New Ohm Walsh Speakers

[swspiers]

The new Ohm's are up on the ohmacoustics website:

http://www.ohmacoustics.com/productline.cfm

The site is not as flashy as SVS or other ID companies. But these are serious speakers, and worth at least looking at.

They offer a 120-day return period, and have customer service that is on-par with what I've read about SVS, Epik, Emotiva etc.

Oh yeah- the sound amazing, too.

-P

 

[BRANEmedia]

Ohm Walsh 2000 & Red Dragon monoblocks

Getting these in late December. Will spend Jan & Feb burning in, then will post a review.

The Ohm Walsh 2000 pair is planned to be powered by the new Red Dragon MkII 500 monoblocks (Class D amplifiers based on the B&O ICEpower ASX2 module).

Chain:

• high resolution digital files from USB drive
• Logitech Squeezebox (optical out)
• Benchmark DAC1 (XLR out)
• Red Dragon 500W monoblocks
• Ohm Walsh 2000's

Stay tuned for a review in Feb 2012 (I hope)!

 

[3db]

I've alwasy been intrigued by Ohm Walsh speakers but I've never heard them to date. Has anyone listened to them before? Beucase of their design, I'm sure they would spec out lousy using convential loudspeaker specs for a box incorporating front facing drivers. In this case, I think the specs would be meaningless in Ohm Walsh application.

 

[swspiers]

I'd be very interested in objective specs on the Ohm's myself, although I have no reason to think they would test any worse than high-quality 'monkey-coffins'. Off-axis tests should be pretty good as well.

Good to see this pop up again, although reading my post a few years later does make me think I come across as quite the Ohm shill.

Which I'm not. Just a fan-boy is all

 

[BRANEmedia]

I was about to get a pair of magnepan speakers, but then discovered how sensitive positioning is with them. I'm not someone who will set up a chair in the one golden spot in the room and only listen from there. This new system is meant to be enjoyed all around the room, while having parties, people milling about, etc. I want a system that will sound like live instruments being played in the room, and real instruments send out sound omnidirectionally, bouncing off all the walls. So the Ohm's seemed perfect.

 

[AcuDefTechGuy]

Are there any on-axis & off-axis frequency response plots for these speakers?

Or do they just sound great to the ears?

"The frequency response is 47-20,000 Hz +/- 3.5 dB for towers".

That doesn't exactly seem very accurate.

 

[jcl]

The Audio Critic posted a review back in 2003 with measurements for the Ohm Walsh 200 Mk 2 speaker.

http://www.theaudiocritic.com/back_issues/The_Audio_Critic_29_r.pdf

Review starts on page 22. That should give a general idea of how an Ohm Walsh design measures.

 

[swspiers]

Keep in mind, that was 2 generations ago...

 

[bikdav]

I've alwasy been intrigued by Ohm Walsh speakers but I've never heard them to date. Has anyone listened to them before? Beucase of their design, I'm sure they would spec out lousy using convential loudspeaker specs for a box incorporating front facing drivers. In this case, I think the specs would be meaningless in Ohm Walsh application.

It's interesting that you raised the specs issue. Some years ago, I heard the old Ohm F. As I recall it didn't have good specs, but it was one seriously great sounding speaker. Many times, my ears don't agree with what my eyes see.

 

[3db]

Are there any on-axis & off-axis frequency response plots for these speakers?

Or do they just sound great to the ears?

"The frequency response is 47-20,000 Hz +/- 3.5 dB for towers".

That doesn't exactly seem very accurate.

That's my whole point. They are omni directional so how accurate are the process od meausrements which are used for a conventional speaker on an omni directional speaker?

 

[AcuDefTechGuy]

That's my whole point. They are omni directional so how accurate are the process od meausrements which are used for a conventional speaker on an omni directional speaker?

I was afraid of that. So do we just throw the measurements out the window?

Just go by ear?

Not I.

Not for me.

 

[GranteedEV]

Those were some.very strange polars...

Omni below 1khz and basically a very constant narrow above 1khz.

I don't like the abrupt transition but i am curious how they sound.

 

[BRANEmedia]

I've been completely out of the loop of high end audio for about 15 years, just back in the thick of it now doing research and listening tests for a new system. Something I hadn't noticed before was what appears now to be a fetishization of specs at the expense of experience. Specs are a large-scale guide, of course. But speaking as an audio engineer, if I really wanted to look at a graph or specs to see how faithfully a system reproduces live sound, I'd do the following:

Bring a vocalist, percussionist and guitarist (or whatever instrument you want) into my listening room and record them simultaneosly from 2 locations: close-mic'd AND from my listening position, using equipment typical of professional recordings since that's what I'd be listening to anyway when I buy music (like, say, AKG or Earthworks mics thru Cranesong, Vintech or Great River preamps, into a Benchmark DAC at 24/96). Then play the close-mic'd recording back through my system and record THAT from my listening position.

Take the 2 listening-position recordings and compare them using whatever analytic methods you want (frequency spectrum, dynamic range, whatever). But from a purely experiential perspective, the better the system is the closer those 2 recordings should match each other. Ideally they should be indistinguishable.

Since I've not being exposed to hi-fi literature in the past 15 years, I am curious if any such experiments have been done?

 

[3db]

I was afraid of that. So do we just throw the measurements out the window?

Just go by ear?

Not I.

Not for me.

OMG ...Get a grip!!! All is not lost. What has to be done is to devise a test procedure that accurately measures frequency response for omni directional speakers. Until one is derived, trust your ears. If your ears like what you hear would you not buy them if money wasn't a factor?

 

[swspiers]

OMG ...Get a grip!!! All is not lost. What has to be done is to devise a test procedure that accurately measures frequency response for omni directional speakers. Until one is derived, trust your ears. If your ears like what you hear would you not buy them if money wasn't a factor?

This is so fricking awesome!

In my humble experience, Ohm's tend to be favored by the subjective, audiophile type. Yeah- the guys and gals who spend up to umpteen thousand dollars on interconncts and isolation do-dads. And even within that community, Ohm is polarizing (pun intented).

The compaay doesn't make it any easier, either. Ohm doesn't advertise (they honestly don't have to- word of mouth and actually hearing them is enough to keep them going so far). And since they don't adevertise, there aren't a lot of reviews. What they offer is that insane 120-day trial period. 4 months of in-home auditioning- if you don't like them, send them back. OR they will even modify them for you. It also bears mentioning that the current generation of Ohm's aren't even true Walsh drivers, like the old Ohm A and F. I've been in the middle of fights over the difference (as a spectator, not a participant.)

anyway- there simply isn't a lot of objective, scientific data on the darn things. I would be ecstatic if Gene or Tom decided to review them, but I seriously doubt that Ohm would send a review sample out. Which kinda sucks.

In any case, I have the best speakers I've ever owned, and they cost about a grand. I have yet to hear anything that meets or beats them- be it Magnepans, Linn, B&W, Deftech, Tannoy,or countless others I've heard since I got them. And all I have is the small Micro Walsh Talls (I used to have a pair of F's, which is a whole other matter)

So- debate away, dudes. Pontificate, speculate and articulate.But real, objective analysis of these things would be quite fascinating to see.

 

[JerryLove]

Measuring FR from omnipolar speakers isn't rocket surgery. It's the same as non-omni-polars... just the horizontal "off axis" should be identical to "on axis" as there's no axis.

Obviously: room interactions will be different, mostly in HF; but that's different for every speaker as well.

 

[MinusTheBear]

This is what one of Mirages lead designers commented at the time regarding Omnipolar speaker measurements.

Since the OMD-28 closely mimics an "ideal" omni-directional system in terms of radiation pattern, it does not follow standard "rules" when measured anechoically, and the gated LMS measurement used IS pseudo-anechoic. Judged against the accepted "flat frequency response" goal of a directional forward-radiating system, any Omnipolar design will appear down-tilted and show an apparent "excess of bass". However, any anechoic measurement, by it's very nature, will not take into account the reflected energy that will be present when the loudspeaker is placed in a listening room. An Omnipolar loudspeaker will also not follow the inverse-square law at mid and high frequencies. Both of these facts suggest that an Omnipolar speaker should NOT measure "flat" otherwise it will sound excessively bright and thin in a typical room. In order to correctly assess the performance of the OMD-28's measured performance we rely on the total radiated power response, also known as the "sound power". We would be happy to provide this measurement for your inspection.

Finally, the areas of the frequency response with gross deviations are likely due to the fact that the speaker was measured in-room. No gating will be able to totally window out reflected energy from the room boundaries, particular with an omni-directional radiator.


Mirage OMD-28 Surround Speaker System Manufacturer Comment | Home Theater

 

[GranteedEV]

But from a purely experiential perspective, the better the system is the closer those 2 recordings should match each other. Ideally they should be indistinguishable.

The problem with this is that the room becomes a factor. A recording of a recording will record mixed signals. How do you address that? Do you turn the room into an anechoic chamber? Do we listen in anechoic chambers?

 

[BRANEmedia]

Re: room a factor in comparing the 2 recordings, that's why I said to close-mic the live instruments, as opposed to recording them from the listening position. And yes, in my head but unspoken were things like using RealTraps panels (basically I was picturing moving my recording gear, which is in a 2nd floor studio, into my living room). In fact this is doable as a weekend project, so I'll ad this to the system review I hope to post in feb after the burn-in period.

 

[JerryLove]

Judged against the accepted "flat frequency response" goal of a directional forward-radiating system

At exactly how many degrees of output does this phenomina appear?

360, obviously.
300?
270?
180 (my speakers put out pretty flat to 180)?

There are two basic fallacies in the quote.
1) It assumes its "unidirectional vs omnipolar" when, in fact, no speaker is completely either.

2) If I have a speaker capable of flat output: it's adjustable for the room. We should be able to make an omnipolar measure "flat" (in that case) with very simple EQ.

If, OTOH, there are peaks and valleys: then we have a speaker that will be hard to match to any room.

FWIW: I briefly owned a pair of Ohm Walsh F's.