Ohm Walsh Micro Talls: who's actually heard 'em?


Hi,

I'd love to hear the impressions of people who've actually spent some time with these speakers to share their sense of their plusses and minuses. Mapman here on Audiogon is a big fan, and has shared lots on them, but I'm wondering who else might be familiar with them.
rebbi

Showing 7 responses by mrjktcvs

This is my first AudiogoN post. I've been at the AVS forum for most of the past decade, but there aren't very many Ohm owners over there.

Like many, my first encounter with a Walsh-driven speaker was a demo of rosewood Ohm F's at a higher end dealer in the 70's. They were out of my league financially and space-wise.

Fast forward nearly 4 decades, and I was at my wit's end trying to get my existing system to sound decently for the past 3 years since I moved into my home. I have 4 Definitive Technology tower boat anchors and 2 Outlaw subs trying and failing to load my 4500 cubic foot living room with anything remotely resembling midbass. I finally decided that over time, these would get replaced. It's embarassing having a system that looks like it could shake the foundation and topple my home that sounds like some 60's handheld transistor radio.

It's only been a month, but I've already forgotten the thought process that led me to googling "Ohm Acoustics". Unlike many others on this thread, I have no history at all with Ohm beyond that demo. I had no idea the company was still in business. I avidly read about half the posts on this thread. I decided to order a pair of MWT when I saw that they had B-stock available at 2005 prices. They had only one pair that already had the oak veneer applied, which would not have been my first choice. I also noticed that they were a couple of days away from the 2 week holiday shutdown, so I sent an email the next morning to try to find out if they were going to be able to process my order before the recess.

I didn't get a response all morning, so I called and left a message with the receptionist for someone to call me back. John called me to tell me he wasn't so sure they could send them out in time. He also responded to my email. That was fine with me, as I didn't want to spend part of my own time off sitting at home waiting for the delivery. I wrote him back telling him about my demo experience and difficulties with my setup, though I intentionally left out the size of my room. That did the trick, he called me back about 2 hours later to tell me the speakers had shipped.

Having liberated the speakers from the multiple layers of shipping cardboard, my wife remarked how well the oak matched our furniture. It's a lighter color than any monitor I have viewed the website with indicated.

Micro Walsh Talls in 4500 cu.ft.? I threw on the Beatles Love DVD, and for the first time we heard Paul McCartney's bass outside of the Beatles Love theater at the Mirage. We looked at each other and giggled like schoolkids. I haven't told her that I plan on making the MWTs the surround speakers. I have my eye on the 4000 for mains.
Well, I simply replaced the mains with the MWT and didn't so anything else, like rerun Audyssey. The bass the MWT puts out is crazy,especially when standing in the hallway leading to the rest of the house about 30 feet from the left speaker. Afterward, I did run Audyssey to see how it wanted to set it up, and it reported the MWT as being large, confirming what I had been hearing.

Anyway, since then, I have picked up a pair of Wyred.4 sound monoblocks to drive them with that are a few years old. They seem to be a very good pairing.
My main problem was that I was trying to use a home theater speaker that begs for an augmenting subwoofer to reproduce music. It just doesn't look much like a home theater speaker at 48" tall. My subs were placed for aesthetic purposes rather than than best sound. In their locations, I had a very deep hole between 60 and 90 Hz at my listening chair, so they were unable to contribute very much. The MWT doesn't really need help in the midbass frequencies, so in my room they sound much better than the speakers they replaced.

Since my first post, my wife allowed me to move a sub to one of the corners of the room. I still have the Deftechs, but have no desire to put them back in to hear the effect of the change. I'm having too much fun listening to my new babies, both with and without a sub. They are now hooked up to a pair of Wyred 4 Sound monoblocks, a new purchase.
Been catching up on the entire thread, now up to page 27 and the posts are now only 2 years old.

I sacrificed my vinyl collection in Europe 20 years ago because I deemed them to not be worth their weight in shipping costs to return back to the U.S., so I'm 100% digital. One of the factors I weighed was while I was living there, I purchased a DAT so I could create copies of CDs that I was able to borrow from my client's library, which was largely French garbage as it turned out. This slightly predates the availability of CD recorders for home entertainment systems.


I have discovered some modern sonic classics for demoing/evaluating components. I normally wouldn't bother with live recordings for critical listening, but there are a couple of standouts in my collection:

Diana Krall's Live in Rio on blu-ray. The opening track is one of the more sparse arrangements on the disc due to a backing orchestra, and I love the way the MWT handles the upright bass, making me grin as much as the player does.

Second is called the Legends of Jazz Showcase, a compilation of songs from the TV show hosted by Ramsay Lewis.

Next is from AIX Records that is mainly a vehicle for 3D video demonstration called Goldberg Variations Acoustica, but the company's raison d'etre is superior sound.

And finally, I splurged for the DSOTM blu ray package from 2011 which includes various DVDs and CDs as well. The blu ray has 3 sound options, including LPCM 2.0 sampled at 96Khz/24 bit.

My own 5.1 system is in a state of flux, and I'm currently working on infrastructure. I recently purchased 5 Transparent Audio ICs, with speaker wire to be upgraded next. I also bought the Walsh Center Channel speaker, the one pictured on the Ohm website link to the center channel page. I haven't brought that home from the office yet, because my TV needs to be raised 2 more inches to accommodate it.
Personally, I find it extremely difficult to dial in a subwoofer so that it sounds like a Walsh. I happen to own a Velodyne SMS-1 and have flattened out the response of the room fairly well after my wife gave me permission to move the sub, but can still always tell when the sound is coming through my Outlaw sub.

My question is, why go with a 5000 if it still requires a sub? I'd rather miss the lowest 5 or 6 Hz than listen to timing mismatches.
jim_hip: Can you tell us if your micro center speaker can keep up with the 3000s? I'm thinking about the same upgrade.
Thanks bondmanp. Actually, the beta cylinders have caught my eye. John says they would sound OK in a 10x10 room. How would they even fit? LOL