Ohm Speakers, thoughts?

Dear Unsound, 7p62mm, and Sean,

I worked in hifi in the 70's and owned 2 very successful stores in the late 70's & 80's. We were big ohm dealers and sold, and repaired lots of their products. I also know John Strobeen personally and own some of his current speakers.

Sean is exactly right, as usual!

The current line uses conventional cone and dome type speakers. The woofer is inverted down towards the floor. The speakers can sound great providing the room and rest of the system are all working well together.

What matters is that you are happy with your music! The good part is tha John will let you try the speakers in your home, and return them if not happy. He is a true gentleman, and a man of absolute integrity!

I use other speakers that I prefer right now, but the ohms are worth worth an audition. (My dad is using the ohms and he loves them!)

Best Regards, and Happy Listening,
Hififile

Hififile, thanks for confirming my previous statements. I'm glad that you took the same stance that i did as far as saying it all boils down to enjoying the music.

My main problem with the whole "Ohm ordeal" is that they are marketing their current products as having Walsh drivers and they are not Walsh's as we know them. Other than that, these speakers may do everything that someone is looking for. However, I did feel it necessary to state that those that were familiar with the original Walsh based products might feel let down by Ohm's current offerings. Given the amount of time that has passed and the technology that has accumulated, they have done little to nothing to improve upon what was already an excellent design.

As i've tried to make clear before, i try to limit my input here to personal experience or information based on reliable sources. While i've seen the insides of the speakers being discussed, the digital photos that i had came from another source. If i was to pass on information from someone else, i would only do so if i felt they were reliable and the information was verifiable. Obviously, sharing someone else's opinion or subjective findings is done strictly as a contribution to a conversation. It should never be taken as "gospel" that everyone should hold or share that point of view.

Please don't take this to mean that i'm saying that i am always right ( far from it ). Like most others here, I do try my best to be as accurate as possible. If i am wrong or overlook specific aspects of a situation, i always ask that people more familiar with the situation correct me. Not only do i not want to screw something up for someone else, i want to know so that i don't continue to pass on "misinformation".

Hopefully, none of us are above being corrected or have stopped learning from each other. Sean
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I just purchased a set of refoamed ohm "f"s, (from a member here...) and found one of the problems..

One speaker will drive down to visible , say 5hz, cycles, producing thumps on the Pink Floyd "dark Side" album that have to be heard to be believed. The other, however, while sounding fine at all other frequencies, can't handle the Floyd. I took a close look at the surrouds, and discovered that the surround on the poorly performing speaker is glued too low on the cone, limiting the travel of the voice coil.

Now, do i attempt to fix it myself??? I've done regular woofers without a problem..

Mbiker: I had a very well known "professional speaker repair facility" refoam a set of my F's years ago and they did the same thing. It caused the driver to bind up, resulting in much lower spl capability and limited low frequency output. I had to pay another "professional speaker repair facility" to disassemble the freshly glued ( non-brittle ) surrounds, which did result in damage, and re-install the proper surrounds in the proper fashion. After all of that, this set ran fine after all of the repairs, but not quite as good as my first set that i also still have.

With all of that in mind, refoaming an F is a tough job. MUCH tougher than a standard woofer. For one thing, you can't get around shimming the voice coil with these. Due to the length and mass of the cone, the driver tends to "wobble" in the gap. ANY type of binding due to a lack of centering of the voice coil WILL result in quick driver failure. This in itself isn't a big deal, but looking at the F will tell you how "not easy" it may be to get a shim into the necessary area.

As part of installing the shims, you're likely to encounter the foam damping material that is installed on the INSIDE of the Walsh cone. This foam is probably relatively brittle and may crumble when physically "brushed" as you try to install the shims. The loss of foam will change the resonant, transient and damping characteristics of the driver. Obviously, extreme caution needs to be taken here.

Besides that, you really need use the proper density foam surround for this driver. Due to the aforementioned length and mass of the driver itself, and the way that the driver is mounted on the baffle, the surround acts as a major portion of the suspension of the speaker. Compared to a standard driver that fires horizontally, the surrounds on the F's are working WAY more than "double duty". Use the wrong surrounds and the suspension will either be too stiff ( causing driver binding and a lack of output ) or too soft, with a lack of damping and excessive ringing.

From what i've been told and probably due to some of the reasons listed above, most "professional speaker repair facilities" consider the Ohm F to be the toughest dynamic driver to properly refoam.

With the above info, you may be able to make a more informed opinion of whether or not you are up to to tackling this type of a task.

Other than that, the amount of TRULY "deep" bass that these speakers are capable of is pretty astounding, isn't it? When you say "5 Hz", most people will think that you're joking or exagerating. Those of us with F's that are really working well know exactly what you mean though. I know this because the Ayre Acoustics disc starts off at 5 Hz and my F's are "pumping away" at great amplitude. Enough to shake the house like you wouldn't believe. Sean
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PS... If you want to drop me an email, i can share with you a few competent speaker repair facilities and one to avoid like the plague.

HI,I AM LOOKING TO REFOAM MY OHM F'S MYSELF.I WOULD APPRECIATE ANY HELP IN LOCATING A CORRECT, OR A SET THAT WILL WORK OF FOAM SURROUNDS.ONCE AGAIN,ANY HELP WILL BE GREATLY APPRECIATED!.THANKYOU,STEVEN.