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Ohm Super Sound Cylinder SSC-4900 initial thoughts kinda review

Recently, and partly on the basis of what I read in these pages, I purchased a pair of Ohm Super Sound Cylinder (SSC-4900) speakers. By sharing my thoughts I aim to give back here but also to provide some information I wish I could have found out when searching high and low for information on these speakers. 

Long story short I am getting back into high-end audio. I once had a pretty impressive and well curated system. For years I lived without. In the Fall of 2019 I upgraded to Amazon Music HD, which led to a pair of Audeze headphones and a headphone amp/dac. After a while I wondered how minimal of a good sounding system I could build. Some parameters I set for the speakers were they had to be full range, play loud, sound good, image well with a wide sweet spot, look good, and be less than $8000 per pair. Oh, and they had to work in a large room with hard surfaces.  

Somehow I stumbled upon Ohm. What little bit I could find suggested they were possibly right for me. More than anything the overall gestalt that they were uniquely good drew me in. That, and the seemingly reasonable price helped seal the deal. It is, however, a major issue that even though I live in the seventh largest city in the nation there was no way to see or even audition these (or really anything putatively good) before buying. Mail order is not how I bought expensive audio stuff in the past. Well, some things change. Another issue was a near complete lack of audio press on these speakers. How can a company so old, and so well thought of not have oodles of reviews from the usual suspects? 

Ok, so, after some back and forth email with Ohm I resolved to get the Super Sound Cylinder aka the SSC-4900. For some reason the speaker is listed as a Beta product on the website. Seems to be a sorted consumer product not a beta. Anyway. Clearly, any interaction with the website affirms that Ohm cares little for the website, which I can dig but it really is quite frustrating. I even had to email to find out what the switch on the back of the speaker does. I'm still not totally sure, but the switches are in the upper most position for what it's worth. Something to do with deep bass EQ and my large room size.

I had plans for a media server/dac/amp all in one. That seemed a wonderful in a minimal way. Some products of the sort are supposed to be pretty good. Well, some don't yet work with Amazon Music, and some seem to have clunky software interface, but none were powerful enough to drive the Ohms (by all accounts). Ok, so, have to get a beefy power amp. Bummer right? Big money coming on a Krell or whatever the kids buy these days. Extensive search later I ended up buying, again on very little information, an Apollon AS1200 ICEPOWER class D amp from Slovenia. Mail order all the way. Go big or go home, right?

Another long story short I bought a Bluesound Node 2i. I had, in fact, demo'd this product so I had seen it, and knew a bit about it. Importantly, it works with Amazon Music and the interface was not too clunky. I hoped it would actually work okay and drive the Apollon with at least a moderately functional volume control. I could always get a separate DAC and preamp later, right?

Got some 12-gauge MonsterCable and some cheap Audioquest interconnects. Played the cable game before. Not again. 

Speaker one arrived. A week later speaker two arrived. Had the Bluesound. Did not have the amp. Crap, okay, so I hooked up an old-ish Denon receiver the AVR-X1100 with 80 W for each of 7 channels. Great functionality in that amp btw. Before the sound, however, a word about my first impressions of the speakers. Arrived in big boxes that barely protected the speakers. Obvious hand work/cost savings. One of the metal hats was bent slightly but I'm not gonna fret. Unnervingly lightweight speaker for its size. I paid five grand for what? Honestly, the materials don't feel very magical, the fit and finish is not stellar, and the appearance, well, subjectively not too awesome. The wife did not even notice the lone speaker hanging out in the corner at first. In short, these do not look or feel like five grand well spent. But, how do they sound mister long winded?

Through the Denon receiver the Ohms did not sound very good on average. Sometimes sounded kinda okay but generally not. The Bluesound was a breeze to set up BTW. Nice bit of kit that. Perhaps the Denon could not handle the Ohms low sensitivity or impedance or so I wanted to believe.

Miraculously, the Apollon showed up two days later. Nice build, or nicer than I expected, and 620W per channel. SIX HUNDRED AND TWENTY WATTS PER CHANNEL. If, as they all said, the Ohms needed power I should clear that up with this thing. Yes by Jove, the Ohms need power. The Apollon is there and not there. I can't hear it, but it made the Ohms stand up and fly right. Things were looking up. 

I've tweaked the speakers position to be closer to the wall. They need that, they really do, which is actually good for the wife acceptance factor and with having a 5 year old kid around. Imaging is funny. It can be precise. It's not all that deep (yet?), and it's not as wide/listening position invariant as everyone says. For sure, it makes a difference where you sit. That said, the best listening location is bigger than what you get from a mini-monitor. Treble is nice. Inoffensive and perhaps lacking a bit of sparkle but far from bright. Bass, deep bass that is, is listening position sensitive. These do not plumb the depths the way I wanted them too or, indeed, the the way I was led to believe. They may benefit from a sub, which I am loathe to add. Midrange is pleasant and present, perhaps somewhat seamless maybe due to lack of crossovers. I like vocals on these speakers. Seems like they will play loud, but I've not really gotten a chance to try that yet. 

So, to sum up my first impressions... These Ohms sound better than they look. They need tons of clean power, are best close to the wall, and are not champions in any one area. They do seem quite musical as they say, but I would not go as far as some reviews and say they are super close to "being there". I like the sound, but I really had to give them a chance. They have gotten their two fair shakes. I still have about 110 days to return them. Probably won't. Need to play around a bit with placement and hear more music. Maybe I will try a big pair of Maggies. What? No, can't/won't pull them out into the room. For now, it seems I have a pretty nice and pretty minimalistic setup. Two speakers, one amp, and one other box that plays the music from a huge online library. Clean, cool, and never have to turn it off. 

Did I get what I wanted? Will the Ohms make me forget and just play the music? Maybe. I might still be an audiophile after all and the Ohms, while seemingly good, are not unicorns with sparkles and glitter farts.   
 



monstertruck9882
dep14
333 posts
 
@monstertruck9882 

So, yes the switch on the 4900's is for bass response.  

I use my 5000's in a 13 x 17 room, 9 foot ceiling which some might consider small for the 5000's.  It is carpeted over concrete in my basement, which I feel is a tougher, but "tighter" sounding environment than say a floor over the basement.

But, I run the bass in the "mid" position but pull the speakers out a bit.  I can get more bass pushing them closer, but that adds to the boom.  You may want to try further out from the wall but then moving the bass to the + position.  Really play around with them.  Closer to the wall reinforces the bass, but I find it muddier.


monstertruck9882 OP
12 posts
 
@dep14 

Seems like great minds think alike. Yesterday, I had some time to play around with the positioning. Wanted to see if pulling them out past the TV stand/cabinet would improve things even if the bass suffered. Ohm says the speaker like to see each other. 

I immediately noticed a big positive difference. As mentioned by everyone (and me) these speakers really show every small change in position, much more so than conventional front facing speakers. I have no experience with open baffle designs but I suspect they are also tricky.

Then I again boosted the bass with the switch back up to the upper most position. Then a slight toe in adjustment. Voila!!!!

Now I have consistent, mostly precise, wall to wall imaging with some depth. Satisfyingly deep bass response without bloat or boom. Smooth and detailed midrange with an incisive snap/fast leading edge transients. Pleasant and satisfying if not airy, and certainly not bright, treble. They sound pretty darn good now. Really amazing actually. 

Low sound levels make be happy, this can do background music well. But I can also wake the neighbors, which is lots of fun. This great sound just gets louder. Amazing actually. Some songs that when played loud I know, I expect most setups to get congested (even expensive kits) just get louder with the Ohms. The composure at high volume is super fun and not just for rock. Symphonies and even chamber music benefit from near realistic SPL.

Thanks to all for chiming in here. I can heartily recommend the Ohms. Now time to enjoy the music.


schubert
7,386 posts
 
If you don''t buy adds you don't get reviews .
maxnewid
449 posts
 
So, I am the lucky fellow who bought tlm5857's ssc-4900's. A little background: 3 years ago, I had a burst water heater put 6 inches of water in my basement listening room. I saved my equipment and cd's, but the room, to this day, is not habitable. The walls were cut 4 feet from the floor to allow dehumidifiers to address mold issues, etc. I will fix it one day. My 3000+/- cd collection has been stored in storage bins. I recently bought a Bluesound Vault II to rip my collection into and manage the clutter issue. I have been using my surround sound set up with an old Denon receiver and Bose speakers mounted on the walls. It is great for movies, but I missed two channel listening. I am the geek that likes to turn on the Braves game with the sound off, listen to whatever strikes my fancy, and read. I have been researching speakers for a while. I considered Maggie 3.7i, Daedalus Ulysses, Wilson Sophia's, Tyler Acoustic Decade d-1x's, Vandersteen Treo ct's, and Ohm Acoustics- all of them used to fit in my budget. My bride and I are going to add a great room off of the back of our house. It is going to have a mountain lodge type feel with lots of bookshelves, a stacked stone fireplace and a trellised ceiling close to 20 feet tall. When I saw the rare pair of SSC-4900's pop up on Agon, I scooped them up in anticipation of our new room. Right now, I am running them with a Musical Fidelity A3.5 fed by an Oppo 205 in my living room. This thread has been helpful in positioning. I try to burn 5 or 6 cd's into the Vault per day ( I work out of my house) and have been rediscovering music from my collection as I dig into the storage bins. Everyone has their own personal favorite reference recordings: Rickie Lee Jones, Vivaldi, Cowboy Junkies, REM, and  Eat A Peach were standouts for me. But Saturday, I received my copy of Bryan Ferry's "Live at Royal Albert Hall 1974" in the mail. This album was recorded 60 days after the release of Roxy Music's "country Life" album and Ferry was at the peak of his creativity. Ferry wanted to release a solo album of uplifting tunes because the last couple of Roxy albums had been very dark. The first part of the album are covers of songs like "It's My party" and "The Tracks of My Tears" by a 15 piece band including a brass section and dewop girls singing background vocals. The second part of the album is Ferry accompanied by a full orchestra playing some Roxy Music and some of Ferry's solo work. The SSC-4900's were spectacular producing a huge sound stage with depth and occasional small bits of percussion, strings, or keyboards bouncing off of the walls. I knew I had something different when my Springer Spaniel (who joins me for happy hour) was looking around the room for other people. The Ohms are good fun and I look forward to working with them going forward. The big sweetspot does take some time getting used to, but that just means there is more music to share IMO. The musical fidelity amp has been sitting around for a long time and only has 150 watts per channel. I am thinking about replacing it with a Peachtree Audio nova 500 to get some juice to the Ohms.      
monstertruck9882 OP
12 posts
 
@maxnewid that's awesome. Seems like you are getting good results. The Ohms do love juice. I also considered the Peachtree. Are you close to the wall or out some? How about bass switch position? Toe-in?

I was rocking out last night with my 5 year old daughter. There are still many albums I've not yet heard on the Ohms yet. They constantly surprise me. "Time" on DSOTM actually scared me. Was not paying all my attention to the music and the alarms going off were so realistic it gave me an anxiety attack ha ha. 

It is so easy to locate individual instruments in space and pull them apart acoustically. Accurate timbre and weight and attack makes for some realistic or at least highly satisfying musical experiences. The cohesiveness of the sound is also beguiling. Having essentially one driver really seems to work out well. 
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