Speakers that sound great in terrible rooms

 

a well energized, spectrally-correct reverberant field actually enhances the clarity of complex music

That's it exactly.

Duke another thing relating to what you said regarding the Ohms is that they opt to use a conventional tweeter normally angled in 45 degrees rather than attempt to reproduce the top end (higher frequencies are inherently more directional) omnidirectionally as well.

Compare with German Physics and the omni DDD Walsh driver which covers the higher frequencies while the low end is handled by more conventional bass drivers.

Note that Ohm Walsh are not full but rather pseudo omni (polydirectional?) to manage the reverberative field better in most rooms. The driver is physically attenuated with absorbing material inside the can in the wall facing directions.

Good points by Duke.

I have honestly been of the opinion since my first encounters with Ohm Walsh speakers many years ago that more omnidirectional speakers do things right and others are inherently flawed in design.

Omnis radiate sound in a pattern more like if a real instrument were playing, whereas conventional more directional designs shoot all the good sound mostly forward in one direction only.

The pain people must go through to try and get directional speakers to sound good supports that the approach is inherently flawed.

My big Ohm F5s were hand picked for the troublesome L shaped room they run in. Planar and tower box speakers I tried in there prior just could not cut it at all.

Ohm Walsh are always a good choice in general IMHO regardless of room acoustics, more so than more directional designs.

Smaller is often better with speakers in rooms with bad acoustics.

My wife's sunroom is pretty bad.   I've tried a lot of speakers in there but the tiny  Vanatoo Transparent 1 Encore speakers on Isoacoustic stands in there really shine.  I think the built in signal processing helps.