I've never heard the Thiel 3.5s (that I recall) but used to listen to the 3.6s here and there, though many years ago. So you have to take any comparison I'd make with a big grain of salt. That said, I also lived with the big Thiel CS6 speakers for a while too, so I have a pretty good bead on the Thiel house sound in general, I think, Whenever I listened to the 3.6s "back in the day" my impression was always consistent: a sense of accuracy, in terms of tonality, soundstaging, imaging and a sense of life - great transient quality and an overall sense of control. There was a real confidence, a sensation of "hearing the recording for what it is." The slight knock on the 3.6s was, as many have said before, to my ears a teetering toward brightness and a tad bit of hardness. Just a tiny bit of a "ruthless" quality. Not as bad as that sounds, but just tipping a bit in that direction. The other is a slightly "reductive" quality that I tended to hear in Thiel speakers. The density of the imaging had the great result of palpability, but it seemed the Thiels could squeeze the sound just a bit too tight, with a signature that to my ear could seem to slightly remove the amount of body and heft of the sound of voices and instruments. (The smaller woodwinds, for instance, could become fairly thin sounding). The CS6 speakers I had, while sounding huge overall and full from the upper bass down, also had this slightly reductive quality. Though I found them not bright at all, and not in to the ruthless territory so much. They sounded gorgeous with my CJ tube amps. The difference I find with the last flagship 3.7 (and to a degree the 2.7) is that I do not find any of this reductive quality. Voices and instruments sound smooth, big, even and as lush as one could want. If you have an acoustic guitar recorded up close it is BIG and full. The sense of image sizing and soundstaging goes beyond any Thiel I had heard before. And the tonal balance seems completely smooth - missing the slight hollowing sensation I could occasionally hear in previous Thiels. And they have a more open and delicate way with fine detail. While giving you that aliveness, snap and image density and specificity that Thiel is known for. So to my ears the 3.7s take the Thiel sound and simply refine it. As I've pointed out in my other, long speaker audition thread, despite listening to many of the best contenders now available, I did not find any that seemed to do it all as well as the 3.7s. |
Well I finally put my order in for a set of spare drivers for my 2.7s. I'm getting a coax, woofer and passive radiator. This was actually precipitated by thielrules's post that I saw last night just as I was going to bed, saying that Rob "has sold a lot of his inventory and all his 3.7 were reserved." Given I didn't think Rob sells full speakers, I thought this must mean inventory of 3.7 drivers were all spoken for. Oh no! Did that mean I missed my one chance for spare coax drivers for my 2.7 (since they are the same)????? Sleep did not come easily last night! Anyway, checked with Rob and...whew! Drivers available. I almost missed them when Thiel was shut down, not taking that chance again. (And Rob says they are pretty easy to swap out, the coax in particular). Now I'll rest a bit easier when I crank Van Halen on my 2.7s. |
ron, One of the considerations I’ve had in deciding whether to sell my 3.7s or 2.7s is that I’ve figured the 2.7s would be a harder sell. They were pretty much under the radar (excepting of course the cover story on Absolute Sound - otherwise not a lot of reviews) and came out just before Thiel folded being Thiel. So I don’t think a lot of them were likely sold. On the other hand the 3.7s had tons of reviews and years of coverage so everyone seems to know them. So they usually sell. (I haven’t even put my 3.7s up for sale, and I’ve had a number of email offers to buy them). Plus, I got my 2.7s at such a good price it almost seems pointless to sell them. That said, I did research 2.7 sales and it seems, though rare on the market, all the ones I could find did end up selling. They are such a gem of a speaker. It’s too bad more people haven’t been exposed to them. I recently played some Bernard Herrmann recordings on vinyl for my musician brother who has listened to every system I’ve had since the 90’s. This was using the 2.7s and he was in shock at how incredible the sound was. I don’t think he’s ever been more effusive...and he’s heard my system with the 3.7s as well. Good recordings always help, though. The 2.7s are keepers for me, which is why I just ordered spare drivers from Rob Gillum, which should be arriving soon. |
batmanfan, Thanks for posting that info form Gary Dayton. That makes some sense of why I hear the 3.7s as a bit more open and detailed vs the 2.7. The 3.7 also floats instruments better around the speakers when they are panned harder left or right, whereas they tend to come more from the speaker on the 2.7, so I get a bit more of a "U" shaped soundstage from the 2.7s vs the 3.7s. I had wondered if the 2.7s used aluminum for the baffle and now I know it does not. The Magico A3s speakers I recently auditioned also seemed to disappear better and float instruments nearby the speaker locations, and their cabinets are made of inert metal, so that makes some sense. |
My spare drivers for my 2.7s just arrived (coax, woofer, passive). Rob was great with communication and shipping. Highly recommended! Now I can breath easier when I crank my speakers, which I'm doing all the more these days as I'm re-buying old Kiss, Rush and Van Halen albums to blast through the house! One of the things I like so much about a floor standing speaker vs standmounted is the sense of scale and effortless quality when you turn up the sound. The Thiels especially have a very satisfying solidity and punch from top to the bottom of the bass, whereas other speakers (especially stand mounted speakers engineered with a hump to sound bigger than they are) tend to get a bit softer and "woofier" down bottom. For Van Halen, Alex's drums and Michael Anthony's bass guitar has a thunderous solidity that really rock the place. |
jon, It was around $975 for the 3 drivers. I seem to remember when I inquired a while back that a single set of 3.7 drivers was a bit more expensive. ron, I wish I could be of more help. The remasters I've been listening to of Rush are the recently released vinyl remasters (some done at Abbey Road) and they are stupendous. Never, ever heard Rush sound like this. The various CD remasters were done earlier - some in the 90s, others I think around 2009. I've seem some complaints about the hit or miss quality, some brightness etc. The 2112 remaster CD seems to get good notices though, and I thought it sounded good on my system. (But none of them kick it like the vinyl remasters). |
Fortunately I don't burn much brain-fuel over the wires in my speaker (or otherwise). Whatever Thiel chose, it met the values and specs they were going for, and the results are speakers that are still highly competitive with anything today, whatever wiring those other speakers may be using. For me I've got enough in this hobby to obsess about, without throwing concerns about high end wires/cables in to the fray. I'm as prone to thoughts of upgraditis as anyone else. Having recently acquired a high end turntable, now I have to think about things like VTA, VTF etc - I've gotta draw the line somewhere and my skepticism about the high end cable/wires industry makes dropping concerns for expensive cabling an easy move for me. |
Oh man, I’ve been spinning various records on my system and the Thiel 2.7s have just been killing it! I’ve been receiving old Brazilian jazz/funk records and they sound gloriously huge and rich and punchy on the 2.7s. Spinning the Police record Reggatta De Blanc - the 2.7s just reproduce this with such verve and energy. Having had the CS6’s long ago and then many speakers in between, one of the things I always missed was the Thiel’s way with bass - so focused, punchy and dense, vs the more bloomy quality of many other speakers. That’s what the 2.7s give me as well. Bass and kick drums have such a satisfying solidity and impact and density that just drives the music. I can never see myself getting rid of these speakers. (Even if I buy more speakers). Gotta sell my Thiel 3.7s though, within the next couple weeks! (I have some time off work to get such things done). |
ronkent, I still think the 3.7 is the "better" speaker. It's more open, slightly more detailed, more evenly controlled top to bottom, more neutral, casts the bigger more impressive images and soundstage, and disappears better. That sounds like a slam dunk for the 3.7, but subjective taste enters the equation and that's where the 2.7s catch up quite a bit for me. I find the sound of the 2.7s a bit more tonally rich and dense, with even more precise reach-out-and-touch-it palpability. And a punchier mid-bass on down that really drives music even more than the 3.7s which can sound more reserved. For instance, that tune I may have just heard on the radio may or may not satisfy on the 3.7s, but it's likely to have the "fun factor" and drive on the 2.7s. And as I've said, the 2.7s seem a bit more dynamically alive - even the way a trumpet player or saxophonist will run up and down a scale, there is a bit more lively micro-dynamics of each note that give the 2.7 presentation a bit more life-force-like presentation. Plus, the 2.7s image huge as well, so it's a very life-like presentation even given their more modest size. So it's a question of taste, really, for me. Sometimes when I hear the way the 2.7 doesn't image as well to the sides as the 3.7s - instruments panned hard right or left tend to sound more coming out of the speakers than floating behind them like the 3.7s - I'll pine a bit for the 3.7s. Other times when I hear the utterly engaging density and punch of, say, drums on the Police record on the 2.7s, I feel like I couldn't live without that. From my experiments with a subwoofer so far, I get more of the speakers disappearing, even for hard right/left panned instruments, on the 2.7s once the subwoofer is on. So I think I won't really have anything to pine for if I can successfully integrate the subs. That is, so long a I can maintain the tone of the 2.7s that I like so much. I'll finally have time within the next couple of weeks to give my JL Audio subs and crossover a real go. |
This thread reminds me of talking about your kids to your spouse. You can’t really go on about how wonderful your kids are to anyone else. It would make them puke. But your spouse is someone who shares your feelings for your kids, so you can tell them every wonderful thing your kid did today. And on that note, I can blab to my fellow Thiel owners: Spinning the Saturday Night Fever LP on the 2.7s now. Absolute heaven. Quick, tight, impactful kick drum, present dense snare drums, voices natural, every element delineated yet richly so, not at all clinical (as I’ve recently heard from some other speakers). I’m not just getting audiophile goodies; I’m getting the fun and verve of spinning records when I was young. Played a new copy of John Coltrane’s Blue Train. Unbelievable. Sax, trumpet, so clear and present with their differing tonality - organic, not electronic and silvery. Drums with clarity and snap "right there" in the room. The stand up bass maintained tautness even from well outside my listening room down the hall. Yeah, I can let go of the 3.7s without much regret. |
The other thing about the coax driver design in both the 3.7 and the 2.7 is the coherency achieved! Try as I might I just can not "hear out" any tweeter sound from the midrange. It just sounds perfectly meshed together. Even the most challenging material - sibilance on female singers, or listening to a violin play up and down it's highest registers - perfect coherence. No mechanical tell-tale signs at all, just a voice, or instrument playing, without any cues the sound is passing between different drivers. |
Jeff, Congrats on the Revel speakers. They have such good engineering (and science) behind them that it's almost a sure bet a Revel speaker will produce excellent sound. While we may hear they are not to everyone's taste, it's very rare to see someone say a Revel speaker sounds bad. I auditioned a number of Revel speakers recently seeing if I was going to replace my 3.7s (or even 2.7s). All were extremely competent sounding - really even sounding and controlled top to bottom. The Revels seemed to me to perhaps come closest to what I heard at home with the Thiel 3.7s. In the end I just preferred the Thiels. I'll be very curious to read what you think once you get the Revels. |
^^^^ Hey, who let the riff-raff back in here? No turncoats allowed! Well, seeing as you like CJ gear we can still talk. ;-) That CJ ET3 looks nice! I consider my CJ Premier 12 amps and Premier 16LS2 preamp my secret weapons. They are "organic sound" machines that always seem to portray a sense of smooth luxury to whatever I hook them up to. |
@tomthiel Prof, as a technical note, that wavy driver behaves better than any of the previous cone drivers as well as supports the tweeter wave-form launch very nicely. Therefore the direct series crossover path is simpler than any previous Thiel driver. Jim had always corrected for slope anomalies in all the drivers, which puts additional components in the signal path. In the x.7 models, fewer components are required because the fundamental driver performance is so good. Part of what you hear is the thrill of nothingness. Sorry I missed responding. Thanks for that info. Very interesting. It’s been a while since I read up on first order time/phase coherent crossovers, but I remember that one of the detriments can be some form of interference, or cancellation, I think between the tweeter and midrange driver if I remember. In any case, although I also really liked the old Meadowlark speakers (first order time/phase coherent) this cancellation is something I really noticed. Sit at just the right position or height and it was great. But move, especially vertically getting up from the chair and there was this weird hollowing and a sort of odd "shifting" of the sound, that turned me off. I forget whether I ever heard this from the Dunlavy designs. I did perceive a very slight hollowing out of the midrange on the old Thiel CS6. But as I’ve said, to my ears this last generation coax by Jim nailed it. It’s just totally coherent, in a way almost no other box speaker I’ve heard can manage. No apparent suck-out or discontinuity, and from a large listening area as well, tonally. In another forum thread I’ve been detailing an extensive list of speakers I’ve been demoing. Every time I come back to the Thiels they just show up the speakers I just heard in terms of utter coherency and disappearing as obvious forms of distortion or as sound sources. The truly amazing trick with the Thiels is that they not only "disappear" effortlessly as sound sources in a way most speakers are aiming for, but they don’t end up with the wispy sound that many "disappearing" speakers conjure. Instead the sonic images of the Thiels have such density. The impression I sometimes have is that the field in between my Thiels have been replaced by more speakers making sound! |
Ok, jafant....I just can not read your last line up of posts and not think of a previous quip someone had made. Along those lines, if your current source of employment dries up I think you can slip easily into another similar gig: https://www.job-applications.com/walmart-greeter/ I kid...I kid....;-) |
dancastagna, Why do you think you need power conditioners? Is that perhaps something your dealer is telling you because he sells power conditioners? Dealers aren't always the best consultants on how to spend your money :) Maybe make sure you look at what you really need before being influenced to overspend. |
dcancastagna, I don’t have a slp-05. But I do have a lot of equipment - all my home theater source equipment on one rack, and beside it all my 2 channel equipment (which include Conrad Johnson Premier 16LS2 pre-amp, Conrad Johnson mono block tube amps, an Eico HF-81 integrated tube amp, Benchmark Dac, Transrotor turntable, phono stage, JL Audio crossover, raspberry pi server...) I have most of it plugged in to some Furman power bars, as they are good quality, a perfect design for where they had to go, and I at least wanted some level of protection as we have quite a number of futzes and power outs in our power. In my own research looking in to power conditioners, and looking in to what people from various sides had to say, I was not sold on them. And it did seem that even the more "objectivist" electrical engineer types seemed to agree that they are more apt to be deleterious than beneficial - e.g. they can in principle limit the power going to your amp when it needs sudden big surges. So most said best to just plug power amps in to the wall - most people’s power is fine and most decent amps have a power supply designed to handle the level of noise they are most likely to encounter. I had a dedicated line put in quite a while ago, and my amps go in to there. My sources/preamps etc go in to the furman power bar. |
Yikes, Had someone over auditioning a turntable I was selling. Playing through my Thiel 2.7s. He put on Wagner and then Also Sprach Zarathustra with a crazy amount of bass from an LP. I was sure at one moment when the low organ peaked I heard a crackle, which I presumed came from my speakers. Worried about damage (thank goodness I now have spare drivers!). Though playing some dance music with really low bass afterwards, everything seems fine. tomthiel, since you are here....do you have any hunch/insight as to whether the speakers likely survived ok given the above description? Thanks! |
Thanks for the input. (Scary stuff for us 2.7 owners, ronkent!) The record played that caused the crackling was probably the most dynamic recording I've ever played on the Thiels. I didn't really know how loud it would get and usually I have a volume control right near me ifI think things are getting too loud. But I didn't want to ruin this gentleman's listening experience by suddenly dropping the volume. Anyway, the speaker seems fine. I generally don't listen really loud - about 70 db seems to be my comfort zone, unless I crank it more when I"m listening down the hall. The 2.7s seem to be able to take quite a bit of volume, but I believe I normally play well within their limits. |
Yeah I know 70 db should be no problem for any decent speaker. As I mentioned I do like to crank it more when I'm listening from a distance, so that's when I have to watch it. Though the Thiels are so clean, and have such punch, it's hard not to keep turning them up for Van Halen, dance music etc. ;) |
Well, I used to swap more often than I do currently. Maybe once a month or so. And previous to that I used to do it almost every night. That's because I used to use my home theater (Hales) speakers for two channel as well. So I had speaker wire leads from my tube amps sitting near my HT L/R speakers, and when I wanted to use them for two channel I'd just unplug the speakers from my home theater cables, and plug in the cables to my 2 channel tube amps/sources. So banana plugs were very easy to deal with. Still...I own at the moment 5 pairs of speakers that I swap in and out, so any connection that makes that easier is the one I prefer. |
FWIW: I had a very long run for my speaker cables (my source equipment is in a different room) so I went with Belden 5T00UP 10 awg cable (bought from Blue Jeans cable). The specs were excellent and just what I needed for long speaker cables without loss of sound quality (see review with test results): https://www.audioholics.com/gadget-reviews/blue-jeans-10awg-speaker-cable-5t00up I regularly listen to my pal's system wired up with more than $20,000 in Nordost cabling (he used to have my cast off speakers, too, in that system) but my system sounds darned good to me! And I think it's fair to say I'm a picky listener :-) |
Folks, for those who blew drivers, like the 2.7/3.7 coax, what were the sonic symptoms? Did the sound just die? Or did a crackle develop in the sound....something like that? (The only driver I've ever seen damaged in my home is, apparently, one of my Hales T1 monitors which plays the R channel in my home theater.I think it was hit with some too-heavy bass at one point and these days, although it sounds fine with most material, a super low/heavy bass signal will make it pop and crackle). |
Yes brayeagle, it’s great to have custom made stuff from Blue Jeans. I’m going to have some interconnect made, short and long. They have really low capacitance interconnects which is great for some long runs I need, especially to my subwoofers. Though admittedly the really low capacitance of the BJ cables may be overkill for a subwoofer signal which is being low-passed ...what the heck...a little over-engineering never hurt. |
tomthiel, What is the role played by the difference between tube amps and solid state amps, which it comes to damaging clipping? It’s something of a cliche to say that tube amps clip more softly than SS.Is this true to the extent that it would be less likely to get damaging clipping from a tube amp of comparable power to an SS amp? I’ve used tube amps since the 90’s . I’ve had a great many speakers, some as insensitive as 82dB and impedance all over the place, and I’ve played them loud. But not once have I ever blown a driver. So I’m wondering if this has much to do with my choice of tube amplification. (I use Conrad Johnson Premier 12 tube monoblocks - 140W side). |
That’s really interesting insight, Tom. As to possibly different design decisions made by that newer 2.7 team, I’ve posted earlier in this thread, Philip Bamberg who worked on the 2.7 design had posted in another forum:
My 2.7s indeed don’t sound "dark" (though a tad darker than the 3.7s) but they certainly are sweet and easy on the ears. I wonder if that downsloping response was something engineers like Bamberg brought to the table, vs what Jim would have done? |
Great stuff Tom, thanks! I’ve been saying since I got my 2.7s a year ago that the 3.7s sounded a little bit more revealing. (And spacious, and a bit more even). One thing that really surprised me about the 2.7s is the dynamics. I’m using Conrad Johnson Premier 12 amps, 140W/side of tubes. The 2.7s are lower sensitivity than the 3.7s and I wondered if I’d notice a slight reduction in impact/dynamics or whatever. But to my surprise, to my ears and with my amps, the 2.7s sounded more dynamically alive than the 3.7s (which were already excellent!).I thought at first maybe it was due to a little mid bass hump somewhere giving that extra sense of "oomph." But it was really top to bottom, in both micro and macro dynamics, where even a trumpet sounded like it was being played with a bit more life-like energy and micro-dynamic life between all the notes.(And also I have the sense of more density to the sound, and sonic images, on the 2.7s, whereas they are bigger and more spacious on the 3.7s). I have no idea what accounts for this, but it’s been my consistent impression in owning both the 2.7 and the 3.7. |
ronkent, Nice analogy. I agree the 3.7s do majesty. I always felt they never had me wanting for a larger speaker/bigger sound because they sounded so big! I’ve been happily surprised at how large the 2.7s can sound as well. Never as large as the 3.7s, but I’ve now got them sounding quite reminiscent of the experience the 3.7s gave me. Rock music, symphony, jazz/fusion, when mic’d closely enough, really sound BIG and chunky in terms of imaging, and very big in terms of soundstaging. In fact in my long speaker audition thread, I’ve mentioned numerous times how coming back from a speaker audition to fire up the 2.7s usually makes the point of how huge their soundstage is relative to many other speakers. Currently I have my 2.7s set up with 8’ 3" between them (from cabinet to cabinet), and just under 7 feet from my listening position. So that’s an immersive listening angle. What type of listening angle did you use, and do you use with the 3.7s? |
brayeagle, I play practically every type of music on my system, jazz, rock, fusion, electronica, soundtracks, classical, country, folk, world music, choral, you name it. Sometimes I ride the volume for the comfort of my ears (I do have to watch classical music which can go from 0-100 in an instant). There are some tracks of music that, try and fiddle as I might with the 2.7s, never attain the hair-raising experience those tracks had on the 3.7s. But those are ever fewer as time goes on. ronkent, Your 3.7s had to be used, weren’t they? Hence if break in occurred, I presume it would already have happened long ago. It’s my suspicion that it was acclimation on your part, vs the speaker. I’ve acclimated to the different 2.7 sound now and in a way they now sound "different" to me (I don’t notice, or pay attention, to things I used to in how they differed from the 3.7s). And I can find my 2.7s (or 3.7s) sound quite different over periods of time, and even from day to day, depending on my mood, hearing at the time, how I’m listening, what I’m playing, what me expectations for that listening session are, etc. For instance, during only the period of last week I went through a "Wow are these speakers are incredible, I’m totally happy with them" to "why am I finding nothing impressive on these tonight?" to "I really think I need a more lively speaker" back to "wow these are INCREDIBLE." (And some of this has to do with the fact I’m juggling other new speaker purchases in the back of my mind. But it is amazing how my response to my system can vary, and if I was always presuming an external cause I may be attributing it to "break in" or "AC issues" or any other in the standard audiophile list). |
tomthiel, Can you tell me: what was Jim's thinking about loudspeaker design before he started producing time/phase coherent speakers? I still have my old Thiel 02 (circa 76' ?) and love them. Was Jim going for flat response as a main attribute...or any other salient goals before he was captured by time/phase coherence? Thanks. |
Someone bought my Thiel 3.7s. Fortunately the buyer is arranging pick up from my house, where they will be put on a pallet by the shipping company. That has still of course left me with packing them in to their boxes. Wow...not easy! It took a loooong time just to get the first one in to it’s box, with some trial and error along the way. After hours, the top totally fitted and taped up madly, it turned out the bottom of the speaker wouldn’t quite fit all the way in to the box. Rob Gillum was very helpful in advising me through this issue to the right solution (which of course, my fault, meant unboxing the damned thing and re-doing everything). I lost count of the number of times I muttered under my breath "Never another big speaker...never another big speaker...." (That is, until, some other big speaker catches my eye. But I’m pretty sure this has cured me of getting another big ol’ heavy speaker, as wonderful sounding as the 3.7s have been). |
BOXING THE THIELS: A Sort Of Tutorial: As this is something of a knowledge dump for Thiel speaker owners, I figure I may as well relay my recent packing experience with the big 3.7s. Who knows, maybe it will come in handy for someone down the line selling their Thiels, or even shipping them to be serviced. I include advice from Rob Gillum of coherentsourceservice who helped guide me through some of this. At least in case of the larger Thiel speakers like the 3.7, they were shipped upright strapped to a pallet, from Thiel. That’s also how I received my second hand pair of 3.7s. When unboxing...take photos! For reminders during re-boxing at some point. Here’s how packing my 3.7s went: Placed the blue foam fitted base (which has plywood attached to the bottom) on the floor, and then placed in the speakers standing upright into that base. Secured the grills to the speaker. Rob mentioned a couple of large rubber bands that would go around the speaker securing the grills for shipping. I presume those are normally supplied in the shipping but I guess I never got any. So I simply made long rubber bands by attaching a series of smaller ones around the speaker. Next I did a couple layers of thick bubble wrap around the speaker. Then placed the plastic bag (comes with shipping) over the speaker. Next, carefully slipped box over the upright speaker. NOTE: As recommended by Rob, I made sure the box side with the serial number and finish description were at the BACK of the speaker. Doing this helps as a reminder as to which way the speaker is oriented in the box, so if you have to lay it down you can make sure it’s going on it’s back, vs mistakenly laying it with the drivers facing down. Placed in the 4 corner braces in to the corner of the speaker box. (They slip right down past the blue-Styrofoam, in between the corner of the blue foam base and the inner speaker box). Put the molded Styrofoam stabilizer on the top cap of the speaker. The Styrofoam base has on top 4 molded indents in to which the spikes for that speaker are placed. I placed them in there securing with some blue-tack and then packing tape over those spikes, to prevent any shifting during shipping. (Shouldn’t happen of course if the box is kept upright. Though you have to tilt it anyway - see last step). Closed up the top, secured the box flaps with packing tape. FINALLY: THIS is the part that threw me initially. I now had to seal up the bottom box flaps, which meant tilting the speaker on to the ground on it’s back. BUT....when tilting the speaker to it’s back, the speaker slips out a bit, so the bottom base board is sticking out. That sucker will NOT be pushed back in when the speaker is just lying on it’s back. We tried tilting the bottom of the speaker box up a bit to try to shuffle the end in, but it wouldn’t budge. My intuition was that I wouldn’t want to tilt the box upside down as the speaker wasn’t made to have it’s weight upside down. But....that was my mistake. (And I’m trying to save anyone else from this mistake). Rob then told me the top cap was very strong, and it was fine to tip the box upside down, speaker on to it’s head, and in fact you have to in order to get the speaker fully in. So we did that and...viola! It worked. The speaker only finally shuffled all the way in to the box once it was vertically upside down. After which we could seal up the bottom of the speaker box with packing tape. Then return the speaker to standing upright. And that is the tale of boxing one speaker. I have another one to box this weekend. |
Well, as of late yesterday, my big ol’ Thiel 3.7s are now gone. Shipped away to some other happy fellow. I’d advertised for local pick up, got the usual bunch of replies from honestly interested to flaky. One fellow said he wanted them for sure, was arranging to get a truck so he could pick up them up at my house...then vanished. Such is selling gear. Eventually I was contacted by someone with a very good buyer/seller reputation wanted them, who did everything right, and it was a deal. They had to be shipped across the country though, which I was ok with as long as he arranged all the shipping, which he did. As I’d advised him to, he hired a company that would pick them up with a truck and they would be strapped to a palette upright for shipping. All I had to do was have them boxed and ready for some strapping fellows and their truck to show up. And that was good, because pick up was arranged for yesterday afternoon and I had just come down with a flu that knocked me completely off my feet, bedridden. No condition to be moving giant speakers out of my house into trucks or anything. So I get a knock on the door, and there’s this tiny little guy standing there, must have been 5’ 6" tall, with a teeny mini-van outside. I’m like "are you here to pick up the shipment?" He said yes. I said: "just you?" Yup. "Are you kidding me? Wasn’t it clear what type of packages you were picking up? These are big, delicate, expensive speakers. It’s not a one guy job." He said "oh, I didn’t know. Anyway, I’ll take them." I could barely move (so fatigued with flu) but only had to watch for one minute as this guy started trying to struggle his way out with one of the speaker boxes, starting to thump it around, when, aw dammit!...I had to help him lift the boxes out the house, down the porch steps to the street into his van. (At one point he almost tipped one of the boxes off his dolly, caught it last second before disaster!). That really sucked, I gotta say. Apparently this fella was picking up the speakers to get them to the shipping place where they will be strapped to a palette. An audio pal said about this: hey, the buyer has paid for the speakers already, they are his, not your problem anymore." But there’s no way I wanted anyone to buy these beautiful speakers (and I white-gloved them so they were in as-new condition), and be disappointed by shipping damage. Hopefully things went better from that point on regarding shipping. I admit to being somewhat wistful now even seeing a photo of the 3.7s, knowing I don’t have access to that sound now. But given the size of those flagship speakers not being fit for my room (aesthetically) it was like dating briefly with a woman out of your league. Great while it lasts, but was never really to be. :) |
Dan, You’re gonna get us kicked off this thread ;-) I’ve got another long thread going detailing my auditions of many speakers, often comparing against my Thiels. Most don’t fully hold up.I even preferred my Thiels to the latest Magical A3 speaker. I am however smitten by Joseph Audio Perspective speakers (incredible purity of tone) and Devore Fidelity Orangutan speakers (they sound very organic, richer than most speakers, yet do rhythm/drums etc in a super compelling manner). Other speakers I really like are ones I own: Waveform (very neutral yet warm tone, image like crazy, very palpable), my MBL 121 omnis (incredible tone, peerless 3 dimensional imaging), and my small little Spendor S3/5 (which are so smooth, open, rich and engaging they always have me wondering at first "Maybe this is all I need!" until I put on content that really needs some bass foundation). And my Hales Transcendence 1 speakers (which do HT duty, but I often hook them up to my two channel system for a change. Incredible timbral beauty, rich, spacious, though missing the palpability factor of the Thiels) All spend some time in my system at one point. The thing I come back to with the Thiels is the coherence, lack of speaker/box artifacts, tone and density/palpability of the sound. |
I'm always happier with a company designs speakers to be used with grills on. This is because I'm not a fan of seeing the speaker drivers.When I see the drivers, I can't help but become more conscious of the process producing the sound I'm hearing. The highs are coming from that tweeter, the mids from that woofer in front of me, etc. Once grills are on the speaker becomes a nice piece of furniture in front of me around and between which the sound is occurring, but it's not obviously being generated by the speaker. I find this much more conducive to the soundstaging/imaging illusion in audio. Also, for me the majority of speakers without grills don't look too great - you get a bit more of the made-in-shop vibe when you can see all the different colored drivers, screws etc. (Though some can look nice). Though when it comes to grills, I also much prefer that they not look like an afterthought, as on many speakers: "Ok, here's a pair of grills you can place over the drivers if you really want to!" An after-thought looking pair of grills - e.g. one that ruins the nice lines of a speaker by sticking out - can also reduce the aesthetics. This is one reason why my Thiel 2.7s fit the bill for me in many ways. They are designed to sound right with the grills on, so I don't have to see the drivers. And they were designed aesthetically with the grills as part of the design - they are inset into the frame making for beautiful smooth clean, integrated lines. |
andy2, Very interesting post. Thanks. I know what you mean about the "sparkle" that some speakers may have (in this case yours) vs the Thiel sound, and certainly agree on the advantages of the concentric mid/tweeter design. I wonder if you have heard the last, re-designed version of Thiels concentric mid/tweeter in the 3.7 or 2.7 speaker? I was familiar with previous Thiel speakers (including having had the Thiel CS6 for quite a while with it's concentric design) and the 3.7 design, with that new flattened, corrugated mid and new tweeter, was really another step ahead, both in terms of smoothness, clarity, and coherency. I have auditioned a great many speakers and heard too many to count over my fervid audiophile career, and I've simply never heard a more coherent speaker top to bottom, but especially in the mid/upper frequencies. It's impossible to hear any crossover or discontinuity, just a perfectly whole, seamless presentation. Every time I came home from auditioning highly lauded, latest greatest speakers (including new Magico and others) one of the first things that stuck out is how the Thiels made those other speakers sound less coherent. Same for soundstaging. As you mention, I really enjoy how consistent the sound is from the Thiels from a wide variety of listening positions. That to me is a very natural aspect of sound. If a speaker starts to sound phasey, or really shifts tone/imaging quickly with listening position, that's a turn off to me. I'd draw an analogy to TV technology. When plasma displays and LED displays were battling it out, I had the same issue with LED lit displays, as their image altered in contrast/color noticeably with any shifts of the viewer off axis, which gave it a a "shifty" quality to the presentation. Plasma, being emissive light source was completely even and stable, so it produced a beautiful, consistent image from any reasonable angle. An image of a painting on a plasma would be akin to what it's like to view the real painting, insofar as you could walk around and examine it from whatever angle you wanted. Whereas LCD, especially in previous incarnations (and still to some degree today), had a shifty quality which made it more like those "hologram art" pieces, where you have to stand in just the right position for the illusion to work, which instantly identifies it as artificial. I get the same issue with really fussy speakers. It's one of the reasons why I don't care for most electrostatic speakers, especially Martin Logan. ML have long claimed they have mitigated the "head in a vice" electrostatic problem by curving their panels. But whenever I listen to ML speakers I still hear the same issue. Move my head and the image quickly slides in to one speaker side. Whereas with my Thiels, while of course there is a sweet spot for the stereo illusion, it's wider and tonally there isn't some obvious change with listening position which make it feel lessy fussy, more natural, and more realistic over a wider listening area. And as Andy says, the Thiel design is fantastic with soundstaging and imaging specificity. The 3.7s were just about the best soundstaging/imaging speakers I've ever heard, at least from a conventional box design (only my MBL omnis exceed them in some ways). Though of course now I live with the 2.7s. In my long "speaker auditioning" thread on A-gon, I mention a lot of speakers I auditioned, and every time I came home I'd spin the same tracks on the 2.7s and one of the first thing that would impress me (aside from the beautiful tone) was the soundstaging and imagine. The Thiel soundstage is huge, the imaging dense and palpable. Playing live concert recordings especially had the sense of expansiveness and being at a concert. As I've mentioned in the thread before, one of the performance advantages I heard from the bigger 3.7s over the 2.7s, is that the 3.7s imaged more consistently across the whole soundstage, speaker to speaker, so even instruments panned hard left or right floated distinctly apart from the speakers. I find that less so with the 2.7 design, where instruments to the sides tend to sound a bit more 'coming from that speaker' than the big Thiels. I also get the sparkle thing Andy spoke about. Depending on how I position my Thiels I DO get a beautiful sparkly golden tone in the upper frequencies. But it's more of a consistent "glow" over the whole spectrum. There isn't ever a sense of the upper frequencies "sticking out." It's very inviting. But on some other speakers the design can seem to add a bit of additional sparkle to the upper frequencies that can be appealing as well. It's one of the thing that appealed to me with the Joseph and Devore speakers. It makes, for instance, picked acoustic guitars sound more vibrant and present. I don't mind it if that character doesn't sacrifice too much in the way of coherence, and it's a nice place to visit, sonically. |
