Zorpman: My experience with the F's is that they have tremendous bottom end. Then again, they have a huge radiating surface area that is equivalent to multiple woofers. In a direct comparison to the mains that i'm using in my HT system ( two 12's per sealed cabinet, 4+ cu ft box with a Q of .5 ), the F's have both more bass and greater extension. While the bass of the F's is not as tight or as well defined, it is very apparent that they are capable of prodigious bottom end. The fact that i can input a digital 5 ( five ) Hz signal into them and the house shakes as the Walsh drivers flail about tells me that i'm not imagining things. If one were not worried about achieving levels over about 92 - 94 dB's at a distance of 8 - 10 feet, these would make excellent subwoofers.
Having said that, my guess is that your cabinets are not properly stuffed, your amplifiers are not capable of driving the load even though you think they should ( not uncommon ) or a combination of the two.
Many "well respected" amps that are supposedly "bass hounds" have sounded more like "whining pups" when trying to drive the low sensitivy ( Julian Hirsch measured them at 82 dB's and that's about what i get too ), low impedance ( 1.2 - 3 ohms ), high mass Walsh drivers. Any type of bridged amp need not apply as it will be trying to load into what is effectively less than 1 ohm ( as a bridged amp sees it ) at very low frequencies and 1 - 1.5 ohms across the majority of the band. This is because the nominal impedance of this speaker is more like 2 - 3 ohms rather than the "nominal 4 ohms" that Ohm advertised.
As such, one must take into account that not only must the amp be able to deal with such a load, it has to sound good doing it. Most amps that sound "good" with slightly higher sensitivity speakers of slightly higher impedance tend to fall flat on their faces with the low sensitivity / low impedance Ohm's. As such, many of the "problems" associated with how the Ohm's "sound" was not with the speakers, but with the poor / unsuitable level of amplification driving them. I've read several comments about the amps ( and even receivers !!! ) that people are driving the F's with and know for a fact that they could NEVER work well with them even though these folks think that they sound marvelous together.
As far as the cabinet goes, Ohm was less than consistent in this area and used different types and quantities of damping material inside the cabinets. By varying the density and material used, you can fine tune your bass extension and amount of damping at resonance. Out of the two pairs that i have, both sets had different quantities and types of materials in the box.
Something else that might be a hindrance to your low frequency output is the fact that the drivers were refoamed. I had my first set refoamed by a "pro" and they worked great. I had my second set refoamed by a different "pro" and he just about ruined them. NO bass output compared to the first set, etc... Ended up taking them back to the guy that did my first set and he corrected the problem by installing a different type of foam. This in turn changed the suspension of the driver, altering both the electrical and acoustical properties of the drivers.
Dmason: The newer "Walsh Series" uses a standard woofer mounted on top of a box or cylinder firing down into the enclosure. The sound that you hear is the sound "leaking" out of the vent holes in the basket of the woofer. As such, direct radiation is very low, giving the sound very diffuse and spacious properties. The sound being generated out of the front of the woofer,which is facing down into the enclosure, is vented through a port out of the box to enhance low frequency output and sensitivity. In order to minimize cancellation from nearfield reflections and increase the versatility of speaker placement, the rear section of the "mesh can" has acoustic damping / blocking material in it. This helps to both direct the sound out front while blocking radiation to the wall situated behind the speaker.
The top end is handled by a tweeter that fires towards the front and is mounted on the basket of the woofer. All of the crossover components are also mounted to the basket of the woofer. I might add that the construction of this whole assembly is NOT very pretty and that's why they try to "seal" the cans. They don't want you going in these "factory sealed units" because once you do, you'll find out that there is no "Walsh driver" in there and what a mess you paid good money for.
As you can see, the sound is not omni-directional, it uses nothing special ( standard drivers in a non-standard mounting array ) and the sound and presentation is nothing like that of a well set up pair of A's or F's. Then again, falling short of a well set up pair of Ohm's is nothing new. There aren't many speakers that are capable of producing a 360* radiation angle out of a point source phase coherent full range driver. Sean
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