Ohm A
I am the guy with the Ohm As that Fred referred to earlier. Nice to see all the Ohm fans on this site. I've never thought Ohm has ever received their due in the audio world- though for those of us in the know, there is no other way to go!
I have a pair of Ohm Fs in perfect condition as well as my As and I love my Fs dearly. Cosmos summed it up perfectly when he described their sound, the way they make you feel about them, and how the naysayers simply do not know what they are talking about. That said, I can attest that there really isn't any comparison... the Ohm As are in another league altogether from the Ohm F. I bought my As unheard and unseen as a collector's piece because I am an Ohm fan- I did not think they would be practical for home use because of the power requirements, lack of sensitivity as well as the lack of power handling. Of course I was going to try them out when I got them, but I had no idea what I was in for. After I hooked them up I was absolutely and totally stunned. The clarity, the sense of reality, the detail... the totally seamless and smooth sound. The bass is incredibly deep, detailed, and clean... on explosions in movies, it propogates clean waves in the leather covering my sofa! It's unbelievable they were built over 30 years ago and designed with slide rules. They totally nailed it the first time! I'd love to see what could be done with modern materials and computer design.
I use my As in a small room with an NAD 2200 PE amp with 6 dB of headroom. My As have 4 ohm voice coils (late production) so the amp puts out 200 wpc continuous and over 800 wpc peak. It is a nice match for the As because it does not have enough continuous power to blow them, but it has enough dynamic power to avoid clipping.
Other equipment in this system: B&K ST-140 driving Ohm CAM-16s for surrounds, Citation 7.0 pre/pro, Dish 921 satellite receiver, Denon DVD-1600 DVD player, Onkyo Universal changer, Mitsubishi HS-U2000 D-VHS.
As great as the Ohm As are, they are quite limited in their application because of the sensitivity and power handling issues. Though they are huge (that is a 55" TV for scale) they really belong in a small room where they can reach good levels without danger of blowing. I wish they had better efficiency and power handling so I could put them in a bigger room, but for now I have achieved sonic nirvana in the room they are in.