Modern Shahinian Obelisk

I know this is an old thread, but sometimes it is good to just revisit, especially when it comes to Shahinians, as there is so little written about them, so just a few comments if I may.

After toying with the idea of finding a pair of good condition Obelisks at a price I could afford, I gave up and just enjoyed my Ohm Walsh 3000's. But last year a pair of demo Obelisk 2's became available at a price I could not pass up, and finally my speaker search is over.

Now on to a couple comments from the above questions posed:

I have never been too worried over what the drivers of any speaker are particularly made of, metal, paper, silk etc., as if the manufcture/designer has done his part, I then just leave it up to my ears.

I can confirm that with these Obelisks, like Holzhauers Diapasons, these did take a good bit of running in to sound their best. Even as these were demo models, they hadn't been played in a good while. Right out of the box they sounded quite horrible, lifeless and not open in the way any Shahinian I have ever heard could sound. But within several hours things went from bad to good, and then given a few weeks I felt all was as it should be. Possibly a brand new pair would take much longer, I do not know. According to Shahinian, it should not take very long at all.

I do not find the metal drivers in the Obelisk bright at all, although if sitting close to them and listening height is quite a bit higher than the cabinets, I could see them being obviously "brighter" just by being more on axis with the mid-domes and super-tweeters. To me a lower seating position and being a good deal back from them is a good way to go.

Not having a pair of the older Obs to compare with the series 2, it would be difficult at best to make any real comments on which is "better" or in what ways. The newer Ob does seem to be a bit easier to drive, and the midbass to midrange seems to be smoother, but again, that is just based on former impressions.

I would love to get an opportunity to listen to Hawks and Diapasons someday, but things would certainly have to change system wise, let alone money wise! I believe I can safely say that I will be stopping at the Obelisk 2 level, and really, I cannot complain as these are some of the very best transducers that I have heard.

While Richard Shahinian is obviously a classical guy, and seems a lot is made over what types of music can be listened to on Shahinians, I cannot for the life of me understand this. I rarely listen to classical, and the Obelisk just do amazing things on jazz, rock, just about any kind of music I have thrown at them. A speaker does not have ears and doesn't hold prejudice against the music it is fed!

With the above said, do not let metal drivers worry you, or the types of music that a Shahinian will play, it is all good. Just be sure to feed them well with a good, fairly robust amplifier and good source. Enjoy! Tim

I own a pair of Hawks and would be more than happy to entertain folks at my home in Marin County, CA for an audition.
All invited. Just send me an email and we can make arrangements.

Also, I had a pair of Ohm Walsh 200s a few years ago. My Shahinians were in the factory at the time for updating. The Ohms seemed to me to have much of what I loved about the Shahinian sound, especially the expansive reproduction of large spaces and the cohesiveness of the image without any sense of gaps or discontinuity in the entire sound field. Thus, for example, when listening to a symphony orchestra in a hall one hears a very integrated and unified orchestra. Many speaker designs tend to appear to --just a bit--break up the solidity and continuity. In my limited experience, I have found omni- or poly-directional reproducers to be less prone to this distortion. To me, the two principal differences between what I am generally calling the Ohm sound as opposed to the Shahinian sound were fullness (maybe richness or roundness would be better terms?) and timbre. When I got my Hawks back, I did unblinded aide by side comparisons (the differences between transducers are usually large enough to be effectively apparent without the need for elaborate masking techniques) and found the Hawks to be 'better' in both ways. While, for instance, both did a good job of making a string section sound spatially substantial and integrated with the rest of the performing group, the Hawks (and, I believe, other Shahinian designs such as the Obelisks) provided the rich overtones and mid- and upper bass support that give massed strings their irresistible beauty. As for timbre, again the Ohms did not reach the level of overall accuracy (which includes solidity and complexity) attained by the Shahinians.
It is true that my Hawks 'come alive' best at higher volume.I do not know about the Obelisk IIs but from what I have heard (and experienced also with a set of older Obs I once had) Shahinians poly-directional designs all seem to benefit from good, high-current power.
As for bass, Shahinian's modified transmission line/passive radiator combo, used on all his more expensive designs, provides depth, power, explosiveness and detail which usually greatly impress auditioners experiencing them for the first time. Also, for electric bass (read: rock and roll) the sheer dynamism of this kind of bass is quite satisfying.

My invitation to interested sound hounds is open and serious. Come hear my Hawks.

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.