A cutaway drawing of an Ohm CLS Driver.
(Credit: Ohm Acoustics)
Ohm offers a micro tower that will even fit in cramped rooms.
(Credit: Ohm Acoustics)I remember listening to Ohm Acoustics speakers ages ago, but I've lost track of the company. Founded in 1971, Ohm Acoustics is still around and still building all of its speakers in Brooklyn.
Ohm speakers feature radical technology, and it's not just that they're omnidirectional designs.
Ohm Micro Walsh tower speakers.
(Credit: Ohm Acoustics)Quoting from the Ohm Web site, here's how the technology works: "The Ohm CLS Driver is a vertical line source that combines inherently perfect time and phase alignment and uniform polar frequency response....At the source, the sound originates simultaneously from the face of the super tweeter and the top of the inverted cone driver..." Translation: they sound good.
The CLS Driver looks like a downward-facing cone, but its sound radiates up and out, in a near 360-degree radiation pattern. In all Ohm designs a single CLS Driver produces bass, midrange, and most treble frequencies; no wonder it sounds nothing like speakers that use separate woofer, midrange, and tweeter drivers.
During my recent factory visit I listened to a set of Ohm Micro Walsh speakers ($1,000 a pair). They're skinny towers: 36 inches high, 6 inches by 6 inches wide, and deep. Even within the huge factory space, the wee towers sounded huge. Bass wasn't super deep, but it was rich and warm. There's no need to add a subwoofer for stereo systems; and larger Ohm speakers sound much the same but can play louder and make deeper bass.
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The Modulari Reference is a two-piece system.
(Credit: Steve Guttenberg)Well, not exactly weep, but while I was reviewing these incredible speakers an executive from a respected American speaker company dropped by my apartment. To say he was bowled over by the mighty Krells is an understatement; he couldn't take his eyes off them. Then he ran his fingers over the exquisitely machined metalwork and asked to play a couple of tunes. Talk about shock and awe; he said, "They're $65,000? [EXPLETIVE DELETED], they're really good!" I've never seen one manufacturer so visibly shaken by another's wares.
The Krell Modulari Duo Reference has that sort of effect on people. Even folks who couldn't care less about high-end audio "get" these speakers. The sound all but reaches out and grabs your most sensitive parts and shakes them. My full review is in Home Entertainment magazine.
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