7

7beauties

Enthusiast
I opened the link Audioholics provided me to a review of the MBL 101 X-treme Reference speaker system and was tickled to learn of yet another way to propagate sound waves which is what makes speaker design so fascinating to me. Then a faded memory began nagging me. Long ago there was an exotic speaker design that made an audacious claim: a single driver reproduced the entire 20-20,000Hz audible spectrum. It was called the Ohm Walsh speaker and resembled an upside down funnel. I recall the term "wave transmission line transducer" which I suppose is self explanatory. I guess waves transmitting down the funnel excited the air and resulted in omni-directional propagation. The inventor, Mr. Lincoln Walsh, died in 1971. I never heard these speakers perform but I'd love knowing what you think about them. Thank you.

Ohm Walsh 5 loudspeaker | Stereophile.com
 
Steve81

Steve81

Audioholics Five-0
I've never heard them, but they were reputed to be quite good. I believe Peter Aczel of the Audio Critic also had some hand in Walsh way back in the day, but I could just be full of BS there.

They are still around to my knowledge:

http://www.ohmspeakers.com/
 
JerryLove

JerryLove

Audioholic Ninja
Then a faded memory began nagging me. Long ago there was an exotic speaker design that made an audacious claim: a single driver reproduced the entire 20-20,000Hz audible spectrum. It was called the Ohm Walsh speaker and resembled an upside down funnel.
There are a *lot* of speakers which claim to be full range.

The claim-to-fame of the Ohm Walsh was that it was omni-directional (interestingly, it did use a mechanical crossover).

My own Ohm Walsh F was... deteriorated by the time it came into my possession.

Two things to note:
1) there is a guy (I can perhaps find my correspondance with him) who reverse engineered replacement drivers/cones and manufactures them.
2) There are other companies making similar designs (German Physiks - High End Technology Loudspeaker Manufactur - DDD Driver - Products)

I recall the term "wave transmission line transducer" which I suppose is self explanatory. I guess waves transmitting down the funnel excited the air and resulted in omni-directional propagation. The inventor, Mr. Lincoln Walsh, died in 1971. I never heard these speakers perform but I'd love knowing what you think about them.
The omni-directional-ness was derived from the lack of a baffle around the cone in 360 degrees horizontal.

You could, basically, mimic that property by placing an open-basked driver face down on a box with a hole in it to allow movement. (there would be other problems with doing so simple an operation, but it would be omni-directional).
 
fuzz092888

fuzz092888

Audioholic Warlord
MLB is OK.
Eh, the MLB is so~so. The games just move so slow. An average game time over 3 hours kills me. Plus all of the blackouts of the games I want to watch and I can barely stand it. Now EPL is what I'm talking about. Nothing like watching football and futbal every sunday :D
 

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