Ohm has a long audition period so you can really hear their performance over days, weeks, and a few months. In my experience, the sound is great right out of the box, but seems noticeably to improve the more you play them. Up to a point, perhaps a few weeks, where the sound settles down and just sounds even better. It took me a month or more because I didn't listen very often. I'll bet that Ohm knows from experience, very likely you won't be dissatisfied, so won't need to send back. The current production Ohm Walsh speakers are also great for home theater audiences. You can hear the imaging across a wide sitting area so that many viewers can enjoy the spread of sound across and beyond the video screen. Even better for gamers too. And, I don't even need a center channel speaker, although Ohm makes those too. I believe that adding a center speaker will improve what I hear beyond what I already hear for movie dialog. The problem is lack of space for placement in my current arrangement. |
You can understand from this review: https://www.stereophile.com/floorloudspeakers/ why OW never went back to them. Almost the entire review is spent on troubleshooting problems. I can also only assume that no JA measurements published means they were unfavorable and dropped. Much like Magnepan, these unorthodox speaker designs need a unorthodox way to measure quality. Since most of the bandwidth from OW relies on reflection from your walls, I wonder about how much sound quality is degraded. Stucco vs wallpaper vs crown molding... Curious, has any one compared direct to ear SQ vs SQ after one wall reflection? |
I frankly had never heard of Ohm Speakers until recently AFTER I purchased a new Marantz integrated amp (PM7000n) which is rated at 60WPC into 8 Ohms/80WPC into 4 Ohms. Based on my room size, I would need either the Walsh 2000s or 3000s. I am concerned that my new amp does not have enough power to effectively drive the Walsh 2000s or 3000s. Is this a legit concern? Does anyone successfully run these with a decent amp at just 60 WPC? Do I need a bigger amp if I'm going to consider purchasing these speakers? Any help would be appreciated. Thanks! |
Regarding power needs for the Ohms, the question is how loud do you listen? I'm currently running my Ohm 1000s with a Schiit Aegir amp which is 20 watts/ch at 8 ohms and 40 watts at 4 ohms. (The Ohm 1000s and bigger are 6 ohm speakers.) I am really enjoying this setup -- my prior amp was a Hypex with 150 watts/ch at 8 ohms (and a Bel Canto C5i prior to that) and I like the sound with the Aegir better. HOWEVER, my average max listening level is 85 dB. When I got the Aegir, I actually hooked up a meter to monitor the amp's output while I listened. I use about a quarter of the Aegir's power with peaks going to about half, with no sign of strain. The catch is, if I listened more loudly, say 90 dB or higher, then I would quickly run out of power. So, if you want to listen at anything near 90 dB or higher, you are going to want an amp with much higher power that also has good current delivery. |
