Thiel 1.5 vs. 2.3

I have owned many Thiels, including 1.5, 2.2, 2.3, 3.6 and also Spendors and Proacs. 1.5 and 2.3 are both wonderful speakers, within the Thiel "style" of being very linear and bright sounding, and requiring a lot of current to sound their best. The 2.3 had more bass, more height and more detail than the 1.5. It is much more a full range speaker. It is also the most coherent of any of the above. The 3.6 is substantially older design than the 2.3, much more current hungry, and less linear and coherent. It does offer more thundering bass than the 2.3, but you have to have power to drive it.

It is hard to make Thiels sound seriously musical - everything in the line must be high quality and it helps to have at least one warm sounding component. Warm sounding cables will help. I used Cardas.

Owning Thiels is a commitment to endless tweaking, and hearing the flaws in your averge recordings. Your best recordings though will sound fantastic.

Thiels need long breakin. I suggest doing several overnight sessions where you wire one speaker out of phase and place them face to face. You can then crank up the volume loud but the midrange and bass energy cancel out. Caution that you don't crank them too loud and damage a driver though.

This kind of rapid breakin process can make a huge difference in sound of a speaker.

Art