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

Back again and I figure I would go over my equipment driving the Ohm's.

Amps: Two Emotiva XPA-1 Mono blocks and a Marantz MMA 8003
eight ch amp.
Pre-Amp: Marantz 8801
Sub Amp: Behringer EP 4000 2x2000 watts
Blu Ray player: BDP-93
Equalizer: Behringer Ultra Curve Pro for center ch
Power distribution: Silver Circle
Powerchords: Pangea Amp and low power units
PS Audio: outlet receptacles with independent (3) 15 amp curcuits
Projector: Epson 5020ub
Screen: Electric Elite 120"Wide, 1.0 gain 16:9 aspect ratio
Subs: Four 18" drivers in a Two custom cabinets vented in under my house (Infinite baffle).
Roku Ultra
And a Fios 150/150 internet connection 
Interconnects and speaker cables are a mix of God knows what
and I spent to much...
*********************************
When I originally decided on my 4/5k's I had gone through a period 
of extreme worry as I had been told I had kidney cancer, so I felt very nostalgic about my choice I.E. I wanted something cool reminding me of my youth. So I decided on the Ohm's after listening to some modern Maggie's. As a matter of fact I called JS on the way to my surgery to let him know what style of wood I wanted...lol

A looooooong time later the units arrived in boxes bigger than expected wow, I do have to say the packaging was amazing and
we'll conceived. But the plan is to keep the speakers until my ultimate demise so who needs big boxes.

As I got to know my 4/5k's I did have some reservations, mostly about the finishing , fit and finish and the CASTERS, as for the
CANS  I could only guess what was hiding inside the murky innards.
I used a bright flashlight, but it was very very hard to figure out.
At this point I decided to concentrate on the cabinet. 
The vener finish was very boring and just OK nothing special
so I called a friend who paints cars and before you know it the cabinets were painted in a charcoal metallic grey high gloss finish.
I made two concrete molds 3" thick for a heavy dense platform.
Next I had a frame made up to rest the speaker on and four CNC machined stainless steel posts....It does look freeking cool and with
painted cabinets it's looking like 2016 not the 70's. I rotated the can
independently from the cabinet, as it would look weird toed in.
At this point I had to bite the bullet and with that I opened them up
leaving the back half in place as all the switches need to stay as is.
Again WOW! It's like an Easter egg when you were a kid, it could be amazing.....or not.
Compare to the small units some care had been taken, but Damn
its 3rd world industrial design at best. At this point I knew there was no going back and forget any warranty...lol
The plan was simple "control the stuffing" dampen the platform everything was attached to, clean up the design, add silver wiring
extensions and solder in the new tweeter.

Here is a verbatim explanation.

HiVi RT1C-A Planar Isodynamic Tweeter
The vibrating element of a planer tweeter is almost weightless in comparison to a dome tweeter. The element consists of Kapton film with a pattern of aluminum conductors which is placed precisely between two Neodymium bar magnets. It provides an immediate and precise response to any transients in the original signal. These drivers are magnetically shielded and feature a linear phase response which provides time coherent reproduction resulting in accurate musical rhythm and imaging. Unlike other conventional tweeters and electrostatic speakers, the RT1C and RT2a have an extremely wide sound dispersion in the horizontal plane. At the same time, they have a well controlled sound dispersion in the vertical plane. This helps to avoid disturbing floor and ceiling reflections in a home environment thus enhancing clarity and imaging accuracy. The RT1C features a radiating area of 50 x 13mm and a round cast aluminum face plate. Although designed to be used with either the F5 or F6 bass/midrange drivers in a small 2-way system, it is also well suited for 3-way applications. Recommended second order crossover cut-off frequency - from 3kHz.

Got  to eat dinner " I'll be back"

Greetings.....

Never  got got back to you last night as we decided to watch something fun, so the last Jason Bourne movie it was. It's amazing what a little bit of speed, Transparancy and tweeter extension will do for the whole experience. Gun shots are so crisp and dynamic, voices are clear and intelligible, all the micro dynamics of surround effects gives the experience a much higher feeling of being there.
As for the movie....my wife and son, said good night half way through the plot...😵

Back to the speaker (4/5k's) after removal I took some time to look over the construction around the drivers, the filling/wadding looks out of control so I sheared some of and gave it a better look.
Could I hear a difference.....NO

The actual platform that the crossover and tweeter assembly is resting on is made from some simple 1/4" plywood, tapping on the forward edge gives out hollow woddy ring that can't be good as vibrations will either ring away when played, or vibrate the tweeter
in multiple axis.
I have to say that the crossover was very well thought out and looked very tidy indeed. 

So the idea was to dampen the platform, but there's only so much room vertically and room was a big issue as most tweeters
in the style I was looking for was in the 5"-8" height and I needed something in the 4" range.

Digging  out the tweeter was easier said en done, as everything was
hot-melt glued or potted in some black semi hard epoxy. 
The black "stuff" prevented me from seeing the wiring, but with
my incredible perseverance they were finally relieved of their gooey
prison. I do think JS personally made the crossover and possibly assembled the unit as he signed the plywood.

Finally I have the tweeter in my hands and I can run a proper impedance test on the unit, 4ohm's give or take so with that I knew
what to look for.

The problem...
The tweeter I wanted was 5 ohm not four, so what to do?
I first bought one unit, soldered it on to the center ch to see if anything would  blow up, implode or possibly burn down my house. Nothing of the sort happened, but what I heard was everything previously missing, not perfect but as I previously said it had to do with the size of the Walsh driver not the tweeter.

So 5 ohm works like a charm, but I'm lucky that the main cans have 
options and adjustability for different presentations and room sizes.

More to come soon....

Here's some more changes and ideas to make the Ohm's really, really amazing...


One thing I've been realizing is that the higher I cross over the main speakers the better they sound, my theory is that the Walsh driver
likes to be un-loaded a bit as bass could possibly swamp the midrange and some tweeting signals.
 I will continue to look in to that aspect of the sound. It could also be the reason the smaller speakers sound as good in the upper range.

In the next few days I will try an open cell foam plugg in the vent port to see if it changes the quality of the bass. This is of course a guessing exercise and who knows I might hate it.

I have also wondered why there's no tweeting in the back, so I'm planing to take the original tweeters, build a simple crossover loaded directly from the speaker wire posts, that way I don't have to hack the original crossover. If this works and I don't see why not, as I had some Von Sweikerts VR4's which used a back firing tweeter to great effect, and I did love those speakers a lot. To control the tweeter I will use a volume control in the circuit....

Back to the tweeter platform build on the 4/5k's....
After considering the options to dampen the (circular) plywood
part I decided to use 1/16" thick (3" wide) basswood in three layers with dampening material on the first layer and semi rigid glue between the slats to dampen any further vibrations. All this was glued to the edge of the platform and clamped.
So when you look at the platform it now looks like a birthday cake 
made from plywood covering all the dampening material. After the edge was cleaned up I covered the whole thing with dark grey felt,
contact cement made the whole affair super easy and very clean looking :) Sudenly no vibrations just a thud when I tap it.

The original set up had a pice of white cardboard glued (hot melt)
to the tweeter, in the shape and size of half the platform, the bottom front edged hot glued in on the bottom and then folded backwards in a soft arc to a standoff in the middle of the crossover.  As I changed the tweeter I wanted to cancel as much of a possible back wave so the the felt got folded in towards the back, semi mimicking 
the original folded cardboard. Any protruding edge got a open cell
foam edge to cancel unwanted reflections...

The speaker cover is the old style so called black fabric, but to me it looks like faded black anodized aluminum, kind of a purplish color that needs to go, so I found some black, real black stuff that should go a long way to modernize the look.

That will do it for now, and I look forward to share the rest of the project very soon...🇸🇪

Peter whatever the outcome yours is a very unique and interesting DIY endeavor. You are starting out in a very good place sound wise compared to many in my humble estimation. Your findings poking around inside the OHMs is also very interesting for me.

I have an older pair of OHM Ls that I bought for a couple hundred dollars new back in 1978 that I have endeavored to upgrade and maintain myself.   I use these currently in a smaller room where my main gear resides.  

I have these sounding  very competitive with much more expensive modern alternatives, better than ever these days.   I replaced 8" bass drivers with Morel units that cost as much as the speakers pretty much originally.   I also added sub-bass activation circuit JS uses in most of his newer units to help keep bass extended and managed.

These still use original paper tweeter and super tweeters and high end sounds very good once properly balanced.   I've considered upgrading the high end drivers as well but have not felt compelled to do it quite yet.   I need to investigate some more but would definitely like to consider trying a folded ribbon tweeter in those just for fun.

 Hey Mapman....
Nothing feels better than improving on a concept, might it be mechanical, electronic or aesthetic wise. Those OHM L's could be 
improved in stages, and every time there's an improvement you get closer and closer to the edge of possibilities.
Last night as I was listening to some great 24/96 tracks, something
magical developed, suddenly I could tell that the tweeters started to relax and got sweeter and lusher......I think they're broken in.

Sweet Jesus, Guitar strings were so amazing sounding, I was closer to how my Audiostatic electrostatic speakers sounded like, precise tons of air and incredible speed......You can tell I hate these speakers :))

As I said before I will add tweeters on the back of the speakers and 
I might re-purpose the Original tweeters, but if I want to use a L-Pad
(volume control)  I'll need to go with an 8 ohm  unit. Tried finding a pre made cross over but I might go with the Behringer electronic cross-over if I can't find a solution.

I will try to get a test going with foam plugs tomorrow, but I'm starting to build a home automation system around the Amazon Echo (Alexa) so I have to install new wall switches etc. so I can surprise my darling on Christmas morning....🇸🇪

Back for a small update...

Had an hour to spare to fiddle with the port and the foam plug.
I had a square of egg-crate foam that I cut in to 5x10" strips rolled them up
and inserted the plug in to the bottom port of each speaker.

vewy vewy interestiiing....
First I was concerned about closing of the port as it changes the back pressure, but
what it did was smoothing down the heaviest bottom frequencies making the package a little less boomy. I used an amazing CD from the movie "Tha last Samurai" tons of high frequencies, and lots of deep deep Japanese Kodo drums with amazing impact and depth.
was it better? I will run some tests tomorrow and see how the room responds to the changes. I will also run a frequency sweep and see what it looks like.

As mentioned earlier I am adding some tweeters to the back of the speaker, and I was vasilating about active or passive crossover network, I slept on it and decided to make a simple passive xo that I can use the L-Pad to dial in the effect.
Should  be exiting as it could add some extra dimension to the sound.

I know some people wanted to change the wing-nuts to something more modern and
cool looking. Go to www.mcmaster.com click on NUTS and there you go, I'm ordering the 
THUMB NUTS in SS pretty cool stuff. If you are looking for hardware it the best place ever.

Peace....out

Had a little bit of time this morning to measure speaker response between the foam plug and without. So if you remember I thought the speakers sounded a little better crossing over
higher than expected. Soooooooo.......the response curve was worse below 65hz but smoother above 100hz.
This was just a fast comparison and nothing definitive I.E. Food for thought.

while screwing around the bottom port, I realized the bottom of the speaker rings like crazy
so I'm doing something to fix that.... But every time I look on the inside of the speakers
I get pissed of when I see 2x4's that look about as old as I am.
I also have the rear tweeter, volume control and crossover on the way to rainy SoCal
so that should be fun...🇸🇪

Sorry for the inactivity the the last week, but as any good husband I promised my wife to paint a room and a hallway before Xmas...😜
I did have some time to meditate earlier this morning, and decided to take the project a little further than I originally decided. The rear tweeter will be in this week so hopefully I'll be able to solder up the X-over and make a custom mount to attach it to the speaker. After Christmas I'm taking the speaker apart, see what can be done to stiffen up the sides and 
for the bottom I'm thinking, rubber mass loaded with lead shot-gun pellets for more mass.

When most mechanical changes are made I'm thinking about re-paint it in a BMW M3
metallic blue, And all the metal parts on the stand will be chromed.
Im also going to have my machinist make a low profile swivel mount for the tweeter
so the angle of attack can be changed on a whim.

Anyway that's it for now...🇸🇪

Xover, volume control and speaker attached in a non invasiv way IE. I might install everything inside the cabinet so I have clean looking backside of the speaker and it does look like a science project that went wrong....lol

I will do some listening this evening and evaluate the progress or not.
The foam plugs are a deleted item for now and I will re visit them when all the other 
changes are done.......🇸🇪

It's an hour later.......

I think my jaw is wide agape, why doesnt Ohm do this to their speakers?

Dave Brubeck just left the building, oh my God the changes are dramatic
actually bigger than when I changed the front tweeter.

The first thing was the changes to the imaging, everything is rock solid, the staging spreads out as a semi circle of whipped cream, tasty, sweet and smooth and the odd thing is that suddenly in all this goodness I find the sweet spot wider then I ever had in my house.....remarkable. There's also a snappier, faster retrieval of leading notes, the attack of drums and even the the reed of an Oboe has more there, there, but man drums are incredible... so slammy (if there's such word).  The height of the sound field is closer to
a tall Maggie that the typical point source (Dang).

Seriously my total investment in the project might have been $70 give or take a few.
Time invested a few hours for now, but I'm so excited that the speakers will be pulled apart
asap for more tweaking.....

Back soon for more morsels...🇸🇪

Darn it, Peterr53!  You have really stoked my curiousity.  Not having any of the DIY skills you do (and even if I did, I have no time, anyway), I am searching through my Swiss-cheese of a memory for people I know and trust that can do this mod correctly and affodably.  Just one question:  I really like my Ohm Walsh 2000s way with the upper mids and lower treble - not too hot, but with plenty of fine detail.  In your opinion, does your mod make this range a lot hotter?  I would hate to do this mod and lose the smoothness I enjoy in this part of the band.  Thanks!

Hi  Bondmanp...

As I started this project, I had my doubts ( manufacturers knows best) but the more I was digging in to the design I saw some glaring issues, some to save time in manufacturing and some mainly to save a few bucks. If you leave the cans closed, blissful ignorance will add
some mystic and tucked away magic to the mix, and it's easy to want to hear what you want to hear when you spent big bucks on the product.

As you figured out, no stone will be unturned to make this the best damn Ohm speaker
I know how to make.

So finally I want to answer your question...😆

When I first Installed the ribbon tweeter, I could tell I had something special going but
it was very, very harsh the first few day IE. Spitty, harsh with a glassy overtone.
And I started to second guess my choice of driver, three days later the family wanted to watch a loud movie with all the pre-requisite explosions and other hard hitting audio, and 
wouldn't you know it, suddenly music come alive, gone was all the harshness and glassy
over tones.

As for the rear tweeter, you read my remarks, it's easy to accomplish and no surgical
knowledge is required other then some easy soldering.

For the how to, just ask I'll be more than happy give pointers and ideas.
Feel free to PM me if you like to talk on the phone.

peter....🇸🇪

To all the Ohmers out on the internets, have a ....
Merry Tweeky Christmas...🎆🎄

Yes, Merry Christmas to all!

Peter, I do find that tweeks to Ohms can be interesting, and many have to chose to tinker and play. But my thoughts are simply once done, they really aren't "Ohms" anymore, but your own take on what you would like them to be. Nothing wrong with that of course, after all, they are yours to do whatever you hear fit for them! I do watch and read with interest, however! 

I also agree a bit on some of the build quality, while it may not necessarily affect the sound quality, the soldering and general shoddy workmanship leaves a bit to be desired, and the sad part is, it takes no more time or expense to actually do a decent job of it. I have probably seen under the cans of too many Ohms, and they all look pretty terrible in general. As you say though, ignorance can be bliss, and indeed, what is inside the mystical can.

More to come later. I haven't followed up much, just little off and on. I am hoping to get a listen to one of my friend's brother's Ohm Walsh 5000 system from Germany, which is their active speaker system. I do think active crossovers can have serious benefits if done right, and I am curious why John Strohbeen maybe hasn't exploited this here in the US as the crew in Germany has. Will post back if this all comes together. 

Frazeur1....

Thank you for chiming in regarding a few of my findings.
The thing that really got me when I first got my Ohm's
was why does the speaker have to go through so many 
"filters" before hitting my ears, let me explain a little further.
The tweeter and the Ohm Walsh driver has to pass (4) four layers 
of a passive filter media before reaching your ears...!!

A foam layer, a perforated steel can layer, and a fabric grill layer, you might be saying, Peter that's three layers....yes, but after they build the cans, and close them up they spray the cans black, so what happens is that the open cell foam becomes clogged with paint and blocks even more high frequency energy from escaping the Cans.

I always listen to all my speakers naked, with the exception for the
maggies. All of them sound better without the grilles period.

I will have more time this week to play with my rear tweeters
and it's amazing how the sound field collapses when turned of.

Peace out...🇸🇪

Happy New Years everyone....

Tuesday will be the day my babies will come apart, I will add dampening to the cabinet, color change, and a full re-wiring,
some new caps and what ever else I can think of....

Stay safe...🇸🇪🎉

Day One....

Surgery starts, and a few thoughts.

Any time I take something apart I have this feeling of doom and a sense of what the f.... am I doing.
But the feeling always get shrugged of' and a calm I can fix anything (or effit up) comes over me.....

A double Espresso gives me a shot of needed "Kick in the ass" and off I go.

To separate the "can" from the main cabinet is child's play, Four wing nuts and the innards reveal them selfs in all its.......?

OK so I know I had some resentment brewing as All I had seen previously was a black spray painted 2x4 brace and that was it                  *****(this is were I apologize for flying of the hook without looking closer)****

Normally you would see X amount of acoustic dampening  occupy the speaker cavity, but here you have a three inch thick layer of fairly dense what looks like compressed recycled denim insulation.
On top there's a few inches of polyester/Dacron fill capped with a 
fabric mesh. Clean and simple and helping the filler from caving in to the speaker cavity is the port tube and some cross members.

The port tube is four inches in diameter, but steps down to what look like three inches towards the end of the cabinet. The outer and inner tube construction resembles something called an anti reversion step in an exhaust manifold, a very smart way to prevent reversion allowing for a smoother and less turbulent air flow...cool.

Back to the bracing of the cabinet, as the rest of the speaker cabinet is pretty much beautifully built, they did take time to do some cross bracing through out the cabinet. A mix of soft pine and birch plywood braces from top to bottom is making sure the cabinet is stiff in all directions. I also know that the truncated pyramid/sloped cabinets do prevent a lot of standing wave issues. 

I will most likely remove all the filler and line some sound deadening material throug out inside cabinet walls, and the bottom
will get a layer off elastomer and foam to stiffen the bottom of the cabinet.

I finally got my listening panel together (my kids) to see if they preferred the speaker with or without the rear tweeters in action.
And......yes the loved it with the tweeter playing, alive, fun, and the best they sounded so far.

So the rear  tweeters are staying, and will be installed flush with the cabinet in conjunction with the Volume control. All this should look
primo and very integrated.

Back to the "CAN" staring at it I could come up with tons of cool ways to make it look high tech, stem punk, Star Wars, or what ever
super cool solution, but JS decided on Death Star black with no personality, oh well.

On the bottom of the Ohm driver is a perforated steel sheet cover.
why did he do this? The pice is ringing like a son of a bitch when you tap it, that can't be good in my book so I will remove it and hopefully improve the sound. 

The plate holding the driver is a 3/4" sheet of plywood and the "can"
is installed with what looks like sheet metal screws in to the plywood. It works but mechanically it kind of sucks. The idea is to
do a 3/4" plywood/ 1/4" thick steel plate sandwich with laser cut holes around the opening. Threaded holes will allow for much better mechanical coupling and adjustability.

The outside bottom of the cabinet, has enough depth that I can
add a flared port and some extra material to deaden the bottom a little more......

Any way, got to go and work on these babies for a bit......🇸🇪

Back for a little update....

Got the cabinets all cleared out, vacuumed and prepped for sound deadening materials.
The "Cans" are taken apart and I finally figured out how he dampens and in the same time allows the cone to vibrate through the full frequency range, pretty cool indeed.

The more I'm considering a new design concept the more exiting it gets.
The thought is to move the switches and crossover down in to the cabinet, away from
magnets/drivers, and with that I can give the driver housing a new form factor. I will retain some perforated metal but I will use aluminum as is much deader, doesn't ring and it's also easier to form and anneal.
There will be no "Can" but a fresh new take on how I think it should look.
It could be Carbon Fiber, or Maple or both with my new matte blood red color scheme.
my bud the metal guy was here for Christmas and we will build the horizontal brace
from SS fully polished, vertical stand offs are also SS fully polished. I'm also considering a belt line right under the grille wrapping around the speaker also in SS.

This will be one sexy speaker when I'm done with it, it should look like it come out of a 
big manufacturers work shop all perfect....

Going to bed, more tomorrow I hope, and I told my son if a meteor hits me
go in the garage find the stuffing, the rest you can figure out.....lol 🇸🇪

Morning.....

Just woke up and all I could do was thinking about the speaker. What is that
crossover? or why is that crossover so damn complicated, is switches in the
audio path a good thing  (I honestly don't think so) but I might be wrong.
Would it be rational to simplify? would I see a gain in Transparancy? Or am I chasing
my tail? So I guess I'll make a flow chart were all the parts go and with that see if simplification is on the board. 

So the plan is to move the crossover either to a separate box outside the speaker
or install them on the bottom of the cabinet. Even though these are fairly large sized speakers space is not easy to come by due to the 4" tube and bracing.

peace out....🇸🇪

peterr53 - Remember that there is really only one setting of the switches that works for each listener in a given room.  If you want, you could make your settings permanent and fixed, and eliminate the switches.  This would reduce the speakers' utility in other rooms or for other listeners, however.

peter if you have a way of posting some pictures I would love to see those.   You could start a virtual system here just for this.

Hey guys....

Im not to worried about other rooms or listening positions, so I think ixney all the switches
will happen for sure. I just got a photobucket account and would love to share asap.
I also thinking about doing a YouTube video showing the speakers and maybe talking a little about my experience with the Ohm's......

Got to go to LAX...🇸🇪

Hejsan....

Just a little Swedish to start the post.
Sitting in the car with no music or talk radio is fantastic for some
deep thoughts, ideas or pure fantasies.... 😎

So I checked out the wall thickness of the speakers and realized
that I have a full 5/8" thickness, so what do you do to minimize
vibrations without spending the big dough? 
A few ideas popped in to my mind, the most drastically would be to build up another layer on the outside from mdf, but it adds bulk, and 
I already have a fantastic paint job that'll be ruined so forget that.
I could add slate on the inside walls, but that makes the speaker
volume smaller and the speaker heavier.....Man I feel like I'm overthinking things a bit, but damn I LOVE overthinking things lol.

Decided to go with cork 1/4" thick self adhesive, super easy to cut
shape and get in to nasty little crevices. I also got some polyester fill 
sheets that I'll glue to all the cross beams and sharp corners.
Im sure this will suffice to prevent extra reflections and vibrations
in the box.
Tomorrow I'll have time to run a sweep on the main driver to see where it starts to drop of frequency wise, so let's see if it goes to 
7k as I've read here on audio gone.

Gentlemen I will try to upload some images for your pleasure 
in a bit...🇸🇪

 Homemade tamales from my best friends wife...Oh baby

Finally got around to snap some shots of the project. 

http://s1248.photobucket.com/user/peterhorvath6233/media/ohm%202_zpsvedyc7rp.jpg.html?filters[user]=...

Here is an interior shot of the cabinet with a smattering of braces DIY style, no CNC machined anything, just zip zip on the chop saw.
If you look closely, you'll see some adhesive rubber gaskets...??
Great you say, until you'll realize that it's from the original driver config.
I.E. No one took the time utilizing the step of the edge to seal the cabinet properly...Sigh (or remove them).

http://s1248.photobucket.com/user/peterhorvath6233/media/ohm%201_zpsmsrrdv0n.jpg.html?filters[user]=... 

Cabinet on the concrete platform and custom stand off.
If weight is important, it has it, as it weighs close to 60lbs each.
Finish is an automotive dark grey high gloss. Most of it will change
as the project goes forward.

http://s1248.photobucket.com/user/peterhorvath6233/media/ohm%203_zpsknrvuofe.jpg.html?filters[user]=...

Closeup of the stand, this will change to be made from 100% stainless steel and not a blend of powder coating and SS.

Now Im going in to the World Head Quarters workshop...

That's some good Audio porn right there, Peterr53!  Keep the pics coming.  This is fascinating!

I fell asleep on the sofa....

2am it was, YouTube blaring in the background, I think I started a RMAF round table, discussing.........???

Anyway I had stared at a plate of proverbial spaghetti for 2 hours, my kids stopping by asking if I built it, my wife reminding me that I bought it!!!
The bowl of Italian delish was nothing but a crossover from Brooklyn. In Sweded we would say "Vad i helvete".

Pictures would say more than I could ever convey on these pages
but in the spirit of the season I will abstain from showing the mess
on these virgin pages. 

I can totally see JS sitting in a meeting at the factory floor discussing
(late seventies) how can we make the speaker more exciting, more options, wider, deeper, more holographic, better bass and what ever else. At this point most designers would have said something like...
We need to time align the cabinet, or let's try aluminum instead of paper. But the Ohm guys bless their heart said nahhh lets make the most complicated crossover.....EVER.......more switches, more hot melt glue and miles of wiring :( lol
The only thing missing was a bong hit for good measures.

A new day it is, and I will make effort to decipher the 13+1 wires
going on and out of the small switches. The other strange wiring mystery is the out of phase main lead ?? So I'll crack the other 
crossover to see if it's the same or something happened in the production. If anyone has any experience with the (switch magic)
circuit, feel free to chime in. 

My my personal philosophy is that less is more, less solder, less wiring, and higher quality parts.

Time for a double espresso......🇸🇪

I have not looked at the innards of my Walsh F5 Series 3 speakers since they arrived.

Cab came in separate box from driver (which connected via a single connector and mounts using 4 wing nuts that I do tighten on occasion) and separate box for the cover. Been too busy listening (and tweaking elsewhere as needed). Must be fun though tearing these things apart to see what makes them tick. Mine have original refurbed OHm F cabinets probably from the 1970s which were pretty darn heavy I must say as I recall from having to lug them downstairs to their new home.

They sit on easy to move and lock casters so size and weight has not been an issue since when tweaking placement. Very practical!

Floor is concrete foundation with thin dense padding and carpet. No need for additional platform there.

With my smaller Walsh 2 size models upstairs, I set those on Auralex subdude platforms which cost about $100 pair and work great to clean up the bass (by isolating from lively floors there).

No doubt setting most any speaker on an acoustically inert platform however one achieves it is a good move, but even more so perhaps with the bottom ported OHMs.

I do value the castors and level adjustment switches on my F5s. They make it much easier to get the speaker tuned into the room properly which is always task #1 for best performance out of most any speaker. That alone makes my OHMs hard to ever replace in my challenging (and not dedicated) L shaped room. Not an issue with headphones of course. :^)

I too tend to favor simplicity in design but the F5s sound pretty spot on as I have them set up so for me at least the value of the onboard level adjustments outweigh any possible downside. The F5s and smaller Walsh 2 models with same driver design but smaller (8" versus 12") driver and no switches tend to sound pretty much alike when set up well in the same room (I’ve actually done this comparison) so the switches are a net + for me. Definitely one of those things where YMMV.

Thank you Mapman....

I can see how the switches adds a certain "ease of use" for most people, and being
able to shape the tone curve to your needs and environmental complications is very
satisfying.
Im coming from the school of change the environment to meet my needs kind of guy.
with that said I'm old enough that Loudness buttons, tone controls, and other secret sauce
was part and parcel in most pre-amps or receivers.

As for these switches........got to be honest Mapman, nothing good can come from
adding these in the audio circuit, it might sound "fine" but every time the audio signal is processed "shaped" filtered or otherwise manipulated to meet a certain criteria, a sonic degradation will be the end result. I do love the concept of the Ohm's and I know that deep
inside of the crossover is a path, a pure path a path of no resistance, adding some thing to the music that can be explained as........ Nothing, nothing at all my friend.

If the speakers a boomy, pull them away from the corners, back walls or any other
room boundaries. If the sound harsh, you might need to soften the surfaces in the room
add art, plants or area rugs for a less sibilant perspective. Etc etc

So looking at these switches, the surface area, and quality of the the said part
I hate to say it but all those expensive speaker cables are funneled in to a switch
with the surface area of (maybe) 30 gauge wire or worse. We will find out when I take one apart later today.

Its late enough that I can start doing some tone sweeps without hearing from some
upset teenagers lol ......🇸🇪 

peter part of the value of the switches for me is I can place the speakers in a location that provides cleanest soundstage and imaging and then use teh controls to adjust the tonality without having to move them again. The same location rarely works out best for both without additional tweaks to room acoustics and or some other kind of room equalization.

Its just another convenient and effective means to an end. Many ways to skin any cat.

Its a big cat indeed...

Just ran some pink noise for the hell of it and found some surprises.

Got to take my darling daughter to lunch but I will explain when I get back.

Damn this is fun....🇸🇪

Holes will be drilled......

Before I continue with my writing I like to make sure that everyone understands
Im doing this for fun and my written word is just that. No implied or down playing of 
anyone else's speakers, sounds or what ever else I'm covering or uncovering when
re-building these speakers. Everyone hears differently and everyone perceives quality of
sound and workmanship in different ways......😄❤️

After that love fest....💥

Its amazing what what music masks while playing a wonderfull piece of composition
might it be classical or pop and everything in between. I'm actually having Amazon Alexa
playing me some great classical while typing these words.

Now pink noise...really changes everything, certain issues gets uncovered, a small change
uncovers strengths or downfalls in the driver. So I de-coupled the tweeter from the unit
I.E. I played the Ohm driver by it self with no help from the tweeter, and first I listened 
without touching the switches (set at my normal positions) sounds OK I guess, not much
high frequency energy but a surprising amount never the less.

I move the room size switch: Almost no changes I might hear a less then a db change
in all 3 positions.

Room location:  Free position has a small boost which is to be expected. The room size switch "small" position bumps high frequency by a small amount

Perspective switch: from close to far I'm getting almost 3.5 db difference in output
I would say that's a fairly substantial difference.

Now to the frequency output of the Ohm driver. Looking at the trace I'm not seeing 
a whole lot of output as it starts to roll of fairly fast after 2.25khz, this measurement 
was taken with the perspective switch in highest output (close) setting. Now I do believe there's a perceived output to about 4.5k but it's about 20db down or worse.

As for the crossover for the Tweeter my guess is as good as yours my friends
as I have not taken the time to by pass the big driver due to the crossover architecture.
Im sure it's crossed over at 2.5k or somewhere in that neighborhood.

Good news, bad news? I think it's mostly good, as I have a great platform to work from.
I love the concept but I think JS has left a lot of possibilities on the table, the crossover 
is coplicated beyond what I've ever seen.
What am I expecting from these changes? That's in the next installment.

Now I'm going to drill some holes...🇸🇪

Today is cork day....

Such  lovely material, warm, soft and useful in so many ways.
I do love a good bottle of wine so popping a fake cork cork is 
a let down, but I understand the Eco part of the equation.

Today I'm using real cork, 1/4" thickness with self adhesive backing
OR NOT....just opened the package from Amazon and so much for self adhesive convenience...damn!  Life's a struggle and then you decide to take apart some Ohm speakers and BAM....Moving the lawn looks like a simple project lol

I guess I have to either raid the garage for some appropriate glue or
silicone or Home Depot is my next stop..

Stay thirsty my friends...🇸🇪

I stuck my head in the box....

I love walking the isles of Home Depot I don’t know if it’s the smell or the over abundance of stuff, man stuff (sorry girls) that has to be purchased, used once put in a drawer until you need one again, but due to onset of early tool dementia you buy another one...now you have two.

So no glue in the cabinet of the ever growing collection of spray paints. It would have been way easier to have a self adhesive cork sheet as spraying glue is one messy proposition.
The Ohm 4/5k looks big from the outside, but is nothing but on the inside, Donny small hands would’ve be way more successful in all the tiny crevices and spraying contact cement is no fun.
Got it all done and here’s an images of the Cork and some polysheets attached to the braces.

http://s1248.photobucket.com/user/peterhorvath6233/media/ohm%204_zps6gmmglyv.jpg.html?o=1

Finally got a chance to stick my head in a finished box and in a factory non treated cabinet.......Wow
Wish you could hear the difference I’m expecting tighter bass faster response on transients, but the proof is in the pudding.
Im also changing up on the Tweeter (front and rear) so if some one wants 2 ribbon drivers or 2 soft dome tweeter let me know, price will be very fair.

Dinner is next with some adult beverages, till next time...🇸🇪

The up's and downs of......

So finally a beautiful California day with sun and blue skies.

After feeling that I have more great ideas then time to execute, its back to the project. I finally got the cabinets done, with a few small additions that I'll do before final assembly. Last night I pulled out the drivers, removed the last of the cage around the X-over and Walsh driver......

The downer?  Seriously what we're they thinking when they slapped together this spaghetti monster of a X-over. Do anyone remember speaker switchers of yore? Nothing good has ever been written or said about these devices, except for a few naysayers with no hearing. The image attached will say it all and it has to be removed asap.
Im still contemplating the X-over design or I might contemplate an electronic version
with infinite possible variations of settings.

I realize that 4/5000 cabinets are a hybrid old/new design, but after a little staring at the parts ( I do a lot of that lol) I suddenly saw a glaring screw-up, the Walsh driver was covered 
by part of the original cabinet....This is pure laziness and should never happen on a $5000
speaker. As can be seen in the image it's not a small area either. There is also some old
rubber gaskets left from the old set-up!!!

This will get done sooner than later, until then......🇸🇪

Its 1:30 am house is quiet but my brain is racing like a well tuned 
F1 car. I love F1 the technology, the aerodynamics and the material science, wish I had the dough to use some of the technology for the speaker up grade, but my wife is looking at the project with eyes shut wide.....she misses nothing IE. This is not her first rodeo.

After dealing with the X-over last night, I decided to go with an
electronic crossover. I'll be able to play with so many variables
build memory for each setting, but mostly that I can test and probe the different possible settings without having to rebuild the X-over.
buying new parts etc....

Im happy.....🇸🇪

frazeur good point. I’d expect cabinet interactions of Walsh style drivers (and tweeters mounted essentially in total isolation from cabinet) to be much lesser than in most cases where drivers are mounted and coupled directly to cabinets. Exclusively in teh bass as I understand it. Many would regard a design that reduces cabinet interaction in and of itself potentially a good thing and based on listening I would agree.

Of course there are many factors that go into good sound. What matters most will vary case by case, design by design.

The Ohm Walshs are essentially a "black box" in the sense that transducers are totally enclosed (in the can) and out of view. That makes for a lot of wiggle room that would not be tolerable aesthetically otherwise.

I hear the beautiful music but all the ugly parts are out of view.

Kinda like just driving a car versus looking under the hood. I will look in there for routine maintenance or if I suspect a problem but that’s about it.

Also I think we are talking about refurbed Walsh 4 cabinets here, not new cabs.   

My F5 series 3 OHMs use refurbed OHM F cabinets, which was a big attraction for me.   Many still regard OHM Fs as one of the best speakers ever (at least when they were not broken).    So the cabs cannot be too shabby.   The drivers are much different but the topology relative to the cabs is essentially the same  although most new Walsh speakers are ported not sealed.   5015 models with powered subs on board are the exception.

I've seen those on Ebay.   VEry cool.

Thanks guys...

I do want to take the high road on most issues, but the monster mess of a X-over Pushed me over the edge the other day...lol

Those double F's has been offered on the bay for years, cool idea
none the less.
I am looking at which tweeter makes sense with the Walsh driver and two types are in contention at the moment. Raal and Aurum booth can be X-over fairly low with no issues.
 It'll be interesting to see at what upper frequency the Walsh driver poops out. I attached a frequency sweep image.

There is two measurements at 1m but at two volume levels.
Please give me feedback.

http://s1248.photobucket.com/user/peterhorvath6233/media/image_zpsxljnfpw6.jpeg.html?filters[user]=1...

Best....🇸🇪

Just to clarify further I ran a pink wide and noise for the measurements...

PS. IM also selling the center channel as it does not match my front
even a little bit......got to go bigger.
The ad is here on Audiogone. I will have some better images tomorrow when I get the new (black cloth) grill material on.
And the speaker looks spectacular with the new driver, and me cleaning up the diy look...

Don't be put off by that response graph.  My 2000s' response graph had a similar overall shape.  IMHO, systems that tilt downward to the right are much more listenable, realistic, and involving over the long run.  If you want, EQ the system to be flat and see how you like it.  I know I would not like it at all.

What equipment including amp are you using to produce the response graph?

Did you do one on the whole speaker prior for comparison?

Also remind me how old are the speakers and which gen driver?

The graph was a Walsh driver no tweeter, so that would be like listening with an ear infection. The driver is only four years old so pretty new I guess. But as I said before, when adding the ribbon tweeter and rear tweeter to the equation the package sounds incredible. But I know there's a diamond in the rough hidden in there
that will come out when I release the "Spaghetti Monster"...

Time for an espresso.....🇸🇪

Mapman...
The amps  are the big Emotiva mono blocks that will put out close to
1kw at 4ohm. The test software is in my iPad mini with a outboard mic.
Let me dig in to my files and see what I have saved.

Later.....🇸🇪

What is the mic?

Also are these series 2 or 3 drivers and new when acquired?

I ask because older drivers could easily not perform as well for a variety of reasons.

Also room acoustics typically provide bass boost versus measuring in something more like an anechoic chamber to whatever extent that might be a factor here.

Also I’ve seen measurements of series 2 Walsh speakers from teh 80’s and curves were reasonably flat with typical deviations. Of course that was entire speaker and no way to know how one set of test gear and conditions compare to another.

I would not listen to the Walsh speakers without the tweeter. Listening from behind with no tweeter exposure confirms that.

I would expect the bass driver to roll off as frequency goes up to some significant extent.

if original response with tweeter was reasonable flat as it should be that would indicate the tweeter and crossover together with the bass driver provides that. No surprise there.

No commercially sold Walsh or Walsh style driver I know of can cover everything and operate reliably over time. Dale Harders newer models are the most recent attempt I know of. Original OHM Fs did it to 16khz or so when working but that was very tenuous.

I would only judge the sound and performance as measured of the complete package, not the parts. In a project like yours however its of course important to know what each part is doing.

Interesting stuff.

Bondman,

I’ve never heard OHM Fs. How did what you heard compare to what you get at home?

peter I’m no expert in crossovers by any stretch but based on your chart of the OHm Walsh bass driver alone, it would seem that the crossover JS uses provides a very gradual transition over an extended frequency range in order to deliver a typical reasonably flat response in the end.

I’m curious if you change the crossover how would you accomplish that and with what end goal in mind?

Of course with a different tweeter its a somewhat different ballgame as well.

I wish I could find the old measurements of older OHM Walsh speakers I had seen a while back but it appears the site’s publisher retired and the site is no longer available. It is referenced at the end of the Wikipedia article on Lincoln Walsh still.