Experience with Thiel 1.6


Do any of you have personal experience with the new Thiel 1.6, or have heard anything about their sound quality? I've owned 1.2's and 1.5's (and 2.3, 3.6....) and am curious as to these new small ones.
thanks,
Art
artmaltman

Showing 2 responses by robertd

Rsuminsby and Yashu,

I own a pair of the Thiel 1.6, and the last thing I did before I bought them was compare them to Proac 1.5s. Same equipment(McCormack amps, arcam CD player), same room, same music (old rock, new rock, chamber music, orchestra stuff) . Proacs were harsher than the Thiels, which was a big surprise. It was definitely a different presentation, Proacs had more bass, and were less diffuse in general. Flip side is the bass seemed out of control relative to the thiels. And the thiels were more revealing. So I went with the Thiels - Less fatiguing (big surprise) Better bass, I don't like the sloppy sound, and I'd be missing some information with the Proacs. Visually, the Proacs leave the Thiels in the dust, that's my biggest compromise. The thiels are the best purchase I've made so far. I'm happier with them than I thought I'd be - none of the audiophile buyers remorse and second guessing I normally battle with. And I've tried the Thiels with a golden tube se40 amp and ARC LS3 preamp, they sound great. I now daydream about telecommuting and just sitting in front of the stereo eight hours a day.
The revel m20s are great, and I agree that we're splitting hairs at this point, but in my case there were three things going against them:

1) they did not fit in visually
2) my favorite, ever patient dealer doesn't carry them, and I'm very loyal
3) I paid two visits to another dealer to hear them, and they refused to play them without a subwoofer on both visits. My simple request - could you turn off the sub, or turn it down was met with a "how dare you" look. The bass was good though.

I've mentioned before that on some days I'll prefer say B&W to revel (or thiel) or vice versa, but it's fun