Ohm Walsh Micro Talls: who's actually heard 'em?

My Musical Fidelity A3CR is about 120w/ch into 8 ohm and almost double into 4 and does fine with the 100 S3s in my rooms that fall within the max room size recommendation for 100s.

I can also say that all the 100 s3 and larger drivers love lots of power and current, the more the merrier.

I had them on a Carver 360w/ch amp prior and neither 100s or larger 5 drivers ever winced being driven to very high SPLs.

I've also ran the 100s to great effect and without issue using an 80W/ch Tandberg 2080. This was not enough for the larger 5's though IMO in that the dynamics suffered, though they were still perhaps undergoing break-in at the time.

Switching to the Audio Research sp16 tube pre-amp recently also resulted in a major improvement in overall dynamics, both large scale and micro. The improvement in microdynamics and transients in particular was much greater than any I noticed with various amps.

Others report and I tend to believe that in general the more power and current you throw at the Ohms, the better the dynamics overall become.

Marty and Mapman,
Thanks a lot for the feedback. I am tempted by John's offer of an upgrade to the 100's at full trade-in value on the Micros. I would certainly never drive them as loud as they can go... My listening room is only about 12' by 16' with an 8 foot ceiling. But the deeper bass is tempting!

But what about my amp?? The Unico puts out 80 w/channel into 8 ohms. And that is solid state in the power section. But how so you know If that's enough "juice?". :-)

John told me the 100s liked 150+wpc.

You're going to want more than 80wpc.

Perhaps be satisfied with what you have?

Tvad,
Yeah, I had a feeling that might be the case. If you are correct, then I'll be sticking with the Micros for the forseeable future. I cannot afford a new amp AND new speakers any time soon.

The 100s will probably work as good or better than the micros with your amp, but you may well be tempted to go with a bigger amp at some point to realize a real benefit.

Another thing to consider and maybe ask John S. about is that the micros are recommended for near field listening in any room size on the OHM site and the larger Walshes are recommended for general listening in various size rooms.

That's because the larger OHMS are just bigger and CAN go louder for listening further away when feasible in a larger room, but for more nearfield listening in a room your size, there will not be much if any difference with a larger model I suspect.

USing the Musical Fidelity A3CR (120w/ch) I've had my big OHM 5's in the 12X12 room where the 100's are currently. There was no real benefit with the larger OHMs. When I had the 100's in the larger room where the 5's are, there was....mainly the low end had more weight and balance and was more fulfilling at higher SPLS. Other than that the 100s sounded very much like the 5's overall.

I suspect the same would be true in your case with the 100s compared to the Micros.