Thiel Owners


Guys-

I just scored a sweet pair of CS 2.4SE loudspeakers. Anyone else currently or previously owned this model?
Owners of the CS 2.4 or CS 2.7 are free to chime in as well. Thiel are excellent w/ both tubed or solid-state gear!

Keep me posted & Happy Listening!
jafant

Showing 50 responses by prof


I’m sitting here listening to vinyl on my 2.7s (Eddie Kendrick collection, among many others I’ve spun today) and the sound is so smooth, even, spacious, yet focused and punchy. That palpability the Thiels do is so mesmerizing, like a drum kit and bass have just taken up residence between the speakers, .

I sure loved the 3.7s, but often really appreciate that extra bit of kick and density I get from the 2.7s, right were the bass guitar and kick drum live.
@tomthiel

I would love to see such a list of ’best Thiel amps’.


While I’ve had SS amps of various types, including the Bryston 4B SST for a while (driving various speakers, including Thiel CS6), I’m ultimately a tube amp guy. So my addition to the list would be something like my Conrad Johnson Premier 12 mono blocks. 140W/side of push-pull tube power. There hasn’t been a speaker these can’t drive to satisfaction, and they were heaven with the Thiel CS6, 3.7 and now 2.7.

Way back in 90’s and early 2000s, although I’d heard and admired Thiel speakers for years and admired them, it was hearing CS6s driven by VAC tube amps at an old CES that started my Official Thiel Fever. "Thiels and tubes, never thought of it!" The VAC were to rich for my blood, but I managed to mostly replicate the magic using the CJ amps.

(My Pal has a vinyl set up with great speakers and he usually uses a Audio Research tube amp with a tube pre-amp.  He got a bit sick of the hassle of tubes, bought a new Bryston amp, and he's very happy.   But for me his system has taken a distinct step backward to a harder, less organic and listenable sound from what he had before.  Just goes to show how subjective this is).
sandydennis11,

When I put my 3.7s up for sale recently I got quite a lot of interest.
(Of course, as usual, a bunch of it was flakey, but I did sell them relatively quickly).


sandy,

I put up mine favouring local sale, but it was actually easier to sell them non-locally as I got a lot of interest from people all over.  As it was made clear in my ad hat buyer pays shipping everyone inquiring knew this and many wanted to arrange that the speakers were shipped to them.  So in a way I see the willingness to ship speakers should open up the number of offers.  Most people wouldn’t expect shipping to be included in the prIce.

All that said, I’m done buying/selling big speakers as they are a pain to ship.

Good post andy!

I don't feel competent to assess the exact contributions of phase/time coherence to what I hear with the Thiels.  And speaker designers (and experts on acoustics from what I can tell) still seem to disagree.

I can only note that my Thiels (first CS6, then CS3.7 and 2.7) share a quality of precision in imaging, a solidity and density of imaging, and a very believable natural tone for voices and instruments.

Also, the 3.7s/2.7s are the most coherent dynamic speakers I've heard.  The 3.7s in particular all the way through the bass region.  But both designs distinguish themselves in coherence in the mids and highs.  There is simply no sense of a "tweeter" in the sound from the mids.  Zero.  Sounds that traverse the tricky crossover points of the tweeter/mid driver sound perfectly whole and coherent.  

What gets interesting to me, as a nut about instrumental/vocal timbre, are how different approaches can still seem to do well.  I remember the very well regarded speaker designer, Paul Hales, saying that one reason he chose higher order crossovers instead of chasing time/phase coherence is that he felt the benefits of higher order made it easier to achieve timbral precision.  And to my ears Hales speakers, the Transcendence line in particular, excelled in exactly that aspect. 
I remember going to a CES way back and after having been in most rooms over two days I heard what sounded startlingly like a live band coming from one room.  It was the Hales room and I'll be darned if the timbre of the horns, saxes and other instruments coming through those speakers wasn't astonishingly rich, accurate and believable.  When I ended up with Hales transcendence speakers, this was their prime virtue (though I found ultimately they suffered a bit from a lack of dynamics/palpability, which the Thiels really give me).

My current favourite speaker for accurate-sounding timbral quality are the Joseph speakers.   I played a great many recordings on those speakers that I've played for years on my Thiel speakers.  I love, love, love the sound of the Thiels, but when I played for instance certain piano recordings on the Josephs, there was a hair-raising shock, the sensation of hearing a piano's timbral quality *exactly* as I'm used to when I play one, reproduced right in front of me.   

So these encounters with auditioning and owning various speakers that at the very least seem to give the Thiels a run for the money in the timbral-accuracy department, make me hesitate to conclude the only way to get such things "right" is time and phase coherence, as intuitive as the case for time/phase coherence may be.   

(Please don't throw tomatoes at me my Thiel brethren, I'm still one of you!)





tomthiel,


If you come across model O1s or O2s, the back panel will say Thiel - manufactured by Conceptions Electronics.



I just checked my pair of 02s and it looks like Thiel outsourced to more than one manufacturer.  Mine say on the back, manufactured by:

Heinl Electronics...in Canada.

They remain one of my all time favourite speakers.  They were owned by my girlfriend (now wife) and re-introduced me to the virtues of clarity and neutrality, after a number of years of buying big honking speakers suitable for shaking the walls. 
tomthiel,

If you come across model O1s or O2s, the back panel will say Thiel - manufactured by Conceptions Electronics.


I just checked my Thiel 02s.  Looks like Thiel outsourced to more than one company as mine (in Canada) say Manufactured by:

Heinl Electronics in Canada.

They are still one of my favourite all time speakers.   They were my girlfriend's (now wife) and they re-introduced me to the virtues of clarity and neutrality after a number of years buying big, honking speakers that were good for shaking the walls.

tom,

I sure enjoy reading your posts about the Thiel backstory.

And...I would hope for a memory like yours at 70.  (Actually, I'd hope for a memory like that at my age, 54, and I don't have it!)

tom,

I like my 02s so much I’ve been considering having them re-finished (their old finish is a bit blah, faded, and doesn’t match our room at all).
I don’t know if it would be possible to actually have a veneer of another wood placed over them, or whether it’s just a case of changing the stain colour.

BTW, as a fellow philosophy nerd (more via self-education and interest over the decades - it wasn’t a major), it’s nice to see you had a background in philosophy. Epistemology, ontology...I’ve been in the debate trenches with those subjects many times.  Tough nuts to crack!


It’s both my practical, and philosophical side that leads me to defend certain empirical virtues that often don’t seem too welcome in the world of audiophiles. (And I certainly count myself as an audiophile).

Tom,

Heidegger!  Yikes, a tough read!

Yes, I love digging down in to assumptions, axioms.   It's become a reflexive habit for me when proposing any claim or argument that I first check myself for special pleading and consistency, seeing as far as I can in many directions whether the argument upsets any apple carts in my own philosophical structure.   I may be wrong...but after many years I'm pretty confident in being consistent . :-) .  Unfortunately I find attempts at arguments that are nuanced in the way philosophy often demands, often fall on deaf ears, and one faces a lot of straw-manning of one's position.   When you even question someone's firm belief in a phenomenon, they seem to presume an opposite position of firmness to you.  Hence any nuanced case for a skeptical - but not decided! - position is just ignored and doubt is characterized as dogmatism.   Makes conversation about assumptions pretty tough.  (But then, that's the nature of challenging assumptions in the first place).

Anyway, 

Thanks very much for the info on altering the Thiel 02s.  I'm not handy at all with such things and would have a professional furniture refinisher I've used before.  If I go ahead, I'll keep the info and suggestions you've given as a helpful note.


Oh man, I was just reading an old review of the Thiel 3.7s, naturally a rave, and had this tinge of regret creeping over me.  I had those speakers!  They were incredible!

But then I remember why I had to sell them.  Yes, I HAD to sell them! (Must keep telling myself that...)

brayeagle, I hear you on the 2.7s.  I feel very sure I'm never selling mine (or not for a long time).

Why do you suggest I google Geoff Kait?  I'm pretty familiar with our ubiquitous, obstreperous forum member :) 
Oh yeah, I've visited it before!

The ongoing mystery has always been if the site is one big troll (not implausible given that seems to be Kait's modus operandi), vs anything serious.  I think the site is mostly a troll, like many of Kait's comments here, though I think he's sometimes serious in his comments on this forum.  He says enough wacky things though, with apparent sincerity, that the line between fiction and honesty with him is hard to discern.

Incredible, GeoffKait trolling every forum thread, even the Thiel owners thread, for mention of his name.  It's a full time job apparently!

Anyway, enough of that, back to Thiel...



I remember my first encounters with the Thiel 3.6 at a local high end store, in the 90's, where I got to play a bunch of my CDs.

I had the distinct impression of "that's exactly what it sounded like" when the music was recorded, both in terms of the character and liveness of the instruments, and exact character of the recording itself, and no obvious character/resonance etc from the speaker. 

I think it was one of my first encounters with a really neutral, accurate sounding speaker.   I'd had a similar impression listening to Quad ESL 63s, but it was the first time I heard that from a "box" speaker. 

Please andy2, not here with the burn-in cable stuff.

(And a google of electromigration certainly does yield anything that establishes warrant for the cable-burn-in claims made by audiophiles/manufacturers.  But best to  make your claim in that thread in the other forum dedicated to this debate). 

Did one of my occasional searches on hi fi shark.   Various speaker brands.

Boy has the used market on Thiel 3.7 and 2.7s dried up!  So few for sale for quite a while.  Looks like most people are keeping theirs! 

 



Thanks for the info audiojan.

I've had my JL Audio subwoofers for a looong time but still haven't got around to really giving a good try to integrate them with my 2.7s, even though I also bought the JL Audio CR-1 crossover, and an anti-node processor (if I need it).  This subwoofer stuff is just such an involved hassle, I never find myself with the free time to put in to doing it.  Some day, hopefully. 


I've tried passive pre-amps before, as well as running my Benchmark DAC with it's own volume control directly in to my amps.  The results have always been the same.  At first I'm captivated by sense of transparency and zero haze, grain, etc.  It really does sound more like the "straight wire with gain."   

But every time I end up noticing it's almost "too transparent."  That is, sonic images seem to be almost see-through, lacking the palbability, density, body and dynamics I get with a good pre-amp.  I also find tonality a bit more believable with a good pre-amp.

I certainly haven't tried every passive option out there, but it seems many other audiophiles have had similar experience trying to go passive.


Geeze, who is making all the posts that have to be removed?  In a Thiel owner's thread??
I don't mean to turn this thread into a "component burn in",


Then please....don't.
andy2,

It's an interesting topic and it was a fascinating post.  Unfortunately, bringing the cable-burn in debate here is like dropping in to the Thiel thread to start a discussion "Are High End Cables Worth The Money?" or "Do AC Cables Really Make A Difference?"  Or for that matter "Does God Exist?"    We all know what threads look like on those topics and I'm sure I'm not the only Thiel owner who doesn't want this thread to go down that road.  




jafant,

How are your CS 2.4SE's sounding?

What is your amp/source?  Do you use a digital source or vinyl (or both?)

My Thiels have sounded awesome with digital (streamed from a Raspberry Pi server), but adding a great turntable and buying new records took it to a whole new level of fun.

Thanks.
Well...trying to keep this related to Thiel...

Having recently completed a very extensive auditioning period of a long list of speakers from $6,000 to around $20,000 or more retail (some new, some used), virtually every single one of those speakers were hooked up to a wide variety of high priced speaker cables (including Nordost and other well regarded brands), attached to systems with expensive interconnects, expensive AC cables, power conditioners etc.

Somehow, despite all of those items that should have accumulated some impressive gains over my cheapo cabling, none of that seemed to give them much of a leg up on my system. In every case I found my system competitive (and usually better/preferable) in every way, whether it was detail, smoothness, organic quality, timbral nuances, imaging, you name it. My system did not seem hampered in any way at all.

So for me, I'm confident in where I have allocated my money and time - which is to the right speaker (and good room set up).  

I love my Thiels!

(I don't plan on selling my Thiels, only augmenting my speaker collection as I love speakers).



And ironically, I got the "Sorry something went wrong" messages when I posted the above, even though it posted.

Is anyone having trouble with the forum being buggy lately?
As in pages not loading?  (And then after a few tries, loading).

This forum has always been the buggiest I've ever encountered, but lately it seems even worse.  Anyone else experiencing this?

I can guarantee that if Eric heard my 2.7s he wouldn't find them bright.They are clear, rich and full.

In fact I put my 2.7s back in my system months ago just as a change from my Joseph Perspectives and have been so satisfied I haven't put the Perspectives back in the system. :-)

(I will eventually though, that's why I like having more than one pair of speakers).

There's a pair of CS6s on audiogon right now.  For anyone wanting to get in on the Thiel sound I highly recommend them.  When I had them in my home they were stellar; still one of the best speakers I've ever had.
(And sounded wonderful with tubes!).
andy2,

I think I get where you are coming from.

When you really look in to what Jim Thiel was doing - the clarity of his design goal, and then the obvious challenges it presented, and then the absolutely clever way he continually improved the design, carving away at the liabilities inherent in trying do make first order T/P coherent speakers, (and not only that - really great engineering all around, including the bass drivers/motors etc) it really adds up to a unique and compelling package.

Though I researched and auditioned many other speakers, and of course other speaker manufacturers are trying to up their own game as well, very few presented the same sense of clarity of vision and goal, to reach a place most manufacturers abandoned, which such a singular engineering talent at the helm.

I think many of us love our Thiel speakers as that entire package, not just the sound but what the speakers represent in terms of their goal and the engineering talent they represent. 

jon,

I agree. And that’s something I’ve been on about often in this thread. My Thiel speakers get out of the way of the sound, from top to bottom, to a degree no other speaker I’ve owned could manage. There’s just an evenness and control that leaves such confidence - no bloating here and there, no drivers sticking out sonically, just perfectly cohesive sound.

And I’m totally with you on the notion of price. As speaker prices ran ever further away in to fantasy land, Thiel kept firmly grounded in trying to produce as much great engineering for as reasonable a price as possible. I’ve always deeply respected them for that.

Andy,

Ditto on your observations about the linearity of the Thiels in terms of positioning in a room. I found the Thiels to be the easiest to position for great sound of any speakers I’ve owned. They just seem to maintain their balance so well. I think the control and lack of bumped up bloat in the bass region helps a lot.

It's not necessarily that the Thiels are the "best at everything" sonically.  I can think of a few other speakers that have aspects of their presentation I like as much or more.   But rather that they are so good in every parameter, and so cohesive, that nothing sticks out and it's easy to just hear the music and musicians, rather than the speakers.



I see a pair of Thiel 2.7s in gorgeous birds-eye maple, for sale on ebay right now:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/232972524856

What an absolute bargain for a speaker that beautiful, and of that quality.
As a 2.7 owner I can't recommend these beauties highly enough! 



dancastagna,

I'm a bit unclear about your post.  Do you mean you already have the 3.7s and 2.7s, and yet are contemplating buying yet another pair of 2.7s...or the CS6?   Do you mean you are running your current 2.7s with solid state and want to try Thiels with tubes, but in another system?

I've had the CS6 and the 2.7s (and 3.7s) so here is my perspective:

The CS6s are the larger speaker, and sound it.  They go deeper and are more weighty in the bass than the 2.7s and even the 3.7s.  And the bass is amazing on the CS6s - no other speaker had such weighty, dense yet controlled bass in my room, and only the 2.7s and 3.7s compared (the 3.7s being the most tonally controlled in the bass, but a bit lighter and less dense/punchy in the bass than my memory of the CS6).

The CS6 cast a very big and really well focused soundstage, with that particular image density that stuck in my mind for many years after, and it's one reason why I went back to Thiel.  

Though I'd say the 3.7s cast an even more impressive soundstage, and the 2.7s somewhat comparable to the CS6.   In terms of bass, the "center of gravity" moves upward somewhat in the 2.7 vs the CS6, similar to how it does compared to the 3.7s - more about mid-bass punch than low bass slam.

When certain orchestral climaxes occurred, or in songs with great bass dynamics, the CS6 could produce that "rolling bass under your feet" sensation more than the 2.7s can.

Tonally, the CS6s were ravishing on my CJ 140W/side tube amps, with excellent bass control.

My one real caveat with the CS6s is, as I've mentioned before in this thread, in ultimate terms they sounded a tad reductive, instruments sometimes not quite as big/full/rich sounding as can be had through other speakers. It would play out especially when, say, sax or oboe would play in to the higher registers.  Or far-mic'd instruments in an orchestra could be a bit more tiny and thin sounding.   

It sometimes felt I could perceive a slight suck-out in upper midrange, especially one that altered slightly with listening position, and it seems this was mentioned in John Atkinson's review and measurements as well, in Stereophile.

What I hear with the last coax design in the 3.7s/2.7s is a more refined midrange in terms of sheer coherency and richness.  I don't get any of that reductive quality and they sound perfectly coherent and even top to bottom. 

Still, if we are talking comparison of the 2.7 with the CS6, there are certainly things to be said in favour of the CS6.  The scale, depth and power of the sound for instance.  

If you already have the 2.7s and want more Thiel...it seems to me the CS6 could be a nice adventure to try something a little different.





"It is kind of a tragedy that the 2.7/3.7 coax isn't being produced any more."


I share that sentiment!
Hope you are well and enjoying this Fall season.


Thanks jafant.

But...as it happens...I’m not doing terribly well, in a way pertinent to high end audio and music. And if my post count here starts to drop quite a bit, there’s a reason.

I’ve had pretty bad tinnitus for decades (and I know I’m not alone on the forum with that issue) so have made sure to not overdo sound levels when listening. Despite the ear ringing, fortunately I have really good hearing - tests more like ears 12 years younger than I am. Plus, I’ve mostly habituated to the tinnitus (can sleep through the night, doesn’t bug me listening to music, etc).

However, way back in 2001 I had a terrible bout of what is known as "hyperacusis," which is a collapsed tolerance to sound. It was truly terrible - even turning the pages of a book took on an exaggeratedly loud, irritating, sharp quality...let alone music. Basically, music listening was just gone for me. That kind of stuff really upends your life (especially as I work in sound as well). Aside from the fact everything just hurt my ears, it really tore me up to not be able to enjoy music or audio anymore. It took some years to get over it and mostly habituate, but thankfully that happened and for many years I’ve been able to enjoy high end audio/music.

Well....it’s back.

I had the misfortune of taking my son out downtown near our lakeshore on labour day and didn’t realize the air show was happening. We were essentially right on the strip in the path that the jets took as they made their way, flying very low over us, to the lake where they did their show.
It was just extraordinarily loud! Sometimes four jets in formation would fly right over us and plugging my ears did essentially nothing, every bone vibrating to the sound.

Since then my ears have been shot, and the hyperacusis (not to mention increase in tinnitus) came raging back. It makes everything painful and shrill. I had been enthralled with my new turntable and had been on a record buying binge for months just loving it. Now, the record buying has stopped cold, and I’m mostly staring at walls of useless records, and my nice Thiels sit there mostly unused :-(

I don’t need to tell anyone here how depressing that scenario is.   (And of course, apropos of my other speaker auditioning thread, any reason to buy new speakers is gone for now as well.  Couldn't attend the Toronto Audiofest because of this condition either, darn it!).

I’m going to start a therapy for the condition, which hopefully will be successful, though can take up to two years. I’m hoping to get better before then.

But I’d imagine I may not have occasion to post as much here for quite a while. (Though I probably won’t be able to help myself...it’s sort of like that "lost limb" phenomenon where you want the keep scratching the limb you lost).

BTW, I don’t mean to be totally woe-is-me. I’m actually starting to feel more optimistic that it will get better. I’ve been through this before and recovered, and I think I can actually perceive a tiny bit of progress already. So hopefully I won’t be out of the game too long.

Anyway, I took the excuse to get it off my chest, as it’s almost the only thing on my mind these days. Thanks. :)


Thanks for the well wishes everyone.  (Tom, I'll check out vitamin B.  The therapy I'll be undergoing already involves a tiny "leap of faith" ;-) )

Dan,

Wow, you are a fellow Thiel nut!  Until recently I had three Thiel speakers myself - 3.7, 2.7 and 02s.

As to the 7.2 vs CS6.  I only heard the 7.2s once or twice for a demo long ago.  But I have to admit the sound stayed with me quite strongly (or so I think).   I remember especially some miles davis on the 7.2s (and I also listened to cuts from Brubeck's Time Out, among other).   What I remember is the vividness of the sound:  the size and solidity of the presentation, the sense that there was a physical, metal trumpet occupying a specific spot right in front of me.  Not ghostly, but "there." 
The solidity of the sticks on drums, the realism and solidity of the bass drum and the space it occupies in the solo on the Time Out record, etc.
It was a special sound vs all the other high end speakers of my acquaintance back then.

I don't have near the experience with that speaker that Tom has, but my brief brush with it has me place it at the top of the Thiel speaker hierarchy.   I have no idea how that would hold up if I were able to compare them to the 3.7s over time, but that's the impression they left me.



Yes, unsound, I agree that when Dunlavy were around their speakers tended to share the general characteristics I hear in Thiels. 
(Thanks again to the well-wishers for your kind comments!)


Tom,

Where does the 7.2 sit in your estimation?   Is it still the pinnacle of performance in Jim's designs?
Tom,

Yes, those 7.2s sure are rare on the used market.   Whenever one showed up on audigon or wherever, I'd get melancholy.  They were something of a dream speaker for me and used prices were affordable.  But their size has always precluded a purchase.  The size of the CS6s when I had them long ago unfortunately pushed just past the boundaries of acceptable in my room, in terms of aesthetics, which is why I didn't keep them.  It's not a big room and once a speaker gets too large for a room I find the aesthetics awkward.

But that's an entirely different question vs whether large speakers can work in small rooms.  I've had full range floor-standing speakers, flat to 20 Hz, that worked great in my room and I've heard some big speakers work well in other even smaller rooms.  (The CS6 sounded amazing in my room too).




Tom,

Stereophile reviewed and measured the Meadowlark Shearwater speakers.  2nd page of measurements (and showing time coherence) here:

https://www.stereophile.com/content/meadowlark-hotrod-shearwater-loudspeaker-measurements-part-2

I had listened to many Meadowlark speakers and had the larger Meadowlark Blue Herons in my room for quite a while.   They wounded warm, airy, lush and spacious.  But I never found the Meadowlark transmission bass design to be completely successful to my ear.  And as I've mentioned before, the Meadowlarks didn't have the type of concentric mid/tweeter design etc like the Thiels, and suffered a sort of suck-out phase cancellation effect with vertical movement of the listener, giving the tone and imaging a sort of "shifty" quality if one moved about.

I owned small stand mounted Meadowlark monitors for quite a while and though somewhat coloured, I really enjoyed the heck out of 'em.   The disappeared and imaged like the bejeesus!  Sold them and still kind of miss them.  
ish_mail,

As I've mentioned somewhere earlier on the thread, I owned the Hales Transcendence 5 speakers, and still own a the Hales Transcendence 1 monitors and center channel, which do duty in my home theater and for occasional music listening.  In fact, I own an extra double of each of those speakers just in case I blow a driver, which tells you I'm quite a fan.

The Hales speakers, to my ears, are excellent for midrange/tweeter coherence, smoothness, timbral warmth and accuracy, with a very low sense of "grain" to the sound, and really spectacular soundstaging.

What they miss for me is the density and solidity of the Thiel sound and imaging, and the sense of texture I hear from the Thiels.  (Hales sounding just a tad smoothed over).

But I absolutely adore the Hales in home theater duty because they combined clarity, timbral warmth and transient precision, with a very relaxed presentation.  Good for me since I often come to movie viewing in my home theater after a long day of doing sound effects, so I don't really want to be beaten around by an aggressively dynamic sound. 


Anyone ever used to visit the old Thiel Web Blog? Hearteningly, it’s still actually accessible. It’s sort of fun...and melancholy...visiting some of those old posts. E.g.:

http://thielaudio.blogspot.com/2006/09/

http://thielaudio.blogspot.com/2006/10/

And especially all the comments, from many industry pros and writers etc, on Jim's passing:

http://thielaudio.blogspot.com/2009/09/please-share-your-memories-of-jim-thiel.html#comment-form

One of my favourite sounds are the times I used my little Eico HF81 14/w side classic tube amp on my big Thiel 3.7s!

It was utterly glorious - rich, open, detailed, sparkly transients - they sounded even bigger than they ever had before.

Really the only negative...if it was a negative...was that the bass became a bit "bigger." (I'm presuming from less damping).  I say "bigger" not "looser" because the bass didn't really become loose or flubby so much as just...bigger and richer...a bigger bass booty ;-)

Ultimately my CJ Premier 12s and pre-amp make for a bit more even sound top to bottom and allow for easier control of the system (e.g. my pre-amp has remote control which I need as my amps are in a separate room from my speakers).  But if that weren't the case, I would have used that little eico on the big Thiels more often.

I still have to get around to trying it on the 2.7s!  (But..well...that project is now delayed...)




Tom,

Also...after the Hale Transcendence 8's Paul built a new interesting looking flagship speaker, the Alexandra (or Alexandria), which can be seen down the page in this old CES 99 report:

http://www.enjoythemusic.com/wces99/speakers.htm

The few people who heard it absolutely raved about it.  But since it never went in to production due to Hales folding soon afterward, it became something of a unicorn. Did you ever hear it?


Wow Tom, you've been around!

I thought the bass on my Hales T5s was excellent, but thought the bass of the CD6 even better (more dense, focused, punchy) as well as the 3.7 and 2.7.

Tom,

Thanks for the link to that strata-gee article.

Your previous post is now making some sense ;-)

I'd followed all those strata-gee articles documenting the decline of Thiel as it happened.   It was great that there was a writer interested in following the story.  The strata-gee writer seemed to have quite an interest in the Thiel company.  Any particular reason?  Was he a high end audo fan? 

Those articles always make me want to give my Thiel speakers a hug :)

@tomthiel

Somewhere way back in the thread we discussed the design of the 2.7 vs the 3.7. I’d remarked that the 3.7 seemed to have an edge in a slightly more open and subtle level of detail. I believe you said this might be attributed to the fact the 3.7 had the aluminum front baffle whereas the 2.7 used a different material.

Do you happen to know which material the 2.7 uses for the front baffle?

(Now that I think of it, I’m sure Rob Gillum would know...)

Interesting Tom, thanks.  I thought it might be MDF.

It made me wonder what a "baffle" mod might look like.  What comes to mind (for someone like he who has never designed a speaker and hence is naive bout it), is simply re-enforcing the existing MDF baffle from within the speaker, by attaching a solid aluminum plate to the inner face of the baffle (cut out in the shape of the baffle).  Just to re-enforce stiffness.

I have no idea how implausible this is, or if adding any thickness to the interior of the baffle would alter other parameters (cavity volume?) that could throw things off sonically.  
This subject reminds me of my turntable base.

I did a loooong thread detailing my flailing layman attempts to create an isolation base for my 55lb aluminum transrotor turntable.  It was fascinating investigating, to the extent I could, the vibration behaviour of various materials, footers etc.  I used a seismometer app on my ipad and iphone so that I could at least measure and see, objectively, the relative differences I could detect in damping vibrations.   It turned out a spring system under the bass had by far the most dramatic effect in de-coupling the base from any vibrations occurring beneath those springs.
If I stomped on the floor around my turntable rack without the springs/base, I could measure huge, ringing spikes of vibration.  But with the spring system under the base, I could stomp around and measure almost nothing.

Anyway, more apropos of the baffle tweak I was thinking of:  In constructing my turntable base I used a 2 1/2" thick mapble block, then under it two boards of thick MDF (different thicknesses) with sound damping lining in between as a sort of constrained layer effect.  At the last minute I went out and bought some 1/8" thick sheets of stainless steel cut to size.  I was amazed at the effect merely placing one of those sheets had underneath the MDF boards.   Rapping or knocking on the shelf produced a much more dead "thonk" than just the boards themselves.  This was true even when the 2 1/2" maple block was put on top of everything. So it was: Maple block/MDF layer/Steel sheet.  With the steel sheet at the bottom of that stack, knocking on the top of the Maple block felt more solid, and sounded more solid, than when the steel sheet way below was removed.

I gained an appreciation for just how darned solid steel is vs wood.
(Which was in the back of my mind, thinking of that baffle tweak).