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
Hey Ron, That's too bad about the bass - I've always thought of the MWTs as a great apartment speaker. I'm in a 12x20 room and my MWTs have tons of bass. My amp is a 70 Watt Cyrus 8vs2 - not a lot of power, but when I replaced my McIntosh integrated, I noticed much deeper bass with the Cyrus.

I've also simplified my set up recently. I really wanted to go tubes (I was looking at Rogue and Manley Labs) - but I didn't want to give up the Ohms, so I'm sticking with SS for now...
I was using a solid state power amp (Bel Canto S300) with a tube preamp (Manley Shrimp) with my Ohm 100's and it was a sweet combination. Seems a good way to give the Ohms the juice they want with the dimensionality and sweetness of tubes.
"They are about 11 feet apart"

Any chance of getting them closer togather? A lot closer? I had a similar situation with my MWT's, and have found that having them about 5' apart, 6' if front of me ande about 1' off the rear wall yields solid bass and an amazing soundstage.
I can't really get them in front of me... they are more to the sides. They are probably only 2 feet "in front" and about 5 feet to the sides, but due to crap in the room, I can't really change this. I did move them around a bit, but the bass seemed the best when close to the side walls.
What really seems lacking is that kick you get from the bass drum, and the punch from the snare. I only listen to rock, so there's quite a lot of that in the music I like. Even though I'm not adding a sub (no floor space, plus other reasons), I'm not sure it would really help much. I'm not looking for the 20Hz stuff... I doubt anything I listen to even gets below 35 or 40Hz (although I've never measured).
In general, I believe it takes inherently more power to get "kick" from omnis equivalent to what you might get with similar efficiency directional speakers aimed at your listening position. That is because with imnis, the sonic energy is emmitted in all directions whereas with more directional designs it is all essentially aimed at you.

Due to room constraints (12X12 with some large furniture and a TV in the room)I've had my 100S3s in a rather unique more wide and nearfield configuration for the last few months that I have found works well, yet is radically different from the typical setup and even how I have my 5s setup in the larger room.

My listening position is a couch on the rear wall. My electronics are on furniture occupying most of the left wall. The TV is in the front right corner, and there is a sizable computer desk center on the front wall.

The left speaker sits about 2/3 of the way from the left side of the couch to the rear wall. The right speaker sits about halfway between rear and front wall (about 2 feet further out from the rear wall than the left) and only about a foot from the right wall. Everything is tuned in quite well with more than adequate bass, proper top to bottom balance, detailed imaging and a room size sound stage that can almost immerse the listener in the music.

Its a totally different presentation however than in teh larger rooms with the 5s which are both equidistant from teh rear wall, about 5 feet apart, and where I normally listen a good 6-8 feet or more back from teh speaks. Occasionally, I listen from a chair that is about 2 feet in front of the speakers and about a foot to the outside of the left speaker. There, the soundstage is again more near field in nature and the image fills in nice and coherently with a slight shift in overall location to the right....the magic of omnis!