A Proud Pappa..New score

DaveM

Thanks for the info. I found out that its not wise to ship these types of speakers when the foams are gone. You can do more damage then good. On a brighter note I found a Repair shop a couple of hours from me that also specializes in the repair of OHM. I am taking them in this week and cant wait to bring them back to their former glory.

Dave
 
Good luck with them, I hear they're a fine speaker. I considered them when I was looking for speakers but ended up with the DQ-10's. The only thing that kept me away from them was the problem with the surrounds on the OHM-F's. I don't know if my local shop would work on them or not.

What kind of amplifier do you plan on using? Better find a high current amp with lots of balls that can handle low impedance loads.

Dave
 
Thor

You are right about the Mac amp. I am having second thoughts about powering the OHm's with it tho. They are a very weird speaker that are inefficient (87dB) and are only rated at about 200 watts. I have read where the OHm's were blown at normal listening levels. I was thinking of running a smaller maantz 125-150 wpc amp just to be safe. Plus the Model F's are 4 Ohms. Not sure how Mac rates their amps at the same wattage for 1,2,4,8 ohms but I have read about guys who had their 2205 amps tested for output and they far exceded their 200 WPC rating by close to 75watts. I am pretty sure thats enough to blow the Model F's which i have no intention of doing.

Grumpy
 
Grumpy, what you need is an amp that doubles it's wattage when the impedance is cut in half. Ohm used to recommend the Ampzilla and SAE 2500 for the F's, they didn't recommend Macintosh.

With my DQ-10's they can be damaged if the amp isn't powerful enough, it's better to use more watts with my speakers so you don't clip the amp as easy. They're also rated at 200 watts max but they can take way more than that without any problems (ask Rich), it's when you clip the amp that causes the problems but luckily the speakers are fused so it usually just blows the fuses.

So when you say they were blown at normal listening levels it could be because they were using a wimpy amp that wasn't up to the job. I think you're going to find you'll need more than 125-150 Marantz Watts. I'd talk to Wardsweb and see if he has a big SAE with some serious balls.

Dave
 
Dave

Normally I would say your right. The guy I got my info runs the OHM Walsh appreciation site. He sold them when they were new and knows gobs bout them more then me. he blew His with a good size early 1980's NAD amp that used the soft clipping feature. How or why I dont know. I might just use my fisher for a while with the F's. Its only got 165 Wpc into 4 or 8 ohms. If it or the Mac pops em then i got no one to blame but me. ;)

Grumpy
 
Grumpy, what amps does that guy recommend for them? If you do a usenet search a few people talk about calling Ohm back in the day, and say they recommended the Ampzilla & SAE amps to them which are rated between 200 - 300 watts per channel. One specfically says they told them not to use a Mac.

I'm sure the guy you got your info from knows more about them then I do, I just wonder which amps he recommends. I have an 80's NAD amp rated at about 40 wpc and that thing has some balls for that rating.

Dave
 
Grumpy,

I used to power my F's with a Bose 1801 250wpc at 8 ohms either high 300's or low 400's at 4ohms and had no problem with them. After the Bose gave up the ghost I ran them with a Carver m1.5 t 350 wpc until I got the DQ-30's. Just make sure that the 4 amp fuse that goes in line isn't replaced with a bigger one. When I purchased the F's the salesman at WJL Sound recomended at least 200 wpc for the speakers. Let us know how they sound.

Riley88
 
The McIntosh that uses the autoformer produces the same power at all impedances. The Ohm F ws not recommended in the old days because Ohm was initally a Tech H-Fi speaker and Tech could not get accepted as a Mc dealer as being both not acceptable in dealings and b/c they wer a discounter and not a ligit hi end company. Very bad blood and it resulted in some really bad press. With the quality of Mc and its stabilitity if the F has a problem when used with it, then the F must have an inherent design flaw. Regardless of what so many anti-Walsh would try to you to believe it doen't have a design flaw though it does have many acoustic deficiencies. With the MC though, the overall sound will be too thick and dark. A result of the slightly dark Mc sound and a similar charactoristic of the F. When I worked for Tech I had a set of these at home and used them with a pair of MC2100 in mono and had no problems. Abuse them like any other speaker and their lifespan will be limited.
 
There is a German speaker company that has a design similar to the Walsh driver, and they say that the Walsh is similar (don't know what the patent situation is with the Walsh driver). They are extremely well built, and very good-looking.
German Physik or something like that.
Have won raves from the Japanese high-end groups.
Not cheap, but not outrageous, either.
The Walsh certainly has the right sound. whew!!
 
I saw a set of Walsh knockoffs from a German company a few years ago at the Toronto Hi-Fi show and asked the floor manager about the Walsh patent and relationship between the speaker and Walsh. Hseemed very uncomfortable with the question but did say he knew of the Ohm Walsh speakers and theirs was a far better design. Admitted, they sounded far better than I remembered the F and the build quality made the Fs look like a set of Ohm Cs as compared to a JBL Paragon.
 
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