Are Ohm Walsh's a step up from Martin Login Electro Motion ESL's


I currently have a hapr of Martin Login Electro Motion ESL's and I will never get rid of them, but in my current house only one person can trully be in the sweet spot for the speakers, and it does get a little annoying how fast you can get off axis.  I really want to find something beautilf sounding in a small room that just feels like you are there.  The one speaker that keeps coming up that can do this are Ohm Walshes.  I have been looking at the Ohm Walsh 2's and doing an upgrade (speakers on my terrms) or looking at the tall 2000s.   I really want to find a speaker that is my last speaker for a long time. 

I am driving my speakers with Odessy Kismet Mono block's and a Schiit Freya+ with RCA JAN 5692's in the gain side and PSVANE COSSOR 6SN7 in the buffer side.  

Have anyone compared Ohm's to Martin Logan's.  Anything else I should be looking at.  My budget is $4000+ but I also am a guy that likes rebuilds of things.  I primarily listen to Rock and Jazz

128x128justinrphillips

Martin Logans- Narrow sweet spot, excellent imaging and transperancy. However they compress at volume. Very coherant, until the woofer takes over.

Current Ohm’s - Huge Sweet Spot, flat out do not compress, extremely coherant, nice imaging, but not as precise as the ML’s. Huge soundstage (if set-up right)

Current OHM’s actually do best in the live end of a room, they do fine near corners, jammed in a corner isn’t optimal, but where you have your speakers they will work fine. In many ways they do best set-up "opposite" of many traditional speakers.

The OHM’s will be a very different sound than the ML’s, though both have excellent midrange coherance.

When I had my Ohm’s (which I enjoyed a great deal). I actually felt they sounded best without bass traps in the front corners (though I’ve decided all speakers sound best in my room without the traps in the front corners, only the rears). But I also felt they sounded way better without my GIK panels at the first reflection points, though I did leave them up at the second reflection points.

Yet, where they were placed was darn near the same spot all of my speakers sound best. (sure, a bit of movement back and forth etc, but generally in my room most speakers sound best in the same area. Most rooms do)

To your original question - better is subjective. They will certainly be different. Better... that is all up to what you decide you like.

 

 

I have absorption panels on walls at first reflection points with my larger Ohms which are highly tuned in. Smaller ones in family room sound great with no special treatments. I would assert Ohms are hard to beat for easy placement for good sound but still respond highly to tweaking if the goal is to get them totally dialed in. Ymmv in regards to setup and how much time you spend to get them totally dialed in.

mapman, yes, that's why I stated true omni as problematic. He could make a quasi-omni work, but still it's not ideal. I concur with there not being a clear step up transitioning from small ESL to small omni. He could force the issue, but has a wall all along one side versus open on the other which might slaugter the soundstage. Who knows how much that would screw up a pair of omni speakers. Imo it would be the least favored genre of speaker to use for that location. 

You iknow I'm not anti-omni; I have the Walsh Model F running now along with the Legacy XTREME XD Subs. Maybe it's just me, but they sound very good with nostaliga music from the 70's. 

 

I added a pic to my virtual system that shows Ohms on Subdude pads in family room with placement not too far off from OPs.

 

https://systems.audiogon.com/systems/9811

...and yes it sounds good with coherent soundstage even on that chair right up front to the left. 😊

Let me add some more pictures of that room.  First the speakers are off the wall more than they look and yes the corner is there it's not in the corner