Thiel is officially closed!!

Considering how inept the ownership was I don't really consider this sad.  Now that Thiel is officially closed there is some chance for another entity to resurrect something that is at least in the spirit of real Thiel speakers.  Current ownership is essentially just holding the name hostage.  Let it die or bring back something that can legitimately be called Thiel.  The $900 plastic battery powered abomination is done and we won't be hearing about it anymore.  We can all be thankful for that.

The way people talk you'd think Jim Thiel knew he was going to get sick and die in his mid sixties.  He probably thought he had another decade or more left to figure out how to turn the company over.

@shadorne, as someone who has a very similar philosophy to yours and who also owns some big active ATCs, I can tell you that at least some Thiels really are great products.  I have a pair of 2 2s from the nineties and they are truly great for what they are.  They are just such a joy to listen to and were never terribly expensive.  I've also got a pair of 3.7s and they are a fantastic product.  I replaced a pair of b&w N802s with the Thiel 3.7s and I've been a little bit mad ever since.  The thiels are so unmistakably better.  Better bass, better midrange, better tweeter, better soundstage.  Just way better.  Why did I waste those years on B&Ws?  

I don't know if the first order crossovers are really important.  I suspect it was mainly Jim's passion to make great speakers rather than any particular design philosophy.  Whatever it was, man these things are great.  They won't play as loud as the ATCs and I'm sure if I wanted to do a lot of careful comparing I could find several things the ATCs do better but the Thiels are great.  

I was cranking beethoven when I blew a midrange on my 3.7s.  I also may have clipped as these are a pretty difficult load.  It happened in my first couple of months with them and no problems since.  I doubled the amp and run bridged mono now.  6-800 watts into 4 ohms.  I'm also more careful with the volume.  They play plenty loud but I will say that they were not distorting audibly when this happened so it may be that they don't give much warning before failing.

The store I bought them from said one thing that can happen is the glue between the woofer cabinet and top can dry up and fall out meaning that the air pressure in the woofer cabinet can leak into the top chamber and put pressure on the mid/tweeter.  You can push on the woofer and radiator (gently, obviously) and see if the mid moves at all.  If it does you have a leak that needs to be plugged.  Open up the top and seal up anything that might be leaking from the woofer chamber with wood glue or caulk or something.