Thiel Owners

@tomthiel I am leaning more towards replacing the tonearm cable and / or experimenting with damping fluid since for the most part the speakers only sound bright when I play vinyl.  It's a jelco 750d with a jelco cable.

There is a pair of 3.6 speakers for sale near me and I'm curious how they would compare to my 2.3.  I had the 2.3s setup in my main system for a while, but when played at higher volumes, they were just too bright in my room.  They are now in my home office, where I don't listen loud and are perfect there. 

I've done some reading on the 3.6 and have found a couple of comments about those also being "bright".  I really like the Thiel sound, but can't do harsh high frequencies.  Also, if I do decide to buy them, are there any known issues I should check for?  Thanks in advance!

@pops ​​​​@cascadesphil Thanks for the information.  I do like that "laid back" British sound, LOL.  I currently have Stirling LS3/6 in my main system and Harbeth P3ESR in another system. 

My Thiel 2.3 speakers appear to have the first generation tweeters.  They look like these:

In my main system I have Herron Audio M1 monoblocks (recently updated by Keith), Herron VTSP-360 preamp, Sota Sapphire, Herron VTPH-2A phono stage, Roon Nucleus/Aqua La Voce S3 DAC, Marantz KI Pearl SACD player.  

My room sucks.  I have some space limitations that keep me from getting the speakers too far out into the room, wood paneling, angled ceilings, and an irregular shape.  I do have some diffusion and absorption panels, but my system is a mixed home theater / two channel system, so there are also electronics and racks in between the speakers and a wall mounted TV up above.  Cabling is all good stuff, but a mish-mash of different brands, some Audioquest, some Kimber (no silver), and Verastarr or Duelund speaker cables.  I think the room accentuates any brightness in speakers, and there are a lot of reflection points.

I really love the way the 2.3s sound in my main system until I turn up the volume, then I want the Brits back in.  

Thanks @pops. I'm pretty sure I'll stick with what I have. 

I would be more concerned about the sound quality characteristics of the Peachtree Nova 300 than its power ratings.  Here's a quote from Art Dudley from the review mentioned previously:

"By the end of my time with Peachtree Audio's nova300, I was impressed with its superb overall musicality but remained somewhat ambivalent about its sound, at least one aspect of which—grainy trebles—is associated in the minds of some with class-D amplification in general."

I owned a Nova 300 for a while and thought it was a decent and affordable unit.  That was before I owned any Thiels, so I can't comment on how it paired with them, but depending on who you listen to, it might not be a great match sonically.  In regards to Art's comments above, Peachtree responded that the Nova 300 was probably not a great match with Art's high sensitivity speakers.  

It's been a while since I owned mine, but my memory is more of it being a little rolled off on the top, so it might actually be a good match with the Thiels.  Other integrateds that I've owned from ARC, Simaudio, and Vincent to name a few, all seemed to have a little more detail and a little more "grunt" and body than the Peachtree.

@cascadesphil I have the first version of the tweeters in the 2.3s.  My room has wood paneling, so not the greatest listening area, but I have numerous sound treatment panels in the room, and a thick rug in front of the system.  I moved my Klipsch Quartets into my main system a few days ago just for fun and they are easier to listen to (less bright) than either my 2.3s or the 3.6s.

I hear (or read) repeatedly that Thiels are very revealing of the source and I have to agree.  With my Aqua La Voce DAC, there's very little of that hard edge, only on a few recordings, while with my vinyl setup things sound too bright with close to half the records I play.  Vinyl sounds great with my Quartets, my Harbeths, KEF Ref 1, and Stirlings.  I think both speakers are great, they just don't seem to be a good match with my room and system.

@duegi I have used an Aqua La Voce DAC in my system with the 3.6s and it sounded great.  They are too bright with my vinyl setup.  I haven't used my TEAC NT-505 with the 3.6s, but it is also very warm.  It uses the AK4497 DAC chips.  It's been discontinued and the new model uses a D/S chip, due to the fire at the AKM factory and probably sounds different.  If you can find a used one, it's very nice.  It's also a streamer, so you could ditch the Bluesound.  I would look at R2R DACs like MHDT Labs and others before Schiit.  I had a Bifrost in a second system and it was very good for the money, but did have some glare.  Things sounded much better and warmer after I moved the NT-505 into that system.

I purchased a pair of used 3.6 speakers a few weeks ago and try as I might, they are just too bright to live in my system. 

I first drove them with Herron M1 150 watt monoblocks.  I bought a pair of Ampzilla 2000 Second Edition monoblocks to see if they would sound better with more power.  The dynamics improved, but they still sound bright.  The Ampzillas are rated at 300/540 into 8/4 ohms.  Stereo Magazine measured them at 390/680 and they are supposed to be stable into 1 ohm.  

I put my Harbeth Super HL5 Plus speakers back into the system and they sound sublime with the Ampzillas.  They had a little bit of a hard edge at times with the Herron amps, but that is gone with the Ampzillas.

My room is less than perfect, and could be contributing to the issue.  The right speaker is near a side wall, but the Harbeths as well as my KEF Ref 1 and Stirling LS3/6 speakers all work great there.  

I really like everything about the 3.6s except the brightness.  If I could tame that, they might knock out my newer and more expensive speakers. 

My options for placement are limited and I'm not going to spend even more on amplification for 20ish year old speakers.  I had them about 9 feet from my listening position and just slightly toed in.

If there are other suggestions to tame them, I'd love to hear them.  I've also reached out to Rob at Coherent Source Service to see if he has any upgrade or mod options.

New (to me) CS 3.6 speakers in the house tonight. They sound fantastic. I haven't really done any playing around with positioning yet. They are like a much grander version of the 2.3 I currently have without the brightness. What has really surprised me is the bass. So much texture and tonal nuances. 

Nice pickup @bnut311  I just bought a pair of 3.6 speakers about a week ago.

Quick update on my experience so far.  I was a bit surprised at the amount of bass they produced.  I have a distributed bass array system consisting of 4 subwoofers.  My intuition was to dial down the volume a bit on the subs and also lower the crossover point to around 30hz. 

After doing so and listening for a couple of days, they seemed "bright" at higher volumes.  I tried moving my listening position back a bit and that helped, but then imaging and soundstage suffered.  I decided to try raising the crossover point of the subs back up to 80hz and voila, that seemed to tame almost all of the brightness and really enhanced the soundstage and sense of propulsion of the music and brought back that visceral sense of "being there".  I'm pretty happy with how they sound now.  

I think I still have some work to do to get the most from them.  I am currently powering them with Herron Audio M1 amps which are 150/270 watts @ 8/4.  These amps do have very large toroidal transformers.  I'm currently using about 20 bucks of 16 gauge Duelund unterminated speaker cable.  I have some nice 11 GA Analysis Plus speaker cables on order and am considering different amps.

A couple of amps I'm considering are Parasound JC1 (not +) and Simaudio M400.  I'd appreciate any experience with either of those combinations. 

I contacted Rob a few weeks ago through his website.  He responded quickly, using that email address.  It's quite possible that by emailing him directly your email may have been caught in his spam filter.

@tomthiel Thank you for your recommendations. My ear level is about 36". My room has a lot of limitations, but has a fair amount of absorption and diffusion. There is an equipment rack between the speakers. 

I really like the 3.6s, but I need to love them to keep them. Rob at Coherent Source Service gave me a couple of things to check out to make sure they are functioning properly.

If they are, they may just not be a good match for my system and room. 

I just added a pair of CS 2.3 speakers to my collection and was pleasantly surprised.  I've read that they need tons of power, but they seem to do fine with my Herron M1 150 wpc monoblocks. 

I've been in love with my KEF Reference 1 speakers since I got them, but the Thiels do some things better.  The Thiels have great imaging, soundstage, scale, and detail and a great midrange.  I'm not ready to sell the KEFs yet, but the Thiels seem like they are going to give them a run for their money.

I have read numerous comments about them being "bright", which I am averse to, but I would not call them that.  They do have a little "edge" when pushed to very loud listening levels, but many speakers do and that's not how I listen.  I usually keep it around 65-75 db and they are fantastic in that range.

These are all first impressions with only a couple of hours of listening and no experimentation with setup.  I set them up with almost no toe-in on the advice of the previous owner and that seemed to work great, but I plan to experiment.

@jafant I'm running all Herron electronics, amps, preamp, phono stage. Analog sources are Acoustic Wow XL and a Technics SL-1200 MK2. Digital is a TEAC NT-505 streamer/DAC, and Marantz KI-Pearl SACD. Maybe someday I will actually put up a system page.

@jafant The Marantz is a nice player, it has that nice warm but detailed Marantz house sound. It doesn't get a lot of use though.

I have 4 complete systems, so yeah, filling out the system page seems a little daunting and isn't high on my list of priorities. 

@sdecker thank you for the suggestions and information.

I'm still forming impressions about the 2.3s. The Ref 1s are imaging and soundstage champs and a little warmer. The 2.3s also excel in both areas.

The Thiels win on scale. Even with 4 subwoofers, the KEFs can't do that as well.

I have some room constraints in terms of setup. I can't move the speakers very far into the room and I think the sealed design of the 2.3s is a plus vs. the rear ported KEFs.

@jafant In response to your question about my systems...

System 1 (main system, with the 2.3s) - this is a combined home theater / 2 channel system.  Focus is more on vinyl, but I also stream here and spin a silver disc occassionally.

System 2 (computer room) - this is where I spend time in the morning, drinking coffee, catching up on emails and other stuff.  It's a near field system.  I primarily play grade records here and catch up on new music releases on Qobuz.

System 3 (home office) - 95 percent of my listening here is to FM radio while I work (news and jazz).  It also has a turntable and a DAC connected to my laptop but these rarely get used.

System 4 (bedroom) - mostly streaming, also listen to headphones.  This is also a combined home theater two channel system.

I have no experience with the Benchmark DAC.  I recently purchased an Aqua La Voce S3 for my near field system and love it.  The La Voce S3 is the "entry level" DAC in the Aqua line.  This review compares it to the Benchmark - http://v2.stereotimes.com/post/aqua-acoustic-quality-la-voce-s3-discrete-dac/  If nothing else, the Aqua DAC is a lot easier on the eyes.

I read a lot of reviews about the Analysis Plus cables and chose them in large part because they are regarded as neutral to warm.  I have other Analysis Plus cables farther down their line in use in other systems and those worked great.  Analysis Plus cables are in use for speakers only. The rest of the cabling shouldn’t matter since all my other speakers don’t suffer from this malady.

@cascadesphil Analysis Plus Black Mesh Oval 9

@cascadesphil 

When someone poses a question, I try to put myself in their shoes within their budgets and what they want to accomplish.  I often help people who are not audiophiles.  I wouldn't want to impart any of my disease (😀) to them.  We all have different tastes and goals and there's nothing wrong with that.

That's pretty much my approach also.  I try to keep my comments limited to what I have experience with, avoid speculation on things I don't have experience with, and acknowledge that there's more than one way to achieve your system goals. 

I might nudge someone towards waiting and saving up a little if their budget doesn't seem realistic compared to their stated goals, but I don't recommend that people spend more than they can afford.

I have a pair of 2.3s and 3.6s.  I find them both to be a little strident.  They do so many things right that I want to love them, but I haven't had much luck taming them with my gear and my room.  I plan to try the 2.3s in my bedroom system with a 460 watt Wyred 4 Sound class D amp and see how that works.  I never play at high volumes there, so it might be a good match.

 

@vair68robert A lot of vinyl sounds really good with the Thiels, and I do listen to mostly "classic rock".  I have two turntables in my main system, a Sota Sapphire and a Technics SL 1200 MK2.  The same record that sounds bright on the Sapphire will sound "good" (not bright) on the SL 1200, but loses a lot of detail, imaging, etc. 

I'm using the same phono stage for both, but have a MM cart on the SL 1200 MK2.  

It's quite possible it's not the speakers, it could be the cartridge, that the cartridge isn't set up right, the tonearm or cable, or how my phono stage handles MC vs MM cartridges.  

The thing is, I have a number of other speakers that sound great in that system with the same electronics, so it feels like I'm trying to fit a square peg in a round hole.

@vair68robert My Sota doesn't have the vacuum hold down.  Maybe someday.  I use Sota's reflex clamp, which is good, but not as good as holding down the edges of the record.  Prior to the Sota I had a VPI Classic 2 and their periphery ring.  I initially had a hard time paying what I did for a big metal ring, but it was very effective and worth every penny.