Modern Shahinian Obelisk

Rp,

I'm curious if when comparing OHm and Shahinian if you found that each sounded best in a different location?

Omni/wide range speakers tend to be easy to set up for good results, but I find a fair amount of tweaking is needed to get the best results in each case, speaker by speaker, room by room, and the placement differences with omni or wide range speakers in the same room can be larger than usual since the dispersion patterns and associated SPLs at any particular listening location can vary greatly compared to more directional designs.

you'd be well advised to return them to the factory for updating as needed. it will not be inexpensive but should offer listening satisfaction. vasken shahinian will not change anything that does not need it. see their site for contact info.

"I'm curious if when comparing Ohm and Shahinian if you found that each sounded best in a different location?"

To be sure. But the differing physical configurations made direct comparison a bit more complex. The Hawks are modular, with a large bass module covering frequencies up to 250hz, which supports a multi-driver pyramidal box that is movable by itself to distant locations. I have found the treble clusters function best on stands out into the room five feet or so whereas the bass unit gets boomy and peaky out there and sounds best out from the back wall only about 2 feet. You can't do this sort of fine tuning, of course, with the Ohms or most other designs. As far as the Ohms, They preferred to be in more or less the same place as I put my woofers. Their bass definitely benefited from the corner support and the image and sound stage remained excellent and even wider with no hole in the middle to speak of at all (just like the Shahinians). These things are very room dependent, as you say.

By the way, to my ears the sound loses not a whit of coherence with this spatial separation of bass and treble. If anything, the sound opens up even more and the image appears even more free of the generating source. Do not forget, the Shahinian designs do not depend on phase coherence for their sound. I do not really understand the mechanics of the (quasi-)single driver used in the current Walsh designs but I can't imagine they are phase coherent either.

I find much to like about both designs, the Ohm and Shahinian. They obviously are more alike than not for many reasons. I do find my Obelisk to be more detailed and the ability to have a more dimensional layering of vocals and instruments, maybe even more 3-D? I also find the top end of the Obelisk to be a bit more present and realistic, some may tend to think of this as brightness. But I also thought at times my Walsh 3000's could sound a slight bit "dull" on the top end with triangles and cymbals.

Both speakers obviously do the wall-to-wall staging very well, but again I find the Obelisk to be a bit more fuller and dimensional. Ultimately this can come down to placing of each speaker, as my 3000 seemed to be smoother across the bandwidth being closer to the wall behind it than the Obelisk.

I do think both speakers to my ears do enjoy a more healthy dose of power/current from the amplfiers, pretty much an even thing here. I never thought either speaker was particularly great at playing lower volumes and retaining the detail or overall musicality-and that is my own thoughts, as I have heard many comment and say they felt both were good for listening at low levels. Just might be my own preference here.

Again my observations come from Ohm 3000 vs. the Obelisk, and really a better comparison price-wise would have been the Ohm 5000. But the good thing about Ohms is they all pretty much retain the overall "house sound" of Ohm across the range in my opinion.

In my room I do have a bit more trouble getting the bass right with the Obelisk than the Walsh, and am still playing with this aspect. One thing I did find the other day, was taking up a large area rug which is laying on laminate flooring over concrete slab, improved the bass on the Obs to no end. It did however also affect the upper registers making things a bit brighter and more live in the room. So more time to play and experiment here. The Ohm did not seem to be so picky in this regard. Again, room tuning is every bit as important as any box, cable or tweek in my opinion.

Rpfef-your comment on the mechanics etc. of the Walsh driver is a toughie, it always seems to open a bit of a can of worms at times. I have seen the insides of quite a few of the current CLS drivers that Ohm uses now, a bit of a difference from the "real" Walsh single driver of the A/F. Regardless, the CLS drivers do indeed work, and very well I might add. I will leave the phase coherency thought to others though. Also, thanks for the invite to listen to your Hawks, would love to, if I ever get out your way to sunny Cali, will look you up! Thanks too for your comments, again, rare to find many folks commenting on Shahinians, we should start up a new forum....

Map-good to hear from you, haven't heard much from you on the Ohm threads recently, I still watch from time to time. Hope all is well with you! Tim

"But I also thought at times my Walsh 3000's could sound a slight bit "dull" on the top end with triangles and cymbals. "

No doubt OHMs can sound flat on the top end compared to many high end speakers. The Dynaudios I use concurrently on teh same system as the OHMs is a good example.

However, I have each pair of speakers in different rooms, and find that good tweaks, whatever they may be tend to benefit all speakers. OHM Walsh typically will show whatever they are fed as much as most any speakers I would say, but they are the least hot on the top end of any I have owned, though the later generations less so it seems to me than the originals, which were very soft on the top end and not nearly as refined. Tweeters used have changed over the years as I understand it.

In the end, its how you set things up to meet your goals I think mostly.

Also regarding coherency, the OHM Walshes are the best I have owned at this by a wide margin. The OHM CLS (coherent line source)driver is advertised to be "coherent" and I would agree. In general, coherency is an attribute usually attached to any good Walsh driver implementation. The limitation of the OHM Walsh line speakers in this regard is that the Walsh driver only covers up to 7Khz or so, but if one does the homework one will find that is where most music lives, little happens much above that. "Air" is one attribute of sound that does. That is probably the one area where I would say the Walshes may not compare as well as some more directional models in that the tweeter is positioned to not be direct facing in the standard CLS configuration. Any good, flat or balanced speaker designed to have direct tweeter exposure to the listener is likely to have more "air" in the sound, but soundstage width will be impacted negatively.

Its possible the Shahinians provide more direct tweeter exposure and more "air" accordingly than a standard configuration OHM Walsh.

The classic model OHM I, which predates the Walsh line, is teh OHM design that most resembles the Shahinian approach I would say. Those are beasts! I would love ot have a pair. They become available refurbed from OHM from time to time for VERY reasonable cost.