Thiel Owners

@oblgny , Have you ever considered Thiel CS 2's? I'm not trying to tell you what to do, just offering an option for consideration. I know you're a fan of the 3.5's, but circumstances might be keeping you from those. I see CS 2's regularly listed for a few hundred bucks. Somewhat similar to the 3.5's in sonic signature, but also somewhat easier to drive. Other than perhaps for some amplifiers and to a lesser extant some speaker cables, upstream components would suit both equally well. 
If and when considering, do make sure to inspect the drivers. Though the CS 2's might have been Thiel's most durable models, I've seen examples of unscrupulous sellers passing off other drivers as OEM. The CS 2's somewhat unique grills, which perhaps more so than any other Thiel model needs to be in place when used, have additional and rather sturdy double sided tape attached to the baffle. At first it might seem as though the grills can't be removed, but they can. Be sure to inspect that the drivers are genuine Thiel's. All in all the CS 2's might make transitioning back to 3.5's when circumstances permit rather easy.

For those who prefers time-phase coherent design, you may find this article interesting.  They compared an identical speaker that was done with time-phase coherent and with more conventional approach.  Since the comparison was done on the same identical speaker, it has some credibility.  You could read the article, but the finding was the difference was subtle and more clearly heard in an  anechoic  chamber but if done in a regular living room, with reflections and all that, the difference was more difficult to hear.
https://audioxpress.com/article/zero-phase-in-studio-monitors

Andy - thanks for the article. I would mention that some of the statements are broad enough in nature that they don't apply to any specific loudspeaker in its use conditions. Of course, I mean Thiel. Toole's statement that off axis (vertical and horizontal) integration always suffers (paraphrase) is such a statement. Indeed it is true. But it is also true that a Thiel speaker 30° or 60° off axis is linear in both phase and amplitude. It is clearly true that the 1st order vertical axis lobing requires a single vertical listening position, ear height 3' up at 8' plus distance. But the up-tilting driver orientation and the resultant off-axis listening axis serve to create an average in-room phase and amplitude power response that is quite respectable, often bettering non-aligned counterparts.

As to the obvious dynamic range limitations due to large driver excursions - granted. First order slopes don't work well for stadium coverage or high-amplitude monitors. Driver overload is the Achilles Heel that we constantly fought and gradually improved. Drivers burn out or fatigue when asked to cover large frequency bands. But for livingroom hi fi, Thiel developed drivers that did well enough.

Despite the claim of near or no audibility of phase correctness in real playback rooms, Thiel demonstrated it over a long period of years to our complete satisfaction that phase coherence was audible enough to merit tackling all the hassles that came with it. And for some jujitsu, phase coherence made other anomalies much more obvious, requiring solutions to problems that would have remained invisible in normal phase-compromised systems.

phase coherence made other anomalies much more obvious, requiring solutions to problems that would have remained invisible in normal phase-compromised systems.

Yes, I would agree with this. I also think first order, time-phase coherent design has a "special sound" that cannot be found in other types of design as I have said so in some of my previous posts.

Also, FYI, the studies done in my previous post (said link) was not necessarily done using first order speaker.  I won't go into much detail, but basically they use a front end DSP software to linearize the phase to make the speaker 0 phase even if the speakers were LR2 or LR4.  I suppose the difference would be more obviously if the studies were done using purely first order speakers.

I agree about the 'special sound', as we have discussed here. My take focuses on the brain power that is freed up by not having to descramble the phase errors in other systems. I find the difference significant as do some others. "The Industry" (Toole et al) dismiss it in various ways as trivial.

I know for certain that many amp, cable and source practitioners and critics use Thiel as a tool to "see into" the source chain. I find that significant.