Ohm Acoustics F loudspeaker

We have still not received a pair of these for formal testing, which may be a good thing in view of our feelings these days about "updatings." (Our feelings about such are clarified in this issue's "As We See It.")

We auditioned Ohm Fs in three audio stores, and came away with five reactions. In one store, the two speakers we heard sounded similar to one another, but not terribly impressive. Stereo imaging was extraordinarily good, which has been the case with every truly omnidirectional speaker system we have heard, but the middle range of the Ohm Fs was rather markedly colored, with a vowel-like "eh" quality, and the low end struck us as being overly heavy and way out of proportion to the high end, although it did at least sound fairly smooth.

In the other two instances, the two speakers of the stereo pair of Fs hardly sounded like the same speakers. Midrange colorations were not only marked but different, with the result that: 1) stereo imaging was impaired; and 2) it was impossible to describe the sound of "the" Ohm F.

As far as we can see, the principle of this system has a great deal of promise, but dammit, doesn't anyone debug new designs these days before going into production with them?—J. Gordon Holt

2019 Editor's Note: 45 years after this review was published, Ohm Acoustics is still in business and still based in Brooklyn. Stereophile has reviewed two other Ohm loudpeakers in the intervening years, the the Ohm Walsh 5 in June 1987 and August 1988 and the Ohm CAM 16 in April 1989. To judge from our experience in those reviews, the QA problems noted by JGH have long since been resolved.—John Atkinson

COMPANY INFO
Ohm Acoustics Corp.
76 Degraw Street
Brooklyn, NY 11231
(800) 783-1553
ARTICLE CONTENTS

COMMENTS
retro's picture

45 years since the last one..I think it's time..;)

Considering one of the bigger models myself.

MCK22's picture

I agree 100%! Ohm Acoustics seems to have been forgotten by the mainstream audiophile press, but every time I see a review their products are extremely well received. For example, Steve Guttenberg recently gave the Ohm 2000 a rave review on his YouTube channel. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jlY2pFp34P0) I would love to get some additional opinions about their speakers since they only sell direct and returning a pair would be quite a hassle, even considering their 4 month audition period.

X