Pulling the mids and I thought the phase would be obvious. It's not.
There is one wire with kind of subtle red or rust coloring. The other white. No + - on the driver. I aim guessing the colored wire is positive but wanted to check with those who know.
Hope you all had great Thanksgivings. |
I owned a pair of CS7's several years ago. The dynamic "slam" I got from them in some pieces of music was absolutely amazing. An upgrade from Thiel at the time was supposed to improve the high end but it never happened, IMHO. I sold them because they sounded too bright for me, even with good tube amps. |
Tom
Have you ever considered writing a book about
Jim and the Thiel speaker company ?
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Sorry I missed your humor. Let's call it a CS4.
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Sorry for the confusing post. Other than the mechanical crossover, the rest of my post was intended as fantasy. And now you clarified that the crossover bit is also imagination.
Happy Thanksgiving |
Beetle - I'm not sure how much of that is correct - coming from different sources over time. I said mechanical crossover, but was enlightened to the contrary. Also the carbon diaphragm idea was countered by machined aluminum / beryllium alloy. And the sealed bass might have been my speculation based on my knowledge of Jim's fundamental bias. I never spoke with him about it, and my input comes from three sources with their own reads on the prospects. Even though his illness was kept secret from all of us, he knew he was dying; so the 7.3 may have been mostly speculative. But it seems it was what he was working on at the end.
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@tomthiel I recall you also wrote the 7.3 coax would have had a mechanical crossover. Carbon diaphragms, sealed bass and top shelf passive parts would have made for an absolute world beater. |
I was told that its coax would have had smaller drivers than the 3.7, suitable for crossing to smaller diameter lower midranges such as in the model 7; and would have trickled down to his 2.7 instead of the 3.7 coax.
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If Jim was still alive we would have had CS 7.3s, if i recall it was in his plans.
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Unsound, or the 3.5 with the coax from the 3.7 and a pair of sealed sub woofers.
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Thoft, are you importing your luxman yourself? A while back I did some research and noticed a significant price savings if you can live with the voltage adjustment and warranty. Which model did you order? |
@jafant No, I haven’t played with the fuses. Until the CS2.4, my tweaks were on the low budget end (mini-sandbox for my TT, cables on wood blocks, and the Ayre IBE disc). With the FST-sourced crossovers, it seemed very likely that an upgrade in parts quality would yield sonic benefits. Indeed, that is what I heard. The Ayre is such a great piece, I doubt I’ll ever afford anything better. Please let me know if you play with ultra fuses. |
Yea - you get what you get, and it gets better. Burn-in is relevant to reviewers to assess what a real listener will live with over time. I would love to hear if you find any measurable differences between fresh and burned in.
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I personally just threw it in and turned on the music |
new mid driver burn in? I recently received my pair of scan-speak 10F "13M replacement" from Madisound for my beloved 3.5s
I've taken a bunch of pink noise and vocal sample recordings at different distances with a decent condenser mic for future comparison. Now it's time to install and I'm wondering - should I run them free-air with a burn in program or playlist before installing? Should I install and run a burn in - or just put them in, screw it and listen to music??
There are more pressing questions to ponder I know - but your collective wisdom appreciated.
@tomthiel -Thanks you so much for 'telling tales out of school' and letting us behind the scenes at the company who's products we love and admire. |
Unsound - thanks for your response. Keep it coming. First, please let me explain my choice of words. By ’more accurate’ I mean adhering to a flat frequency and phase response curve. By ’more mature’ I mean embodying next-level technologies such as more sophisticated driver motors and diaphragms. I assume that I have considerably less actual experience with these models than you do, and that my opinion is therefore of limited scope and depth. In my present work, each model sample that I get, I measure and photograph and document and audition. For the 3.6 that means I have spent about one day with them. Period. Their introduction came near the end of my time at Thiel Audio and, frankly, I never found a subsequent opportunity to hear them. I concur with your disappointment - my opinion based not on performance (of which I am quite naive), but on philosophy. I don’t think ’rushed to market’ quite captures their introduction because Jim was always technically thorough in his development process. (often to the consternation of marketing director Kathy Gornik.) I think ’compromised’ might better capture it for me. My (ineffective) resistance of reflex bass revolved around trueness to our central principle of phase coherence. Jim and I shared the opinion that the bass establishes the musical foundation on which all else builds and that reflex bass is a compromise (permissible for budget.) But the model 3 was all about performance. Kathy felt that such details must be subservient to the demands of the marketplace (as you posit.)
Let’s shift gears to your ghost of a 4-way CS4 - exactly right in my view. Here’s what happened. It’s hard to understate the role that market demand places on a small growth company. Capitalization plays a big role also. Thiel was always undercapitalized - we pulled everything out of our collective hats, barely paid ourselves, rarely carried any debt and sunk our thin margins into self-bootstrapped growth. Enter the gravy years of the mid 80s. Affluence abounded. Many companies introduced their mega-priced statement products. Thiel was comparatively plodding along its incremental learning/growth curve. It may not be obvious, but Thiel succeeded better in foreign markets than here at home; we competed better in export markets at 2-3 times US retail prices. We were a big hit in Japan which at the time defined and led the pan Asian market. Japan demanded a Statement Thiel product. Jim floated some concept sketches with our Japanese distributor. Jim wanted to make your CS4. It made sense from everybody’s vantage point (from mine in Spades), except our Japanese distributor, who wanted what became the CS5. This next part is almost embarrassing, but what’s a little embarrassment among friends. Let’s talk culture. Our success in Japan was unusual, practically unprecedented, due in great part to our distributor. Kathy was adept at choosing optimal allies. Japan is a power-based culture and the contenders were brokering power arrangements where we held the weaker hand. A new distributor emerged with a Japanese-American principal, who understood both cultures and could navigate many pitfalls. He helped us navigate the weirdness of the number ’4’ in the orient. It symbolizes cosmic unluckiness, curse, death - bad suss. A CS4 would fail regardless of its merit. Kathy deferred to his guidance, but Jim would not put a CS5 moniker on a CS4 chassis. So he engineered the CS5, which in practical terms was beyond our company’s 1988 capacity to develop and produce. Tons of internal stress. The CS5 needed a longer incubation and internal design and engineering resources than the market demands allowed. It consumed the oxygen in our ecosystem which set the stage for scaling back the vision for the 3.6.
Now, that’s a lot of words for an internet forum. But you guys are my audience for these vanishing quirks of history.
The Thiel story contains lots of such workings behind the curtain, as do most human enterprises. It may interest you that the abandonment of the CS4 that you cite stands as a major element of my departure from the company I had co-founded and dedicated two decades to developing. In the early 90s, Thiel, like everyone else, faced an existential decision of how to survive in a market where multi-channel / home-theater was taking over. Thiel took that route. Imagine an alternative reality with a CS4 and a CS3.6 with a bass more true to its model 3 beginnings. Just thinking.
Cheers.
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Question regarding the CS5i speakers, which were mentioned here recently: wouldn't the sheer age of the speakers preclude anyone's interest in owning them now? It's going on 40 years, and that's plenty of time for adhesives, polymers and composites of one sort or another to substantially degrade. Comments welcome.
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beetlemania
have you upgraded the stock fuse(s) in your AX-5/20 ?
Happy Listening! |
thoft
Excellent! Those FPB 350 MC are incredible. At least ask the seller for a demo just to hear the presentation and sound. Luxman is making a fierce comeback here in the U.S. Keep me posted and have fun!
Happy Listening! |
@jafant i have a line on a pair of fpb-350mc monos within an hour of me. Hopefully I can work something out with the guy. Also my luxman just made it into the states and went through (luckily) a fast approval process in us customs. I’m excited to see this thing on my rack. |
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thoft
I have heard Arcam gear with Analysis Plus (not sure about the models) and Nordost Blue Heaven cabling only. I really like their FMJ cd players.
Happy Listening! |
hifi28
Welcome! Good to see your posts. Take your time and read through this thread for more information on the 3.6 speaker. I look forward in reading more about your musical tastes and system.
Happy Listening! |
thoft
Thiel loudspeakers are pretty forgiving w/ cabling. Use caution with silver-based/impregnated cabling though. Experiment and have fun!
Happy Listening! |
Thanks again guys, learning a lot here. The last pair of Thiel I listened to was indeed the 3.6 in a dealer show room twenty some years ago. It sounded very good but now I can't remember what amp was used. At that era, I think it must had to be some high power amp like Audio Research, Krell, Mark Levinson, Conrad Johnson or maybe Aragon, Bryston, Spectral etc. Since then, I've not been following hi fi development. It seems like now we have a lot more new manufactures and a more focus on multi-channels and digital products. What would be a good pre/power amp (2-3k budget, used equipment ok) to match the 3.6 in a two channel set up mainly for LP and some cd listening of classical, jazz and vocal. |
Hello all!
Just wanted to say that there is a good looking pair of 3.5’s for sale over at US Audio Mart. Speakers, the Electronic Bass module, spikes & original copy of 3.5 instruction/data brochure...very complete offering. Speakers are in Chicago & are listed for $699. Nice price for everything!
Know there have been a few posters & lurkers on this thread looking for 3.5’s & these look like they deserve to go to a good home.
Hope you & yours are all doing well & staying safe...Happy Thanksgiving!
Arvin |
^That’s a different comparison. A sealed box 3.7 would be a triumph! |
Unsound, I mostly agree with your preference for the 3.5 but can't say that it is better then the 3.7.
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@tomthiel, Your entitled your opinion and yours will deservedly carry more weight than mine. I’m not so sure that the 3.6’s are more accurate, perhaps not even more mature. But, while the 3.6’s are more dynamic, play louder and are more suave from the midrange up, the 3.5’s go deeper, have better time and phase coherence, and get more from less costly amplification. You’ve confirmed what I always suspected: that the 3.6’s were rushed to meet cyclical market demands. I was and remain disappointed. I would have guessed the 3.5’s would have been followed with a 4 way sealed box with time compensated bi-wiring keeping the eq out of the upper range. I can understand why some might prefer the 3.6’s, but I’ll go with 3.5’s every time. I think all things considered the 3.5’s were Thiel’s best product. The port made sense for the CS2’s down, but I think it was a mistake that kept being made (except for CS5’s whose amp requirements keep it from being the best Thiel) with the 3.6’s on.
YYMMV. To each his own. |
From a historical perspective the 3.5 > 3.6 transition is a watershed. The 3.5 has the more "correct" sealed box bass response. The model 2 was invented to implement the less expensive reflex bass. That introduces phase / time lag at the bottom of the spectrum, but the model 2’s reduced budget admitted that trade-off. Our pipe-dream vision of the model 3 was to develop a subwoofer that matched the second order sealed roll-off model three bass and which, by careful placement, can be made time correct and phase benign.
Around 1990 we had entered a subwoofer development project with Vifa creating a very early class D implementation. That should have become the bass foundation for a breakthrough 3.6. Another intriguing option was a transmission line bass, but at that time adequate modeling was not extant, and TL bass included tons of guess-work, trial and error and mixed results. An improved equalizer option was also floated as an intermediate step between acoustic and subwoofered bass. Through a few years of significant grief - that subwoofer didn’t materialize - it took years too long to develop. The market demanded a new model 3 offering, especially in Kathy’s opinion. Without putting too sharp a point on it, the 3.6 with its reflex bass became the result. Its bass is quite well executed, some say about as good as the form gets. But, it’s still a reflex bass system with its limitations and trade-offs.
I’m somewhat surprised that Jim continued with the reflex bass in his subsequent higher-end products rather than building on the seminal work of the sealed CS5, as well as developing transmission line and/or including subwoofer augmentation. A one-man development team can only take on so many challenges.
I second what's been said above. The 3.6 is the more mature and accurate product, plus it can be maintained with available rebuilt drivers.
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@hifi28, fitter468’s point about drivers are spot on. But, whether the 3.5’s or the 3.6’s are better comes down to individual preferences. I think if you read through this thread, you’ll find preferences pretty evenly divided for either one. |
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Hifi 28 I owned the 3.5s and moved on to the 3.6s in my opinion the 3.6s are better. They are both very good speakers but the 3.5 drivers are almost nonexistent as the 3.6s rob gillium can rebuild all the drivers. For that reason alone I would buy the 3.6s over the 3.5s.I had the 3.6s for 25 yrs trouble free and moved on to the cs 7s last yr. hope this helps David |
@jafant what interconnects do you recommend I have laspada between my pre and my power amp on the thiel system. When I get my arcam I’ll probably keep that systems cables all laspada. But I am looking to upgrade the cables on my imf system all around. Right now between the pre and amp on that system is an older mit interconnect cable that came with the mh750 speaker cables so I’ll probably be looking in the 300-600 range for a pair of interconnects. |
Thanks guys. It looks like I need a bigger amp if I want the 3.6. How much difference sound quality between the 3.5 and 3.6? |
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In terms of room size/speaker positions, I’ve played around with my 3.7s for quite some time and have settled on the following in my 15x20 room:
Speakers are placed along the long wall 32” out in front (measured from the rear of the speaker), 8.5’ between (from tweeter to tweeter) and approximately 5.75’ from each side wall. My listening position is 9’ away with a little over 2’ of space behind me. I have found this to be the optimal positioning for my room.
In terms of R2R Dacs, I recently updated to an MSB Analog DAC. Significant improvement from my Ayre QB-9. |
I like the satin black finish as well. My satin black Thiel sub is beautiful. |
I would imagine that Jafant’s suggested satin black might be particularly handsome. |
tomthiel
Thank You for another Thiel Audio history lesson. As above, the Black satin finish looks very nice. A Black matte finish would also look very nice.
Happy Listening! |
@tomthiel I have been in contact with Rob and I have already done the multimeter test. I think the wiring was revered both on the wires coming out of the crossover and also the connection to both midrange and tweeter terminals. A real mess up. I have not confirmed the wires coming out of the crossover yet with Rob but based on the Ohm numbers recorded and what Rob told me to expect, it looks like it was wired in the wrong manner. So I believe my COAX is damaged. I just bought 2 new black COAXs from Rob last week and will have this issue put to bed. What a nightmare.
@unsound Yes, I over thought it. I must also say I am not the biggest fan of that contrast either. I am likely going to do a solid matte paint job in the upcoming week. |
@yyzsantabarbara, I think you read too much into my previous post, I merely meant that with their contrasting color quadrants that they looked like a harlequin. |
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unsound
yyzsantabarbara got me thinking,
Tom wrote
" In a 15' wide space, I would rather have 6' between speakers with 4.5' to side walls, than to have 8' between and only 3.5 aside . "
that got me trying .
Since owning these speakers I've been stubborn about positioning them
from 8ft to 8ft 8in apart , and from 8ft to 8ft 9in from my ears .
The room is 13ft 1in wide and listening length is 10ft 9in ,
so speaker movement is limited .
I've also tried ever degree of toe-in .
I thought about what makes the 10ft distance to the listeners ears
and 8ft apart as the ideal triangle and why didn't the 8ft to the listener and 8ft apart ( withor without toe-in ) did'nt make me shout WOW .
The 8ft equilateral triangle gives one a 60 deg angle listener to speaker ,
the isosceles traingle with the speakers 10ft from listener is 47deg .
For the first time I moved the speakers closer than 8ft ,
I now have 39in to the outside wall and 33in to the front wall
with a listening distance of 96in , the center to center is now 82in .
The listening angle is 50.5 deg and the sound is fantastic !
2 gains , less reflection distortion and much wider sound stage .
I've tested the reflection gain by taking accoustic panels and temporarly placing them in the approx location , small gain but enough that I'll still buy 2 more panels to hang .
I believe the greatest gain was the listening angle .
With the speakers centers at 8ft and listening angle at 60 deg
I didn't have much space left for soundsatge outside the speakers
but with the speaker centers at 6ft 10in and listening angle of 50 deg
I feel that this is as close to the listening experience that one would have
if you could be sitting at the ideal postion of 10ft from the speakers that are 8ft apart and you had over 4 ft to the outside walls .
It's been said before and I'll say it again ,
Thank You Tom for your insight , knowledge and experience .
Rob
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Regarding driver wiring: there is a simple trick if you have a multimeter. Get access to the driver terminals, feed a signal to the speaker. Measure the AC voltages at the terminals. The woofer should be the highest, midrange much less and tweeter less than that. If a tweeter shows higher voltage than the mid, it is mis-wired from the crossover. Get Rob’s help to straighten it out.
Regarding cabinet construction. Thiel speaker walls have always been multi-laminates. Solid woods are less than desirable due to variable, under-damped and unpredictable resonance modes. The outer layer is a face veneer, matched by an interior backing veneer, each about 0.020" thick (5 pieces of paper). The 3.7 and 2.7 share their substrate panel which is an engineered sandwich of birch and other veneers glued into the curved shape under heat and pressure. In a historical context, that sandwich was envisioned from the beginning; it just took time to develop into a real product.
In the 03 development in 1978, we landed on Baltic Birch plywood as the substrate. (In fact we used FinPly, a higher quality alternative.) That BB/FP is twice as stiff as Particle Board and 3x as stiff as MDF. But it is under-damped and unpredictable in its resonance modes. Over the years, I messed with making our own build-ups, including bending the panels, which solves most of the inherent panel movement. But, for a small company making moderately priced products, those technologies were beyond our reach. The CS2, 3 and 3.5 used 1-1/8" industrial particle board plus face and back veneers for an extremely rigid and well damped panel. When we developed CNC capacity in the late 80s, we converted to MDF because we could pack engineered shelf braces into the construction. Check out the cutaway in the Stereophile review of the CS2.2, which was our first product designed for CNC manufacture. Nonetheless those well-braced MDF cabinets exhibit some resonances, and quieter is better. For the 3.7, Thiel found a subcontractor in Atlanta to make the unfaced custom curved panels. Thiel added the face/back veneers in-house with a custom curved mold press. That same panel is trimmed for the 2.7. The precision machining, including landings for the internal braces, were done on Thiel’s custom CNC.
Regarding drivers - Thiel designed its own drivers beginning in the early 80s for the CS3 introduced in 1983, as co-developments with Vifa of Denmark. Our deal was that Jim would design what Vifa could manufacture and offer to the larger market to amortize their development and tooling costs. That was unique in the industry and many Thiel design innovations worked their way into generic Scandinavian offerings. When our requirements eclipsed those of the broader market, we had to create our own driver-making capability, not because we wanted to, but because that was the only way we could get what Jim wanted. The CS5 (1989) drivers were (modified) off the shelf, except for our exclusive UltraTweeter. The following CS2.2 and CS3.6 were completely Thiel-designed x Vifa-made for us exclusively. All further products’ drivers were built in-house. By the time the 3.7 was designed in the mid 00s, Jim’s illness had progressed, and ways were developed for outsourcing most critical parts. Thiel, along with Vifa, ScanSpeak and others, co-developed FST as a high-quality Chinese driver source. Things change, and FST became the only feasible way to make those custom flat diaphragms. Many of the high-end Scandinavian drivers are coming from FST and other Chinese suppliers. Most of Thiel’s products since the mid 90s have early drivers built in-house and later drivers sourced from FST. In most cases they are equivalent, but in some cases, like the PowerDriver in the PowerPoint, etc. the tweeter module can no longer be replaced separately. Thiel could pull off that stunt in-house, but FST insisted it couldn’t be done. And you can’t make a supplier do what can’t be done.
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@thieliste I know about those 2 DACs. I am looking at a bit lower cost, so the Halo Spring Level 3 and the Denafrips Terminator +. If I were to spend over $10K (I won't for a DAC) I think it would be the non-R2R Mola Mola Tambaqui. I have spent $1580 on a new Benchmark DAC3B and I have no complaints other than needing a second DAC in the future. I was also waiting on the new Luxman chip based DAC that is in their uber SACD player. The specs are amazing and the sound is supposed to be very analog. My main thing nowadays with electronics is that they have to be close to as quiet as my Benchmark HPA4 preamp. For me that makes all the difference in the world because I can hear the silence. @unsound That harlequin effect is beyond my brain power. I looked it up online but could not find anything about it. In University, I took a class on some subject that discussed the following book, https://www.amazon.com/Visual-Display-Quantitative-Information/dp/0961392142/ref=sr_1_2?dchild=1&...There were some very interesting visualization issues described in that book. I still have that book and tried to look up the harlequin effect, no luck. |
@yyzsantabarbara I'm also going to get a R2R DAC and the one on my shortlist for my Thiel rig is the Aqua Formula xHD v2.Check out Totaldac they make very analogue sounding R2R Dacs too.
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@yyzsantabarbara,FWIW, I typically don’t care for black finished speakers, but for the very reasons you’ve suggested, I think the black finish could help disguise the harlequin effect the often 3.7’s present to my eyes. |
I was also surprised at the amount of content from China on the CS3.7. I thought they built the COAX in house but Rob mentioned something about getting shipment of drivers and why they have the black coated new ones. I did not ask more questions on that but that article makes it clear. As does the fact that it is laminate with a veneer. I am also looking at an R2R DAC for the Thiel system and I have 2 Chinese made DACs at the top of the list. So I have no issue with audio gear from China. I want to get my bedroom headphone system rebuilt so I can use my Benchmark DAC3B or the second DAC for that. The previous CS3.7 repairs were not done by a repair person. It was done by the previous (or first) owner. The dealer seems to have also opened up the COAX driver screws to have a look inside and had over torqued the screws to break the threads (just fixed by me). At the moment I have the COAX drivers off and the woofers and other parts covered nicely for sanding, staining, or if I get brave, painting. As I mentioned before it is so much easier to carry the speaker with the COAX removed. The cherry color I have is nice but I always wanted something a little more distinctive for the office. When I was considering the Paradigm Persona 3F I looked at the customer color configurator and came up with a few color combos that I liked. I use the grill at all times (my 4 year old has never seen the drivers). https://design.paradigm.com/en/persona/customizeCarbon Black Gloss (saw this in person) Burnt Orange (I loved the KEF Blade in orange) My new neighbor has a beautiful matte brown colored Mercedes. I was think of painting the cherry to a matte black to perfectly match the top aluminum shell which has been recently spray painted by me. I think it may look good with the black grill on. Just thinking out loud at the moment. |
A couple of thoughts regarding moving speakers closer together. One should be aware that as one moves the speakers closer together that you would also be moving the speakers closer to the listener. As such, it could affect driver integration. In order to preserve the time coherence that Jim Thiel worked so hard to achieve, a minimum of 8’ and preferably 10’ distance from speaker to listener needs to be maintained.
Also, as I previously touched upon, yyzsantabarbara is considering using DSP RC. In which case the opposite closer to wall placement could be advantageous. In fact. when using DSP RC not placing them directly besides the walls could trade one set of problems for another. Ideally speakers such as Thiel’s own powerpoints would be used with DSP RC.
Without DSP RC keeping the typical Thiel speakers well away from immediate reflections is most advantageous.
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yyzsantabarbara
As unsound pointed out previous Thiels were laminate ,
my 2.7's are laminate but to assure yourself remove the coaxial speaker and look at the inside of the cabinet .
At the same time take the passive readiator out and if you have a multi-meter check the continuity of the wires to check for cross termination ,
something the repair technician shoud have done and discovered
during the repair ( I marked my tweeter wires with painters tape when I rewired to avoid the mistake you are describing ) .
And I would like to thank you for opening my eyes with your discovery of your speakers sounding the best you've ever heard at 6 feet apart ,
I know you have a small room but it got me thinking .
There is always something to learn by following this forum's conversations .
Rob
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@yyzsantabarbara, the previous Thiel’s were laminates. I suspect the same holds true for the 3.7’s. Though they came after Tom Thiel’s departure, I doubt you’ll find anyone with more insight regarding Thiel’s cabinetry. He’s a master at such things. |
I didn’t realize the 3.7s had that many parts made in China. Thanks for posting the link yyz |
