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

While I'm not technically as proficient as a lot of the people in this thread, I do have experience with the MWT's in home theater without a center, and with Audyssey.

As mentioned before, if there is hole in the image, they are too far apart. If too close, they sound like a single mono source. Best thing about Ohm's is there seems to be a lot of wiggle room.

With room correction, even the basic Audyssey worked quite well, especially in taming some shrill highs in a cavernous room we had last year.

However, I thought that old-fashioned experimentation and basic room treatment gave even better results. I definitely have more detail and soundstage without the room correction.

If you sit in the sweet spot of a conventional speaker, would the Ohm's differ if you dropped them into the same spot? IOW, is it only when you start moving out of the sweet spot that omni speakers start to shine?

(My apologies if this has been asked already.)

Did someone really say they got Ohms wrapped only in bubble wrap?

My 100s arrived in about 6 layers of boxes that also defeated UPS's best attempts to decapitate them by forklift. I joked with John that he uses that many layers of packaging to discourage anyone who wants to return them - the thought of repacking that box will cause many to think twice.

Shy of my Verity P/Es (shipped in aluminum flight cases) the Ohms were the most securely packed item that I've ever received.

"If you sit in the sweet spot of a conventional speaker, would the Ohm's differ if you dropped them into the same spot? IOW, is it only when you start moving out of the sweet spot that omni speakers start to shine?"

Sweet spot is usually much bigger with OHMs/omnis in general making listening easier. THat's probably the biggest difference.

Second unique aspect of OHM sound is coherency top to bottom to go with the big sweet spot.

Third is usually a wide wall to wall soundstage. Not unique to OHMs, but perhaps easier to accomplish with those compared to many.

Fourth is a lot of dynamic headroom given the size of teh driver and speaker, which seems to be an attribute of the CLS Walsh design specifically.

Like any speaker, positioning is usually a big part of the sonic picture, but not the only part. Dropping an Ohm or any other omni-type speaker into the same position as a typical forward-firing box speaker may be worse in some aspects, especially if the placement of those speakers is close together. This is somewhat listener dependant of course, place to taste so to speak, but I always preferred my Ohms to be typically spaced wider apart than I would most box speakers. I always felt that the soundstage and imaging would be better this way, whereas if they were closer together, things can begin to sound like a large ball of music. Maybe not a bad thing depending on how you want your "staging".

I used to own Walsh 3000's and also the MWT in omni-configuration, and both of them liked to be placed a decent bit apart. I always played with that positioning though very much like I would any speaker, even an omni's soundstage can become collapsed and not realistic if placed too far apart. The positioning/angle of the tweeters does enable a wider spacing, while still getting the imaging and stage correct. In general I agree with Map's post above.

I now own a pair of Swedish Larsen Model 4's, that are not too far off from a pair of Ohm's in some respects, especially ragarding the tweeter positioning to some degree. I find that I can place these speakers similarly to the Ohm, 10-12 feet apart, and listening around the same distance or even a bit less with very good results.

I also own a pair of Shahinian Obelisk 2's, and they continue to amaze me, it seems they can sound as large as the room you have them placed in without making the individual performers and instruments seem too large-no vocalists with 10-foot wide mouths here. I don't know how they do it, but they get most things right as do Ohm's.

Ohm's, Larsens, Shahinians, all very similar products at varying price points, but they all manage to sound right to me, like real music in a realistic setting.

Tim