mofi is talking about.

"Was dynamic compression limiting my soundstage? Anyone else ever run into this? I'm really puzzled by this- "

Dynamic compression is certainly a common limiting factor with modern smaller speaker designs that also have good bass extension for there size. There is only so much that a dynamic driver of given size can do.

Walsh drivers smoke conventional drivers in regards to going loud and clear with minimal compression. Modern OHM Walsh CLS driver based speakers are absolute champs at this in their price range. The largest drivers used are only 10", but Walsh style wave bending seems to enable a dynamic driver of certain size to deliver a lot more sound with minimal compression a lot more effectively than it could otherwise. ALso the CLS crossover to tweeter is quite high (7khz range) which helps keep demand on tweeter minimal.

I have run OHM Walsh speakers of one form or another for almost 30 years now. No matter what you throw at them, they will never show any signs of stress, breakup or duress and any compression that might occur seems minimal compared to most anything else anywhere near the same price.

Map, there are a pr of Walsh Fives on here now that are 3 miles from me. I ain't going for 3K though they may be worth it, and since they are from an Estate can't hear them either.

At 2 K i might bite. What do you think?

IT depends.

Are they original Walsh 5s? Or newer Walsh 5 mk II, mk III, or latest 5000?

Also what cabinets, any other special customizations?

Any of these are good values for the right used price. ORiginal 5s should cost <$1000 normally I would expect.

New 5000s list at $6500. Not cheap, but still very good value for what you get.

My 5 mkIIIs in refurbed F cabinets (in my system pic) ended up costing me ~ $2400 direct from OHM. New 5 mkIIIs at the time listed for $6000. These used refurbed cabinets, were on summer sale to start, and I traded in two pair of old OHMs for the full value offered in addition.