Are Ohm-Walsh micros and 1000 series disrespected because of omni-directional design??

sunnyjim,

I own the Ohm-Walsh 5000 so I cannot make a direct comparison with the Micros or the 1000s. Is the sound "...around the listener....not distinct or detailed...kind of amorphous or nonspecific in imaging or sound staging"? No, not if set-up correctly and I don't find that proper placement is difficult to achieve.

I'll not repeat in so many words what I think have been accurate descriptions of how the Ohms present music than have already been made by Map, martykl, polarin, and bondmanp. Each, in their own way, has done an masterful job of describing their experiences.

I agree with many of the comments above.

• Most apt for me, which is why I will always keep them, is their being described as having a "sociable soundstage".  I rarely sit still and listen to an entire record.  I appreciate the fact that I can get up and move around and the soundstage does not completely collapse. 
• I do enjoy I can move quite a ways to either side and still have a very "organic" presentation with remarkably "solid, stable imaging".
• I can sit with my wife and we both agree the music has a "sense of weight and body".  You'll not have that experience with Maggies - at least for the both of you. 
• It is definitely has  "non-fatiguing sound" which is very important to me.  I don't want speakers dictating the kind of music I need to listen to enjoy the experience.  If that were true, I would have to throw away a lot of my music .  And yes, I get as much detail as I need.
  

Not sure if sunnyjim has left the building but one additional thing I appreciate about these speakers is that, after owning a few other speakers, the Walsh Ohms have educated me in the importance of actually enjoying music.  I have owned very detailed speakers.  Uber-detail will be fine for some, but I do wonder, at the risk of sounding cliche, if they really enjoy their music or simply enjoy listening to their system. 

To construe what I wrote as a suggestion that these speakers don't allow you to hear into the music, I think you may have misunderstood, but then it seems as if you prefer the traditional presentation of monopole speakers and are partial to very analytical speakers.  I'll offer that these are not the type of speakers that will allow you to hear the second violinist pass gas.  Sorry for the crudity. So, yes, they do lack the resolution you'll find in other speakers. What they do well is render a smooth, coherent presentation.

As to your specific misgiving that these speakers might play some kind of "parlor trick" and that the sound was "around the listener, was not distinct or detailed, and kind of amorphous or nonspecific in imaging or sound staging", then I think your misgivings are misplaced.  

Still, what you want to do -  concentrate so as to enter the flow of the music played - is not what I look for in a speaker which is to enjoy music and appreciate the perspective the Ohm Walsh lays out. Neither approach is wrong, but I read of incessant audiophile- nervosa on these forums and am grateful I am not so afflicted. 

As to your subject title, it may be that Ohm Walsh speakers are not so much disrespected as to being misunderstood.

Best wishes on your journey!

I think both of you may be reading too much into my statement above about the Ohms lacking resolution. I perhaps should have used a qualifier such as they lack “some” of the resolution that can be found in other speakers. Not much, but they are not the last word in detail. That said, the Ohms do offer great detail, again depending on room, placement and quality of upstream components.

For me, however, it is not the [very decent] level of detail that compels me to write, as I did above, that these are keepers for me. Please see my Feb 19 post above. Rather, it is their rich, smooth, coherent sound – their ability to connect me with the music. It is an almost-there live experience for me. Almost. Very close. For me. 

Put another way, I really like Maggies. What they bring to the table, they bring incredibly well. Yet, for what I want in speakers, and need given how I listen to music, they don’t bring it well enough. I can go to a concert with my family – all five of us. I can switch places with any one of them and while I hear a small tonal shift, I am still engaged. Sitting on living room sofa, in the sweet spot, with the Ohms, I get that almost-there live experience, sitting back mid-hallish. If I get up, move around, switch places on the sofa, I get a small shift in how the music sounds but it doesn’t collapse on me they way it would with Maggies.

What I am trying to say – to SJ’s concern - is that this isn’t some fake, artificial trick the designer has used. In much the same way I can change seats during a concert and still maintain that live connection to the music, so too can I with the Ohms. 

Map, I think it was you who wrote in Rebbi’s epic Ohm Walsh Micro Talls thread (still going strong!) that the Ohm’s had plenty of “meat on the bones” If it wasn’t you, then a tip of the hat to the forgotten author. What that description conveys to me is the rich, harmonic, musical space these speakers render.

Anyway, SJ, sorry to take this thread in a slightly different direction, but I hope by now that your initial query has been answered by all the posters above.