Thiel 3.7

Alex, I didn't sell the Thiels until two weeks ago. A typical pattern for me: I will own more than one component at a time and be unable to decide which I prefer. Eventually I just let something go in order to break the logjam. But you are right that I was never in love with the Thiels. They are a great, great speaker, but time to move on. The Harbeths are working nicely for me now, but I doubt they will be the last stop. The constant tension between music lover and audiophile. The Harbeths communicate the music so well and sound so beautiful. Tonight I put on a CD I rarely listen to, Charlie Haden and Hank Jones playing mainly old spirituals. It's always struck me as too spare. Not this time. It reached out and grabbed me, made complete sense musically. That's what we have systems for, right? But then I'll turn around and start thinking, boy, I sure wish these Harbeths used a better tweeter, I really need to try a Maggie or something with a Scanspeak Revelator or whatever. It's hard for me to be content. But I rarely am with anything. My character issues manifest fiercely in the hobby.

LOL. (BTW, did you ever decide that you liked the 2.4 as well as you had the 1.6?) As for me, I think my main "issue" with speakers is what I would call trust: Whenever I hear a speaker that makes a certain disk or piece of music sound unusually great, I typically find that it isn't telling the truth and will be correspondingly not-so-great on other music or disks (not saying the Harbeth is this way - I don't believe I've ever heard a Harbeth, and anyway I thought they were supposed to be fairly "neutral" as the saying goes). I feel comfortable that the Thiels are pretty reliable messengers which I can trust, but at the same time realize that there are certainly aspects of the sound that my (after all relatively modest) speakers aren't capable of fully expressing (mainly having to do with the rich body, physicality, dynamism, ease and sweetness of real music). But I can't, unlike many audiophiles, be happy switching speakers often -- I need a consistent point of reference, and besides I'm also a cheapstake who isn't pursuing the SOTA. I started building this system by choosing my Thiels in '97, and have only recently really begun to think that I (and the rest of my system) might be ready to contemplate taking another step, which if/when it happens I presume would be "for keeps" for even longer next time...

Anyhoo, I've been thinking about the midrange driver on that 3.7, and it's occured to me that it might well not be driven at the inner or outer edge of the diaphragm, unlike typical cones or domes. The coil former might be attached at the center point of the ring, midway between the suspension surrounds, giving the diaphragm added rigidity by taking the form of a "T"-shaped cross-section. This would make a lot of sense in combination with the radial corrugation of the diaphragm visible in the photos, and very possibly indicate the kind of lightness and rigidity implied by the high first resonance point figure quoted by Unsound. (Lighter than could probably be achieved if the center-driven diaphragm projected forward in a similar-sized semi-toroidal ring, partly because the former itself can be made very short with the flat diaphragm.) If the flat corrugated ring is indeed center-driven, that would be one explanation for why the compound driver doesn't use Thiel's shared voice-coil technology. The only thing about this conjecture is that the driver is described as being 5" in diameter, which would make for an absolutely prodigously-sized voice-coil width-wise, though presumably very shallow in depth.

Hello Folks:

First regards to Zaikesman who was very helpful to me some year’s back when I was exploring other topics including Thiel.

It was on this thread that I was informed of the prototype CS 3.7 being shown at C.E.S. The new drivers are quite ingenious. I cannot wait to hear them. I have a feeling that the long wait has been because the original 03 was what put the company on the map and Jim really needed, like all of his products, a major performance justification to discontinue a previous success story. Especially given the 3.6’s reputation and because this is also the 30th anniversary year since the first coherent source design hit the market.

Although I have taken some exception to his moving into home theater to the degree that he has over the past three years, It's true those products also have a dignity and quality that extend across the entire line. But the MCS1, as an example, does not and will never sound like his floor standing designs. Profit margin and staying in business are behind those products.

As someone with engineering curiosity, I also like the fact that Jim publishes the "why" of his ideas along with the "what". He backs up the "hype" with concrete argument and empirical data. He openly shares some of his secrets and I have learnt a great deal about speaker design by reading his white papers.

Jim's approach is the exact opposite of David Wilson who guards his design secrets like Fort Knox. From a marketing, sonic and business standpoint, I cannot blame him. But I really wish that David would be more like Jim in sharing more of his specific theories with the rest of us.

The CS 7.2 remains the finest loudspeaker I have ever heard (although I am very curious to hear the CS 5i) followed by little else:

Wilson Maxx2 (stunning achievement), B&W 800, JM Labs UtopiaBE, Dynaudio Confidence, MBL 111B and 101D, LSA2 by Larry Staples and Hyperion HPS 938.

Thanks for reading.

On a website (sorry, can't remember which one) about the 2006 CES show it mentioned Thiel may release a center channel with the same technology as the 3.7.

This makes sense I suppose and will be interesting to see what Jim Theil does do next....replacing/updating either the 6 or 7.2 would be the next one "in line" after the 1.6, 2.4 and 3.7.....

Danhirsh: That's a pretty expensive list of speakers you feel the 7.2 is better than :-) I wish my memory was as good as yours -- I can't remember what we talked about "some years back", but I'm glad to learn my credibility has survived it! Seriously, it's clear you've heard a lot more speakers than I have, so I can't imagine what I could've informed you about concerning Thiels, but your high estimation of them in such company as you've mentioned says more than I ever could.

If anyone cares to visit the ELAC speakers website and click on the 600 series under "Products", then click on the photo of the cutaway coaxial mid/HF driver (called the "X-Jet"), you'll see a view of a ring-diaphragm midrange design I'm guessing could be not dissimilar in overall concept to what's in the 3.7. There are obvious differences of course: the ELAC uses a honeycomb-sandwich diaphragm, is only 3" in diameter, and the tweeter it encircles is not a dome, but a Heil Air Motion Transformer variation. However, this picture does illustrate the type of centrally-attached voice-coil I'm hypothesizing might be used in the Thiel driver. (Oh and BTW, floorstanders featuring this compound driver from the German marque, intriguing as it is, are unfortunately priced a bit higher than the 3.7 will be, from about $12-20K USD. Never heard or seen one myself.)