2019-10-01 Robb Report

(John Hannent) #1
Genius at Work

112 OCTOBER 2019


Genius at Work

7 LEFT
The Man with the Horns

CEO Jonathan Weiss stands aside a woofer used in
OMA’s premier Imperia loudspeaker. The four-way
Imperia is a horn-loaded system featuring wooden
conical horns—made from local hardwoods—that
have straight walls, which, unlike curved walls, do
not deform sound waves. The ease with which these
horns reproduce live concert levels, as well as the most
subtle sonic details at low volume, is uncanny.

5 RIGHT
Roundup

Roped and tied, the baffle (or panel onto which speaker
drivers that make the sound are mounted) is not quite
complete. Extraneous pieces of flashing resulting from the
casting process will be trimmed and the entire surface
made smooth. Visible in the center are the holes through
which the loudspeaker’s special transducers emit their sound.

6 BELOW
Jukebox Heroes

The OMA Ironic was born in part because of a rare cache of
15-inch woofers used in certain jukeboxes from the 1930s.
Weiss has collected and restored 20 examples, and so only
10 pairs of the Ironic can be made. The speaker is remarkably
efficient, requiring a mere watt of power to produce at least
104 dB of output across the majority of its frequency range.

G2G_Oct_GAW.indd 112 8/30/19 5:52 PM

112 OCTOBER 2019


Genius at Work

7 LEFT
The Man with the Horns

CEO Jonathan Weiss stands aside a woofer used in
OMA’s premier Imperia loudspeaker. The four-way
Imperia is a horn-loaded system featuring wooden
conical horns—made from local hardwoods—that
have straight walls, which, unlike curved walls, do
not deform sound waves. The ease with which these
horns reproduce live concert levels, as well as the most
subtle sonic details at low volume, is uncanny.

5 RIGHT
Roundup

Roped and tied, the baffle (or panel onto which speaker
drivers that make the sound are mounted) is not quite
complete. Extraneous pieces of flashing resulting from the
casting process will be trimmed and the entire surface
made smooth. Visible in the center are the holes through
which the loudspeaker’s special transducers emit their sound.

6 BELOW
Jukebox Heroes

The OMA Ironic was born in part because of a rare cache of
15-inch woofers used in certain jukeboxes from the 1930s.
Weiss has collected and restored 20 examples, and so only
10 pairs of the Ironic can be made. The speaker is remarkably
efficient, requiring a mere watt of power to produce at least
104 dB of output across the majority of its frequency range.
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