Ohm Speakers, thoughts?

I remember Ohm A's and F's.....didn't have a wallet fat enough, but absolutely loved them both...I think I heard them with Phase Linear amps 

FWIW and FYI.  Ohm owner/founder John Henry Strohbeen has died in Brookly, NY.  

From an Oct 17 FB post on the  Ohm pages... OHM SPEAKERS | Facebook

 "Dear Audiophiles, Artists, Engineers, Designers, Friends, Contemporaries, and Associates of John Henry Strohbeen III,

We are sad to share that John passed away recently in his adopted home town of Brooklyn, New York. He left too soon. He was an avid audiophile and engineer who was continuously working to innovate and improve his products, and he had unfinished designs on his desk, unwritten emails to send, and unknown listeners he looked forward to meeting."

Dang...

For their time, a really great concept and well executed. Still very good today. I use 4th order active xovers on my 4s (with 1/3rd oct active EQ) with 4th order at 45Hz to stereo active 12" Dayton subs. Added 2" thickcotton batting on all interal walls and braces, too. Yes, pretty large boxes but the casters help. So open, so smooth, so extended at both frequency extremes.

Thanks Jedenite24 for your response.

It looks like Dale is the one true continuation of the Walsh legacy. I bought a pair of Ohm Fs back in the late 70s and powered them with a 500 watt McIntosh. It was an amazing sound. I sold them in the early 80s when I needed the cash.

I picked up a pair of Ohm Walsh 2s a couple of years ago and have a Sony STR-AV880 amplifier, which sounds OK but no longer at those lofty audio heights. I do hope someday to obtain one of Dale's new designs and a new amp, but till then will have to just go on my memories and readings.

Hi Morphixnm

Check out this thread. Dale made a reply in 2011.

http://forum.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/fr.pl?cspkr&1194658277&openflup&20&4#20

The last post here was from Dale, 7 years ago! Where are we now with Walsh drivers?

Thanks for the compliments and encouragement. I truly appreciate it. I extend an open invitation to anyone whom wishes to make the journey to my shop and home for demo's and tours.

Regarding the last comment on the castors... I have found that the single greatest improvement that I could render to these speakers (night and day improvement) was redesigning the base and adding the very high quality metal cones. Coupling these to the floor cleaned up the entire sound accross the board. Perhaps you can try it with the other products.

Parts Express sellls some very good quality cones from Dayton Audio and very attractive as well. These will keep you in budget. I would recomend the heaviest cones that run about $20 for a set of 4. Believe me, it is the best $50 you will ever invest.

For those whom may be interested, I presently use:
Conrad Johnson preamps, mono block tube amps, Jolida JD 100A CD transport, A Luxman turntable with Premier MMT fiber arm and varous styli. I employ dedicated 30 amp lines with their own power conditioner and ground system, silver interconnects of my own design and various speaker cables, such as 4TC, 8TC and siver, some of my design too.

I have aslo successfully employed some of Carvers magnetic field amps in place of SS amps to power my creations.

Great listening.
Dale.
dale@hhr-lasers.com

MWr0707,

I bet your FRS-11's are not on castors. If so, maybe consider putting them on castors in order toenable you to reposition the speakers easily if desired for optimal listening at a particular room location, if the speakers cannot reside there normally due to room constraints.

I did this with my old Walsh 2s, which were not on castors. THe F5s are.

If you are comfortable with a battery powered screwdriver and drill, it may not be very hard to do with stock castors that you can pick up at Home Depot or euquivalent. As long as the speakers sit squarely on the castors, there is no practical sonic affect from doing this due to the vertical firing nature of the driver.

If you do not like it for any reason, the casters can be unscrewed from the bottom and removed.

Or, maybe John at Ohm can provide a set of the nice heavy duty locking castors they use and provide guidance on installing them.

Just an idea to help provide some flexibility if needed in your room.

Dale,

Thanks so much for the info! it all sounds right to me!

I'm also hoping that your project, which is obviously the result of a knowledgeable guy with a passion who is on to something, receives much more attention down the road. I would love to hear your creations.

If you are ever in the Washington/Baltimore corridor area with your creations, I'll volunteer right now to help get them set up and give them a listen!

Dale,

Thanks again for the great info,

Allowing for our fading memories, 8-)
how would you compare the sound of the new speakers to the originals?

Although your setup is well outside my budget, I look forward to hearing the feedback from those who can swing it.

This does give some weight to the idea that John Strohbeen had the goal of producing as much "Walsh-like" sound as possible at a lower price-point, with a max price of 6K new and much less for those upgrading. I guess I'm fortunate that this is exactly what I needed.

I hope you are feeling better soon, and best of luck with your new designs. If I lived near you, I would definitely go for a listen.

Wow! You guys have been busy, LOL. I go away with the flu for about 5 days and the post has gone crazy. Heheheh.

Anyway, barely feeling alive, but will chime in..

Answers to some of the questions previously asked...Regarding my versions and rebuilds...

Freq response is down to 30 Hz, actually lower, but conservatively rated. Free air is at 25 Hz.
High end is extended to above 20KHz.
Nominal impedance is 6 ohms.
VC's will handle 150 watts RMS at 300 Deg. C.

I do not recommend them for levels sustained above 96 db with HEAVY base passages, without heavy base they will do 98 to 100 easily. This is at 12 feet from the speakers! I find them to be plenty loud. This level I attain using less than 10 watts. These speakers have an Xmax of about 10 to 12 mm. Exceeding this will damge them as with any driver blown beyond its limits.

The original drivers were not truly designed as underhung motor assemblies and some were pre-loaded. The weight of the cone and the sloppy spider caused the VC to hang out of the magnetic gap and seriously reduced the efficiency of the speaker and its capabilities. Proper underhung design and a few tricks to deal with the weight have changed this problem and now the speakers get quite loud with minimal inputs. They do sound best however when driven with amps capable of considerable dynamic headroom.

I would recommend a room of at least 300 sq. ft. for the TLS-I and 500 sq. ft. or more for the TLS-II.

I do not recommend less than 100 watts per channel TUBE or 300 watts SS for the TLS-I and much more for the TLS-II. (Or the F's or the A's) They do not need it to voice or even sound good, but the dynamic head room works wonders. They just open up.

The best room placements I have found seems to be about 8 feet from center to center of the cones and at least 3.5 feet away from the rear wall and 3 feet from the corners. Corner bass traps and rear wall reflection control works well. Placing a flat screen TV on the wall or between them may cause some issues, or degrade sound.

The soundstage depth can be controlled somewhat by the closeness to the rear wall.

BTW, John Strohbeen is not the original designer of the A's or the F's. Lincoln Walsh discovered the concept and the founder of Ohm Acoustics, Marty Gerstin designed the A's with Walsh's help. The firt "A" was released in 1971 just after Lincoln Walsh passed away. Sadly, He never got to see or hear his creation. Marty Gerstin, then went on further refine the A's and to develope the "F", relesed in 1972, as a little brother to the "A". Again, further refining the concepts gained from the originals. The "F" was smaller and easier to drive, but did not have the full sonic merits of the "A's" which had and have no comparrison.

Though the cones were 3 times as heavy and they were very power hungry, they could produce bass that would involuntarily relieve a person as well as cause some damages to home objects. Yet they had a very delicate and nuanced high end. The later coment was not necessisarilly documented by Ohm, but was experienced by others and myself in the early years.

Marty is also responsible for designing the unsual and special voice coils that made the "A" and "F" possible. This concept was pattented as well.

John Stohbeen, the former owner of Tech Hi-Fi aquired Ohm Acoustics from Marty between 76 and 78. Through some of Johns efforts, the "F" was redesigned and or went through changes, until it was retired in 84. John then came up with and patented the idea now embodying the current Ohm products.

The most unfortunate problem now plaguing most people is that there have not been any of these speakers remaing in pristine condition or properly rebuilt from which to compare current product or the originals. The others whom have actually heard the originals are relying on fading memories, as these are 30 to 35 years ago.

Even I can't remeber those experiences, except to say that the original "A" and "F" set me on this path and BLEW me away forever.

Refurbished and upgraded F's start at $6K, ...A's at $13.5K
New TLS-I @ $8K.....New TLS-II @ 15K

Good listening to all,
Dale.

Good catch! If you're hearing a difference with the covers off, definitely change the fabric.

Try your local fabric store. I re-did the fabric on my old Walsh 2's myself once, mainly because the original fabric had worn and I wanted to change the color to match decor. I found very loosely weaved light cream colored medium strand wool fabric in the local fabric store that I was able to stretch and shape over the frame, staple to the underside of the grill, and trim. It had a few folds along the seams, and looked ugly underneath the grille mainly to my laziness in trimming excess fabric, but looked really nice from the outside! The loose weave provided sonic transparency via the holes between the stitching when stretched around the frame.

Or if you know anyone handy with a sewing machine, it wouldn't be to hard to even sew up the seams or even have something professionally custom made, for an even cleaner look if needed.

Or just call Ohm and see what they might have to offer.

Mapman,

It is interesting to me that running the speakers without the grille covers takes the upper midrange to just about what I'm after.

These are the original 20-year-old FRS-11 covers, so I wonder if more transparent cloth is available.

Mapman,

Since the TV is about 56" wide, I can't move the speakers closer together without them standing in front of it. My CD/DVD source is the Oppo 981HD which has me considering an additional audio-only player like the Cambridge Audio 840C. My FM tuner is built-in to the Outlaw 990 and sounds similar to the oppo. Same with the music channels from the cable tv box. I'm using very cheap interconnects and the same 16 gauge lamp cord to the speakers I've had for 30 years.

I've using digital connections from the CD/DVD and the cable tv box.

I've always been a bit skeptical about the impact of cable changes, but your description has me thinking it might be worth checking out.

But it sounds like you are hearing close to what I am. Just as you described, I'd like to go a bit stronger in the upper midrange.

MWr0707,

I used to sell many of Ohms non-Walsh dynamic models years ago, including the E, L, C2, and H. Unfortunately, the shop I worked in never got a pair of As or Fs so I never heard these.

I still have and enjoy my Ls that I've had now for ~ 30 years (see my system photo).

However, most of these models, including my Ls, had a similar tonal balance, which I believe was modeled after the F, if I recall correctly, which was the flagship model of the time.

Many of these models had high and low treble or midrange level adjustment switches on them, but in general, the sound of these speakers, which I remember well, and still experience with my Ls is significantly more forward in the upper midrange, compared to Ohms latest drivers (my Ls and f5s are in adjacent rooms for easy comparison).

The tonal balance/timber of the series 3 drivers are definitely more recessed and perhaps neutral sounding or perhaps laid back in this range compared to my Ls or my Dynaudio or Triangle monitors. The Triangles timbre probably matches the Ohm S3 drivers most closely of these three.

I use phono, CD and FM tuner sources mainly. I switched from the DNM REson interconnect to the MIT Terminator 2 with my Denon CD, which was the only source in my system which I felt needed a tweak in this area with the F5s. The results now are more to my liking, definitely a touch "brighter" and more forward but still smooth as silk.

I picked up my MIT terminator 2 interconnect on Ebay for less than $50.

Maybe a slight adjustment with speakers slightly closer together and maybe a touch farther out from the wall, if possible like below?

The "more restrained" upper midrange may just be the nature of the 200s timbre. having never heard Fs, its hard for me to say, but I think the S3 drivers natural upper midrange could be described that way compared to some speakers. I would say it is "more restrained" than my Dynaudio Contour 1.3 mk IIs for sure, but this is not a bad thing for me in my case.

You might try different interconnects perhaps to adjust this somewhat if desired. What source devices and interconnects are you using currently? I use several different types. OF these the MIT Terminator 2s I use off my CD would be my choice for this purpose compared to others I use (DNM Reson and HArmonic TEchnology Truth Link), which tend to also be more restrained.

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Mapman,

I remember the 3d nature of the F's soundstage, but I cannot recall the forward/back placement.

My challenge in the current room is that I cannot place seating any farther than 11 feet back from the front wall, because of a 1/3 back wall.
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I suppose I could turn the setup 90 degrees so that the speakers are in the leg of the 'L', (I guess, kind of like you have it), but I really enjoy the sound from way back in the kitchen.

Mwr0707, do you recall if the soundstage of the F's was located primarily behind the speakers when listening straight on axis like the CLS series 3 drivers?

Maybe there is a difference here that you perceive as "more restrained" upper midrange?

With the Walsh 5 S3 drivers, the "perspective" adjustment, which corresponds mainly to midrange, I believe can be set to "close", "medium" or "far". The "far" setting seems to move the soundstage more back behind the speakers when listening dead on.

Unfortunately, I do not know which settings on the Walsh5 S3 match or come closest to matching the sound of the 300 or 200 drivers, which do not have adjustments.

You might want to pop John Strohbeen an email and get his input.

Tonal balance will vary with location based on room acoustics as is the case with any speaker. All rooms are different and affect sound differently.

I think I can say with confidence that the best results with tonal balance is most likely to occur as well if the speakers are not too close to the wall.

In my case, the upper midrange of my Walsh 5's (adjustable 300 drivers, see photo of the adjustments in my system section), which are 5 feet out from the wall in a much larger room is more "restrained" than the 100 drivers in the smaller room. This is intentional in my case in that I have the "perspective" adjustment set to "far". I think this setting attenuates or lowers the midrange level.

My Walsh 2's (100 driver) may be more analogous to your 200s in that, though smaller and designed for smaller rooms, there are no adjustments. I've had these in two very different 12X12 rooms which I can say confidently did affect the tonal balance to some extent based on room acoustics.

It sounds like you do not notice any variation in tonal balance relative to position, is that correct?

If that is so, I may try experimenting in another room. Which would be quite an "exercise". 8-)

MWr0707,

One thing I'm realizing with the Ohms is that I think an easy and sound way to determine best placement is to think of your room as a concert hall and identify where in the room you would place the performers in the room if they were playing live and then where you would like to sit to listen.

Then Place the Ohms immediately to the front of the performance area. Avoid placing too close to the walls if possible. The soundstage should then cover the area desired as best as is possible.

Lean towards placing the Ohms closer together rather than farther apart when unsure. I've found the soundstage holds together better when the speakers are not too far apart.

With the Ohms, its like setting up a live performance. It becomes an exercise in placing performers within the room based on where you will listen from. Like a live performance, the best seats are usually front and center somewhere, but there are plenty of good seats in the house, unlike most conventional speakers.

With both my Walsh2 S3's in a 12X12 room and my f5 S3's in an L shaped ~27X20 foot room, I've found the soundstage and imaging is best defined with the speakers at least 2-3 feet away from any wall (proportionally further in a larger room perhaps) and the speakers maybe 30-40% closer together than their distance to the primary listening position. With this configuration, instruments are very well defined and locatable within the soundstage, which fills in nicely from wall to wall mostly from behind the plane of the speakers.

Currently, my Walsh 2 S3s are less than ideally located only about 18 inches from the rear wall in a 12X12 room due to restrictions placed by my wife in her sunroom. This reduces the detail of the soundstage somewhat but otherwise they still sound great.

My original Walsh 2s from ~1982, which I just upgraded this year, paled by comparison in a/b tests in most every aspect of sonic rendering with the S3s.

Mapman,

I'm noticing quite a bit of "eq" difference as I move the speakers relative to the back wall. It seems to me that placing the speakers closer than 12-15 inches to the wall is related to the upper-midrange effect I was describing.

At 12-15 inches out, and forward of the 50" flat screen, it seems to open up quite a bit. Have you noticed anything similar? The shape of your room is quite different so this might not correlate.

I wonder if anyone out there has ever tried to custom-build a 2-way, downward firing OHM CLS-like design using conventional drivers where the bass driver sits on top of the enclosure and fires downward, and if so what were the results? Has any owner of Ohm Walsh speaker cabinets, or someone who might build a custom cabinet from scratch, ever tried this?

Inquiring minds want to know! Pictures to go with the description would be a bonus!

My one-month comparison:

My perception in comparing the F and Series 3 drivers is that the new drivers have a more powerful low-end. The tweeters have a louder very high-end although directional. The 200s play louder than the F's could. I wonder what the 300s sound like.

I perceive the upper midrange on the new drivers to be a little more restrained than the original F's. But this seems to me like a small variation on the original character, which did not have in-your-face midrange either.

In the room where I spent a year listening to the F's they provided gut-punch air movement as well. However, this was the fully-enclosed living room of a small apartment. I'd be surprised if they could do the same in the room I'm listening in now.

This morning I was experimenting with repositioning. I ended up standing directly between the two speakers, and out of the direct path of the tweeters. I could still perceive the 3d soundstage arced widely in front of me.

Unsound, I guess the only way that you would be able to appreciate the significance of experiencing this "Walshness", the only "Walshness" that matters to me would be to hear it. Perhaps the sound of the speaker is less important to you than the implementation.

I found a wikipedia entry for Lincoln Walsh to help answer some of my own questions.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lincoln_Walsh

It provides some info regarding the relationship between Lincoln Walsh, his speaker designs, and others including Ohm and John Strohbeen.

it states:

"Unfortunately, Walsh died before his speaker was released to the public. Current Ohm Chief Engineer, John Strohbeen further developed Walsh's concepts."

Unsound, I believe I clearly stated that the two are different designs.

CAn we agree that they are similar in certain ways?

I'm just trying to understand exactly how the two are the same and how different since I may never be able to hear them together in an a/b test to decide how they sound different, which in the end is all I would really care about. I am an engineer by trade and appreciate the technical aspects of different speaker designs, but in the end all I really care about myself is how the product sounds.

Dale has described the Walsh driver in great detail. But the best explanation I've heard about how the Ohm Walsh Series 3 drivers manage to produce the smooth omnidirectional soundfield, which some who have heard both say at least sounds similar to the original Walsh speakers, is able to do this.

I know its not the directional tweeter that produces the consistent sonic timbre in an omnidirectional manner, so it must be the downward facing driver, whatever that is, WAlsh or otherwise.

Though shaped differently, doesn't the sound emanate from the back of the CLS driver as it does from the "true Walsh"?

The best description I've heard is that the sound "leaks through" and tricks the ears somehow. Well god bless that leak if so! All leaks should work this well!

The history of the Walsh driver between its conception by Lincoln Walsh and its most famous realization by Ohm is also not clear to me.

Ohm is a very small shop as I understand it. I do not believe they employ teams of engineers. Did John Strohbeen, who as I understand it is the founder and primary engineering force behind Ohm since its inception in 60's, design and build the A's and F's? I believe he and/or his team designed the CLS drivers used now for certain. IF true, then As, Fs and CLS speakers were all designed and brought to market by the same person, who is an MIT educated engineer as I understand it. If not, then they all at least came from the same company headed by the same person at all times.

I'm really just interested in learning and enjoying the music.

Mapman, Have your read all the other posts on this thread?Other than the driver/cabinet orientation, the current OHM's are not very much like the Walsh OHM's. Contrary to OHM's marketing jargon or not, by audiophile standards* the current OHMs are not a line source*, not coherent* (time and phase accurate, able to pass a square wave), not omni-directional*, and not bending wave* single driver* speakers. While the current OHM's may be easier to drive, play louder, and be more reliable (time will tell), than their thirty year old predecessors, those qualities were always availble from other different designs, which quite frankly the current OHM's have more in common with anyway.
To the best of my knowledge if one wants a true Walsh design, one would have to go to Dale. If one wants a more modern Walsh design which may mitigate some of the issues of the original Walsh design, one should seek out those speakers that use German Physiks DDD (Dick's Dipole Driver). It should be mentioned that most of the speakers that use the DDD, do deviate some from the original Walsh system, though much, much less than OHM's current offerings.
I'm not here to steal your joy. If you find the current OHM's to provide you with an appealling sound and you find them to be a good value, by all means enjoy! But, please let's not suggest to others that they are somethng they're not.

Two additional questions for Dale:

1) Do you sell Walsh drivers designed specifically for the modified (now ported) Ohm f5 cabinet?

2) When I read your description of the Walsh driver, it is not clear to me why a Walsh driver is not pistonic. IT sounds like it uses a voice coil and a foam surround in the suspension similar to conventional drivers, though the similarity appears to end there.

Thanks.

Oh, well, I'm back for at least one more go-round!

Could "piston" the CLS piston drivers used in Ohms Walsh line speakers actually be an improvement in some ways in regards to sound as well as perhaps in reliability over even a perfectly functioning F or even A?

Having never heard a pure Walsh driver, I can't say. But during a listening session with the F5s yesterday, I was reminded why I started looking to better my Maggies in the first place.

It wasn't just a search for a lower and quality bottom end (and easier placement in the room), but also the dynamics and impact of the sound. Properly set-up Maggies and their ilk are magical even at the lowest volumes, but they do not move a lot of air and create the air pressure differentials that I believe are physically required to reproduce a live performance,especially for large musical ensembles like a symphony orchestra or big band or even for loud emplified formats like rock, at realistic volume levels.

These types of music require a speaker that can create significant air pressure differentials in the room, in my opinion, like a larger dynamic speaker does, which is why I jumped off the planar speaker bandwagon in the first place to some extent. I like the "magic" detail and clarity of these designs (like Maggies) however, especially at lesser volumes. Good monitor speakers can compete in this arena but are still to small to really excel in delivering realistic "oomph" to the music when needed.

So my question is, could the Ohm CLS driver, based on the Walsh design, be superior to even a perfectly constructed and/or commercially viable Walsh driver (at least any that have been built to-date or that are even remotely commercially available) in terms of dynamics and impact?

I do not miss my Maggies with the F5's. The sound has a similar presentation but with "oomph". I had a magical moment just yesterday unlike any I've had prior with my systems with the Concord Jazz CD recording of "The Classic COncert Live" with MelTorme, GErry Mulligan and GEorge Shearing. When I closed my eyes, Mel Torme and the big band were performing in my basement family room! There was one extended note in a vocal finale where I had to look around to see what was happening! I thought maybe someone had snuck up behind me! It just totally transcended any vocal renedering and listening experience I recall! Outstanding!

My thoughts exactly. It will be interesting to read the independent sonic performance reviews after a year of use.

Always wishing the best for anyone following their passion, especially engineers, I hope they turn out to be great.

I missed my chance to buy the Ohm speakers back in the 70s, but have always been interested (in an engineer's way) in the principles involved with the driver. I always knew that it was made up of several cones of differing material, but the complexity described by Dale is daunting. My concern would be performance changes over time and use as all the various tweeks age. Slits with sealant frighten me.

Quick question for Dale. I owned a pair of Ohm F speakers back in the mid-1970s and absolutely loved them. As noted earlier in this thread, I auditioned a pair of 200s a few years back and though good, just didn't have the magic I remembered.

Unfortunately my current listening room would be unable to handle the large footprint of a F-sized TLS. Are you contemplating any smaller models based on this driver design?

Thanks for the info, Dale.

I've had steadily growing interest in the Walsh speakers for a few years now as a result of the serious room acoustics/placement problems I've had with varying pistonic speakers. I'm just tired of the hassle. And when things are finely set up properly, I really hate being confined to, and the only one to enjoy, the "sweet spot".

A few questions about your "A" & "F" TLS speakers:
Fequency response & impedence of your improved models?
What is the safe max power handling?
What kind of safe SPL output are they capable of?
Recommended types of amps and power output?
Any minimum room size requirements for best sound?
What is the sonic difference between your "A" & "F"?
And finally, what is the price for the two models?

Please undertsand once again everyone that I am in no way bashing Ohm Acoustics products. In fact, I have a long love affair with them and they are the ones that did start this thing in the begining. They hooked me in 1971 and I have been hooked ever since.

In Honesty, the only other speakers I have ever heard that turned my head for a moment was the Apogee line of full range ribbon drivers and their new predecessor. But here again, not worth $50K.

John Strohbeen has done very well with his current line of products and they are quite affordable. They have even borrowed upon some of the sonic merits of the original Walsh ideas. But, none the less, they are still piston drivers. Albeit, the woofer has been made to behave like a bad transmission line, which is exactly what the original Walsh idea was. That is not a bad thing, just another avenue.

The true transmission line drive exists only in a trucated version designed by German Physiks or Ikonoklast. The latter utilizing the Walsh tweeter design and the G.P. design resembeling more of the Old Ohm G product. But IMHO, not worth $21,900 for the cheapest model.

By the way, there is a new kid on the block nipping at Ohm's heals with an new entry in the omni market very similar to the current Ohm products made by Rountree Acoustics. (Not Roundtree) It's called the Omnimon. Covered in Stereophile mag this month. Also online.

Regarding the Walcott speakers.. just another piston driver firing into an omniball for dispersion. Not a walsh driver or anything similar.

I have been a speaker engineer and desingner for most of my life and I have made all manner of speakers including exotic plama drivers. But to my dismay, the worst design of all, the piston driver has for wahtever reason prolifferated. It is a bad idea that just won't go away and hence my steadfast approach to the Walsh design.

Anyway, my whole point is to make people aware that this style of speaker is available again, hopefully with some improvements. For those whom loved this sound and its capabilities I hope I can fill your needs. For others, perhaps in time. If not, this is a big world and to each his own. I guess I view buying a set of speakers much like finding a wife. Finding a good match is never easy, but always worth the effort.

That is why we all share our love of this hobby and persue being audiophiles. The love of music.

As always, good listening.
Dale

I think this will be my last comment on this thread.

I've always desired a pair of Ohm F's or A's in proper working condition. My only reservation would be the common assertion that they were not made to be played at very high decibel levels, which is a requirement for me. Apparently there are still a few around today that have been built or rebuilt properly that I could acquire if I was really determined.

My solution for a reasonable cost to meet my requirements was a pair of Ohm f5s, the best drivers Ohm sells today, that can play really loud and clear with the right amplifiers, mounted in refurbished and modified Ohm F cabinets.

So the bottom half of these speakers at least look the same as the original legendary Ohm Fs that I never got to hear. And some who have heard both believe they sound very similar even though 30 years apart in design, which makes me feel even better.

To me they represent a fine combination of the best of the old and the new.

Cheers!

To my way of thinking comparing old Ohms with Walsh drivers to new Ohms with pistonic drivers, is something akin to comparing dynamic planars to electostatics. They may look similar and they may share some dispersion qualites, but they are still very different.
If you enjoy them , that's what counts, but lets not suggest they are the same thing. It's ironic that other manufactures such as Dale and to a lesser degree Huff and some German Physiks are more like the original Walsh Ohms than Ohms present day Ohms.

TEchnically, Ohm does refer to the drivers in their "Walsh" product line as "Coherent Line Source" (CLS) drivers on their web site, not as Walsh Drivers. My understanding is the CLS drivers incorporate design principles that were realized in Ohms early Walsh design speakers, the A and F. They are realized somewhat differently now with the CLS drivers, but with the same sonic design goals in mind.

One of the key new factors (requirements) driving the CLS design was cost effectiveness. The fact that Ohm is still in business after 30-40 years still selling innovative speaker designs and supporting all past models as well is truly a great testament to their approach.

This topic has been covered in depth in other threads on Audiogon that I've read. I believe someone even provided a link to a patent document relating to the CLS drivers.

Dale,

I did understand your point. I found your treatise interesting.

My goal with these speakers was to achieve a certain sound.
If my goal had been to acquire something conforming to the original engineering design, I wouldn't have bothered with the trial.

When I considered Ohm's 30-year history of offering upgrades and support and the no-risk trial, there was little downside to hearing how the new and different design compared to the originals.

In spite of the obvious design differences between the current Walsh drivers and the original Lincoln Walsh design, I can tell you that the sound from the new series 3 drivers is close to the original F's. Not identical, but close. In some ways, better.

Kudos to you for pursuing your interest in the original design. I'm also curious how your drivers sound. I'll remain interested in how that effort progresses.

Just to throw a curveball into this discussion - how about the Wolcott Omni-Directional speakers?

Wolcott supposedly makes some of the most impressive high-power tube amps available, I wonder if this extends to their speaker?

Dale harder, you sound like a true affectionado of the Walsh sound as am I, at least the ones that I am familiar with!

Aren't the Ohm Walsh drivers, which radiate from the back of the driver mounted vertically as do Ohm Fs, truly omnidirectional even though Ohm choses by design to dampen the output to the rear?

I know all about the separate tweeter which is not omni and crossover and how this is a compromise on a "pure" Walsh implementation. However it is done, the soundstage does hold together in most any position relative to the speaker that I've observed. It may not be 100% pure Walsh but it is definitely much further away from a conventional box design than it is from a pure Walsh driver like the F's. It's a good design compromise as I see it that enables Ohm to anufacture and sell these Walsh speakers, with most of the benefit of a pure Walsh design, at a competitive price. To me that represents an innovation on the original Walsh design.

With so many variations of the typical box/dynamic speaker design out there, and little consensus on which is in fact best, surely a few variations on the innovative design principles put forth by Lincoln Walsh is not too radical!

Any way to hear a pair of Walsh TLS speakers on the east coast?

Having sold Ohm speakers years ago but having never actually heard Ohm Fs, I'd love to be able to a/b compare Ohm's current Walsh speakers against other designs like these or even German Physics or the MBL omnis. What difference would I hear in comparison to the Walsh 5 series 3?

Did anyone notice the new speakers from BlueCircle?
A new collaboration with Ohm - did anyone hear them at RMAF?

Gentlemen,
I think you have completely missed the point of my long treatise and the purpose of adding to this thread above. There is no comparrison to the old Walsh "F" or "A" relating to the current products.

The current products consit of two standard pistonic drivers, one being an iverted woofer and the other being a dome tweeter. This arrangent borrows a very small likeness to true Lincoln Walsh design and for lack of a better word "tricks" your ears into hearing somewhat onnidirectional sound, when in fact, it is only 180 degrees in dispersion. The back wave is suppressed from the woofer and the tweeter fires only frontward at a 45 degree angle to the norm.

The current product uses a complicated crossover network and is not truly time and phase aligned nor is the sound coherent. The Walsh principal, IMHO, is the finest speaker principal ever discovered, only the implimentation of that discovery has ever been lacking. Had it reached its full potential almost all piston drivers would be gone.

This is not to say that Ohm Acoustics has not done a fine job with what they currently offer, but true Walsh drivers they are not.

A Walsh speaker consists of one steep angled cone made to behave like a transmission line. It has no phase or time distortion, emits in a full 360 degrees and the sound wavefront is fulluy coherent just like a laser beam. There are no crossovers whatsoever. Placement is not super critical and the sound stage does not wander. If there is a sweet spot, then it is extremely wide and very, very accomodating.

The Lincoln Walsh discovery lives on in my NEW presentation of the "Waslh TLS" series of drivers and systems.

I've never heard Ohm Fs.

I a/b compared the new Series 3 100 drivers versus original Walsh 2 drivers from the early 80's before I purchased the larger f-5s with the Walsh 5 series 3 drivers.

The original Walsh 2 drivers had significant and very noticeable sonic shortcomings when compared the the new Series 3 Walsh 100 drivers or even my "modern" Dynaudio or Triangle (with subwoofer) monitors.

Though inferior, I still enjoyed the original vintage Walsh 2s for many years still, mainly due to the characteristics of the Walsh sound.

Could you get good response off the back of a standard driver firing down into a cabinet?

If the answer is no, then they must be using something different than a standard driver.

If the answer is yes, then they've come up with a way to get "walsh sound" from a standard driver.

Either way is just fine by me. I only care about the sound.

Again, I could be wrong, but, I was under the impression that Ohm currently uses pistonic cones as opposed to the bending wave Walsh drivers.

Unsound,

Some purists appear to not buy this, but Ohm clearly builds and uses Walsh design drivers. They are in fact not the same Walsh design as the original A's and F's, the first and somewhat legendary Ohm speakers to apply the Walsh design principles over 30 years ago.

However, there is no doubt in my mind that the current Ohm Walsh drivers are based on the same design principles as the originals.

Unsound,

Ohm no longer uses the original Walsh drivers that were installed in the F's.

The new drivers are still mounted at the top of the box and fire down into it. The sound still radiates from the sides of the inverted cone. In the new design, this is not full range, and a front-diagonal-firing tweeter covers the high-end. The boxes are ported in the new design. For what it's worth, Ohm began using this new design in the 80s.

With my face close to the new driver, I can clearly hear the sound radiating from most of the circumference of the driver, except for the very high-end.

I still hear the same old deep, wide and realistic image that at this point, fills a very strangely shaped room, and is not focused at a single small sweet spot. No tilting speakers up or down, no adjusting chair position, etc.

Whether called the Walsh sound or the Ohm sound, this is the sound I was looking for. At this point I perceive the same imaging as with the old F's, but not quite the same timbre. The room the old F's were in was much smaller, more regularly shaped and had a carpeted concrete floor while today I am on wood floor. I suspect that may be contributing significantly to the different timbre I perceive.

We'll see what happens as they break in. They definitely play a lot louder than the old F's could. You also had to be careful with the old F's because they were easy to blow up with a bit too much power.

I could be wrong about this, but, I was led to believe that Ohm no longer uses Walsh drivers. Perhaps some are actually purchasing the Ohm sound, not the Walsh sound.

Oh well, my sketch doesn't display very clearly does it?

Suffice it to say the L shaped room is 27' long and 20 wide at the base only. The top portion of the room is only about 12' wide. Most listening occurs within the 12'wide section, though the pseudo-omni design produces a coherent soundstage with not much change in timbre anywhere in the room. No box design speaker can do this. The closest I've come is with front ported speakers with good dispersion sitting right up against the far wall.