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

Hi everyone


I’ve been lurking here recently, trawling through as many posts as I can going as far back as 2010 and I’ve gotten as far as Peters very interesting modifications.


I have recently stumbled on to the ohm Walsh tall review by the audiophiloac and it’s piqued my interest. It’s been endless reading and researching since then.


I have a situation which seems similar to Accurus back in 2017. My present setup is a Magnepan 3.7 powered by pass labs 350.5 and I’ve been considering a change for sometime. A change because first, I have newborn twins, so I imagine it’s just a matter of time before they get their tiny fingers into the ribbons. Two, I’ve got a small listening space that’s not quite optimal for the Maggie’s. The space is also relatively live sounding due to brick walls and concrete flooring. Three, I’ve noticed over the years of listening to Maggie’s that I tailor my listening to very specific music that sounds good on the Maggie’s, and that really limits the exploration of a diversity of content.


I have always been a music first audio Enthusiant, so point three really bothers me. Why am I not enjoying certain types of music anymore, such as rock and pop? With that in mind I’ve embarked on exploring new vocal chords for my audio system. (speakers). I’ve looked and listened to spatials and even considered blindly purchasing the well reviewed pure audio project speakers and as of right now the ohms sounds (theoretically) like it could be a winner within a Budget. I have contacted Evan and as I’ve found out, there’s no possible way to audition these speakers apart from a home trial. Which is a bit of a small issue as I live in Singapore. 


I will be headed to North Tahoe late September for some mountain biking and was also hoping to find a retailer or some way to audition but to no avail. It also seems like I would have just missed the Rocky Mountain Audio show which is going on now. 


So at the risk of sounding brusque, I shall gently ask if there would be any kind soul in California willing to let a curious stranger listen to their ohms. It is a lot to ask and I would be highly appreciative of the gesture. 


Barring that, I would love to hear opinions about what could possibly deliver the large soundstage that I’m used to from the Magnepan while still being friendly to smaller rooms and curious young children.  


Thank you in advance and have a good day! 



@fyusmal....Although I would be pleased to have you over for demo of my 2000s, I live in New Jersey, so you would have to alter your travel plans. I am very close to Newark Liberty Airport, about 10 minutes away.

I am totally with you on the music limitations thing. Some speakers are tuned to work best with classical, or acoustic jazz, or even any well recorded music. The beauty of my Ohms is that, while they don’t turn a pig’s ear into a silk purse, you get the feeling that you at least understand why the engineers on a poor recording made the choices they did. For example, they really wanted the guitar to dominate, and the drums were sacrificed to emphasize the guitar. But I listen to a very wide variety of genres, and I enjoy them all on the Ohms.

A true story: An audiophile friend with nearly $200,000 invested in his rig had speakers that were custom made to his specifications, complete with huge outboard crossovers, & powered subs.

This audiophile is a hardcore classical music fan and choir members. On his classical and opera recordings, his system is amazing. On one visit I asked him to indulge me and let me play a great, but poorly recorded CD of psychobilly by The Reverend Horton Heat on his system. It was AWFUL. Completely unlistenable. On my Ohms, my feet are tapping, and my head is bobbin’, and my hand is slapping a big imaginary standup bass.

I have heard some great panel speakers, costing $25,000 or more, but none I would trade my modest Ohm 2000s for.
Thanks, Mapman, for your thoughts regarding the Tektons v the Ohms. Would you elaborate further on what you perceived as the differences between the two, aside from the greater efficiency of the Tektons?
The other key differences would be

1) size and sound dispersion pattern differences which would determine which might work best/synergize with your specific room, always a key concern for getting the best sound possible out of any particular room.

2) Bass levels. This will vary greatly in a particular room depending on placement and may be hard to get right with the wrong speakers in the room. Closer to walls and even more so corners will boost bass levels whereas some distance from walls is needed for a good sound stage and imaging if those are areas of concern for you . Ohms can go surprising close to walls if needed and the speaker size and associated cost will determine the bass levels. Larger and smaller Walsh models are designed to sound the same. The diffference is which will work best in a room of a particular size. There is a calculator on teh site to help determine and always worth a discussion with Ohm to determine best. There are different Tekton models available to match best to a room but each tends to have a somewhat different design and I would anticipate different corresponding sound. The ones I heard were Double Impact in a typical hotel sized room. They did surprisingly well in there off of a relatively low powered tube amp as I recall.

I’m sure there are other timbral differences between Ohm and Tekton but my exposure to Tekton is too limited to say other than in my one limited audition with a tube amp for about 30 minutes I found the Tekton Double Impact timbre to be pleasing and easy on the ears in a fairly near field configuration much like every OHM Walsh I have ever heard in various setups over the years. I’ve owned and continue to enjoy Ohm Walsh and other lines for almost 40 years now amazingly enough. I’ve always used SS amps with my OHMs and have never heard them off a tube amp, though I know others here have gone that way.

3) The only speakers I have heard that compete with OHM in regards to delivering live-like imaging and soundstage is mbl. Others may do soundstage and imaging quite well but many recordings will still sound like recordings whereas the OHMs deliver a live-like presentation with most any recording, including monophonic recordings, which really opens up a lot of new highly-rewarding listening possibilities that might be overlooked otherwise. They always sound like the performers are in your room. I would say OHMs are a unique speaker for music lovers.

Hope that helps. Good luck.

I should qualify that I have run my OHMS off two SS amps designed to deliver sound like a tube amp: Carver m4.0t and Tube Audio Design Hibachis. These both sounded Ok but it takes a more highly damped, beefy, high current, low output impedance SS amp to make the OHMs sing best. More watts like that will get you higher SPLs with the Ohms and they do that very well. I have found good quality modern Class D amps tend to do that in smaller more affordable packages and these tend to really get the most possible out of OHM Walsh speakers and that is a lot. You can throw the kitchen sink at them and they will never sound stressed or compressed. Most any amp will run out of gas first.

I use my Ohms in my two larger rooms. I use Bel Canto ref1000m amps 500w/ch into 8 ohms, high current delivery, with my big OHM 5s (12 inch driver with 4 three way level adjustments to tune for use in most any room) and this setup does it all. I use smaller but similar 60 w/ch Bel Canto c5i integrated with my OHM 100s (8" driver). The only limitation there is how loud and dynamic I can go which is still quite up there by most standards but not rock concert or symphony hall level loud like I can in my bigger setup.