Thiel Owners

gs5556 , I've owned my 3.6's since 1993 and still love the sound they produce. I did have to have the midrange and tweeter repaired on one of the speakers at different points. The midrange had a problem where something failed and thin wires kind of unwound and were protruding around the base of the phase plug. I took it to Audio Consultants where I had purchased it and they took care of having the driver repaired by Thiel and reinstalled. That was about in 2003 or so.  A few years later the tweeter in that same speaker pretty much fried. I spoke with, I believe it was Rob at Thiel and sent the tweeter in for rebuilding. He called me a few days later and we talked about what may have happened  He said the driver was pretty badly damaged and I mentioned the type of music I listen to. Contemporary Folk..basically acoustic guitar, vocals, that type of music, and nothing at any levels that are apt to over drive a tweeter. 

  He sent me back the rebuilt tweeter, but had me do a test before I reinstalled it. He said that they had had an issue with a specific component of the crossover failing, that would send a full range signal through to the tweeter. He had me do an ohm meter test on the resistance  being supplied by the crossover to the tweeter inputs. He said it should be 20 ohms.  Mine was .1 ohms, that's point 1 ohms....basically a dead short. That's why my tweeter blew, and the rebuilt one would have blown as well had I hooked it back up without having the failed crossover component replaced first.

  Rob knew exactly which component in the crossover needed to be replaced and I had that done, and the tweeter has worked perfectly ever since.  

   I do have two other systems in the house, both with Magnepan speakers, but my main system still has the Thiel 3.6's and I have no plans to replace them. 

And I am pleased with upgrade progress in the studio.

Unsound - I'm not in a position to manufacture new frames, but we'll work on getting yours hotrodded.

Catalysis - Thanks for your kind words about the CS3.5; I'm confident that we can upgrade some of the weak links in them. From a historical perspective the 3.5 represents Jim's pure vision, before HT, Digital sources, etc. demanded ported bass or more elaborate and expensive solutions than we were able to shoulder. Remember that Thiel was only 5 years out of the garage and 7 years total in its start-up. Regarding fruit, it's looking like the CS3.5 is my first project (with other models as lab rats and workhorses as supporting cast.)

Hi Everyone. Belated Season’s Greetings to all. As I might have mentioned earlier in this thread, I’ve been using two subs very, very sucessfully with my 3.5s for a couple of years now.

Much of the following may therefore be repeated comment, but I think is worth regurgitating here to add grist to the mill in terms of the current discussion on the validity of the two sub approach.

This move was actually enforced in that I changed to a VPI 299D tube integrated amp, usually using four KT150s, and thus had no way of being able to incorporate the bass EQ unit in the system, as it doesn’t offer a tape loop.

My strong opinion is that, in the context of my listening room, this has subjectively been a major sonic improvement.

As has been suggested here earlier, I feel that the drivers are under much less stress with two subs and, as such, the 3.5s have room to breath.

It probably took a day or so to properly dial in the subs and I’ve never felt the slightest urge to change anything since then.

Even though the 3.5s were already easily the best conventional speaker I have owned with the EQ unit - I alternate them with my Quad 57s - they impress even more with the subs, which I have positioned about a foot behind each 3.5 and firing at each other into the soundstage with the woofers at 90 degrees to the 3.5 drivers. Again in the context of my listening room, this is where they work best without a hint of directionality.

All that being said, I’m eagerly awaiting Tom’s upgrades and watch this space, as it were, every week to check on progress.

I’ve owned a lot of great conventional speakers, including Celestion Kingston’s, Kef 107/2’s, and Rogers LS3/5A’s and none of them holds a candle, overall, to properly setup and well cared for 3.5s, which I truly believe to be one of the best, most well thought through and underrated designs ever.

I acquired them a few years ago simply because a cherished and essentially mint pair became available quite local to me and I’d always enjoyed listening to Thiels at hifi shows etc. It wasn’t therefore a planned purchase but has proven to be one of, if not the, best moves I ever made in this wonderful hobby.

I will never sell them and after well over 30 years of being only ever partially happy with other reasonably conventional designs, I have my forever speakers, so anything that can be done to ensure they outlast me is going to be welcomed with open arms.

As I mentioned earlier, I also run near mint 1978 Quad 57s in the system from time to time and I’m always astounded by how well the Thiels compare in the areas for which the Quads are so renowned in their midrange, timbre and transparency.

Hoping that 2020 sees the first fruits of Tom and Rob’s labors. Wishing everyone on here a great year ahead.

Happy Friday! All

@tomthiel, Not something I can take on. 2020 is most encouraging. Will one need to have their current grills modified or can one purchase new updated grills?  

Unsound - I'm not even close to time-lining. I am spitballing lots of areas to establish meaningful measurement techniques, audibility and suitability selection. I can say that the grille is a surprise and is suitable for work - worth pursuing, and that I have 2 first-approach solutions to try. Also, the chosen solution must and therefore will be cost effective. It will re-use the top and bottom wood struts, and the two round steel cross struts. The side frames will be replaced with either Baltic Birch frames with more complex, angled routed openings and steel reinforcement to allow contouring of the inboard (baffle-side) member. Or the side frames could be replaced with steel round-bar frames. New, more transparent fabric in either case.

If you or someone you know is handy with such things, I could tutor you through the considerations and you could DIY a solution or two for our mutual edification. Otherwise, I suspect sometime in 2020 with a justifiable and reasonable price.

@tomthiel, Is there an eta and/or price projection on the 3.5 grill upgrade?

Unsound - I concur with the merit of balanced EQ, and balanced operation in general. I am not the guy to develop that solution; I hope that someday we might find that resource. But the issue of over-driving with "modern" high-impact music and effects still persists. Getting THAT much output from a 10" woofer and 5" midrange with first order slopes is a really tall order.
I'm prototyping a grille that looks stock (for history), but is made of 1/4" round bar outboard and proper roundings inboard. Should be pretty transparent. Also, a properly rounded inboard frame with no outboard element - no fabric, just finish the baffle curves like the CS2.2. Come to think of it, the 3.5 development prototype had just such a half-frame.

@oblgny, you don't have to conduct your business here in order to be included in the forums. I for one would miss you.

@tomthiel, after (and please excuse me if I'm beating a dead horse on this) the lack of a truly balanced eq, the 3.5's grills seemed like one of the biggest shortcomings. Do love the baffles. I very much look forward to your grill upgrades for the 3.5's!

Re: Thiel CS 3.5 bass eq and subs please see my thoughts previously posted here:

https://forum.audiogon.com/discussions/thiel-owners-2?page=12


With subs I recommend using the eq at the 40 Hz setting.

Thanks for putting this in words. I fully concur with your observations. Even though some improvement of the speakers is audible, I get the biggest improvement from the improved room response from experimenting and simulating with different placements. 

thielrules wrote:
"Great posts. Just got lost with this statement. Not sure if there is a typo:
The CS3.5's equalizer was a gigantic improvement, which I found to sound just as good as no eq at all."
I meant to communicate that the CS3.5's equalizer was a gigantic sonic improvement over the O3a equalizer. Throwing away the O3a eq, and replacing it with subwoofers very much improved the sound of the O3a. But the CS3.5 crossover was so good, that using it didn't degrade the sound to my ears at all. So using it was "just as good" as not using it, in every sonic way except the obvious loss in low bass. And, except for power handling. So, for medium listening levels, I found no sonic reason to stop using the 3.5 equalizer. As Tom points out though, theoretically, using a subwoofer instead of the CS3.5 eq did have benefits to woofer excursion when playing louder. And when CDs came into being, playing louder became a problem for CS3.5 in many ways, not only the woofer excursion. Midranges and tweeters started to become over-driven too. In 20+ years of playing only records in a small bedroom through the CS3.5, I never had a problem. But when I started to use them again after 10 years of storage, well, then I was playing CDs too, and I had a much bigger room, so I burned out the midranges and noticed over-taxing the woofers.

Rules - by "just as good", I believe Warren refers to sound quality. See this audiogon thread regarding some pros and cons.
https://forum.audiogon.com/discussions/thiel-3-5-equalizer-advice
Even if the Thiel EQ or Golden Flutes alternative were completely sonically transparent, we are left with the problem of extreme woofer and lower midrange excursion which introduces various distortions including Doppler Shift and large excursion non-linearities.

No matter where you land on this controversy, it certainly represents a major historical shift away from low-order, sealed bass tuning to higher-order, ported tuning with the passive radiator. Originally Thiel speakers were going to use ports and passives in the 1 and 2 series, and equalizers and/or active woofer or subwoofers in the 3 and higher series. Jim struggled with the issue, felt some resentment with what sometimes seemed un or thinly founded critique and lack of appreciation for what the EQ brought to the table.

I personally felt that the passive radiators in the upper models, even though superbly executed, gave up a unique signature bass performance. A matter of history interjects itself: in the 70 and 80 there was less knowledge and willingness to solve room resonance issues. The speakers were often blamed for room problems, since they went so powerfully deep.

Warren - As you know, I consider the 03, 03a, CS3 and CS3.5 to be cognitively the same design. As such, as replacement drivers and solutions are developed for the 3.5, they will be applicable to the other models in the early 3 series. By the way, I believe those early 3 cabinets were the quietest that Thiel ever produced and, with some added bracing and SoftLaunch baffle tweaking, can be brought nicely into the 21st century. The grille frames suck more than I realized at the time. They're getting attention. Also, the modern grille fabric seems better than nothing and does not alter the frequency response appreciably if at all.

Great posts. Just got lost with this statement. Not sure if there is a typo:
The CS3.5's equalizer was a gigantic improvement, which I found to sound just as good as no eq at all.

Add a Classe DR8, DR9, DR-10 or DR-100 amplifier, and all is perfect in this world.

Tomthiel wrote:
"Just a thought. I suggest running the 3.5s wide open with no EQ. I remember the bass loading as critically damped, so it should approximate 12dB / octave. (But that's old memory) If you can match that rollout with a sub, the sub HF will operate in the directionality range, so 2 subs is better than 1. I for one am most in your progress."

Now we have here a subject very dear to my heart and experience. Both my Thiel O3a and CS3.5 had equalizers. I found the O3a to sound much better with a subwoofer crossed over EXACTLY  to the same curve as the EQ,  with no filter to the main speakers at all 

 The CS3.5's equalizer was a gigantic improvement, which I found to sound just as good as no eq at all. Never-the-less, there is the original Stereophile test still on the internet, which shows its EQ curve. Take out the equalizer, add one or two subwoofers, adjust their crossover frequency and slope to match that curve, and run the main Theils with no filter at all. This purist approach works and sounds like a charm. The 10"  woofers and main power amp are no longer taxed, so theoretically, distortion should be much less, and power handling much better.

Merry Christmas! ALL

warjarrett

Good to see you here as always. Santa is the best.

Happy Listening!

Oh, there's Santa now trying to stuff a pair of Thiel O3a speakers down my chimney. Oh how I have been hoping for another pair of these.

I have been having extensive telephone and email conversations with Tom about my love for certain models of Thiel (mostly the 3.5 and 3.7) and the one problem all have in common: a forward and agressive tendency in the upper midrange. As Tom experiments with solutions to apply to the cs2.x models, I have been duplicating his methods on my cs3.x models. He is tireless in his creativity, coming up with theories, testing them, aquiring variations of materials to compare, etc. And my Theil 3s have been exibiting the same benefits as he describes for the 2s

oblgny

PM sent. We will always be here for you. It has been a pleasure having your presence as a valuable member of the Panel. I learned quite a bit of Thiel Audio history plus sonically matched gear per your writings.
In  the short-term, you will be missed.

Happy Listening!

oblgny

As always, good to see you here my NY Brother.
Yes, the new (not better) rules,  for selling appears to be a point of contention. Hope Audiogon fixes this situation for the betterment of our Community.

PM sent.  
Happy Listening!

audiojan

Good to see you again. Thank You for the update. One will be hard-pressed to better the CS 2.4 loudspeaker.

Happy Listening!

With the CS2.4, when I listened to Pink Floyd Welcome to the Machine track on Wish You Were Here album, the initial sound affects of the track comes practically from the right wall right on my right side at my listening position. With my own speakers or from other brands, the affect comes also from the right wall but further up close to the speakers so it is not quite as spooky as with the CS. I also listened to them at a dealer with a more proper room treatment and the soundstage was even more real.

Hey kids,  just want to let you know that the payment options/rules for selling equipment here have changed with a suspiciously invasive set of requirements requiring a seller to declare him or herself a dealer or a merchant in order to complete a transaction. 

Because of this I am ending my membership in this otherwise excellent community. 

This thread and it’s contributors has been equally educating and just plain fun to follow. I wish you all the best this holiday season!

Jan - thanks for your comments. I am looking forward to including the 2.4s in my queue. They seem to be the audiophile darling in lots of ways, and I hope to calibrate how they stack up with the other models in my rotation. In particular my present work seeks to tame the consistently reported brash congestion with less than best recordings. That problem is not only the recording - the speaker can also be made to handle that situation better.

All - I'm looking forward to what 2020 will bring to these old Thiel classics. Merry Christmas

Put my Thiel CS2.4 back in rotation and wow! They are truly amazing speakers. In some regards, besting my Audio Physic Avanti 3.

I'm fortunate enough to have 2 pair of speakers of this caliber that I can swap in and out at will. Yes, a bit of work, but so worth it!

The Thiel's can disappear like no others when you give them the best recorded material. It's almost scary at times!

Had both a pair of svs pb 12 and sb12 on trial. Likely will end up keeping all of them.

Great Thread,
I had to downsize my B&W801S3.   I had heard Thiel years ago so I bought used Theil 2.2. I first noticed how musical they sounded over the B&W. So the B&W got sold.
Now my Vintage system is
Accuphase DP70 CD Player
Audioquest Columbia Unbalanced interconnect
Levinson 380S Preamp
Madrigal CZ Gel Balaanced Interconnect
Levinson 332 Amp
Audioquest Clear Speaker Cable
Thiel 2.2
Mirage Sub
Only the CD player has been recapped so far.

thielrules --
Which subs are you using, again?  Sorry--I'm sure you listed it in the thread, but it's a long thread!

Happy to report a noticeable improvement with the subs and the 3.7. The modes in the room have now been tamed resulting in more relaxed and balanced sound, more enveloping especially listening to orchestral pieces, and the speakers have now completely disappeared. Soundstage is now massive, much easier to listen to lower volume and get the full experience. Have the subs located halfway on each sidewall, 18 inches off the floor. 

Bud, Coors,  Heineken, Corona, Draft?

It's not the beers that made the man.  

Thanks Tom. Yes, I was thinking to use 2 sealed subs with the 3.5. 

@cascadesphil Nice, thanks for the information. I don't necessarily need that now but might be fun to play with at the price!

Just a thought. I suggest running the 3.5s wide open with no EQ. I remember the bass loading as critically damped, so it should approximate 12dB / octave. (But that's old memory) If you can match that rollout with a sub, the sub HF will operate in the directionality range, so 2 subs is better than 1. I for one am most in your progress.

I'm exploring adding woofers to my system. I have a large listening space, 30x30x20 ft where I have my 3.7 positioned. Have the svs sb12 and pb12 on trial. Have a second listening space of 22x16x12 where I have my 3.5. Tell me about your experience, placement, cut off setting and anything else. Thanks

An upgraded mic for an iPad is easy to use (and not expensive).  I do it all the time with REW -  https://www.parts-express.com/dayton-audio-imm-6-calibrated-measurement-microphone-for-tablets-iphone-ipad-and-android--390-810

I also have a USB mic ( https://www.parts-express.com/dayton-audio-umm-6-usb-measurement-microphone--390-808) that I'll use with a PC.

@last_lemming My suggestion to use an iPad was not good in your case. The iPad mic is good from about 200-3k cycles but really drops off below 200, coinciding with your problem area. A better mic is called for if you want to measure in the region you think is amiss. It worked fine in my case because I only needed to detect relative, not absolute, differences.

Happy Friday! All

Bud, Coors,  Heineken, Corona, Draft?

Beats having nightmares

Something funny ...
I was having a few beers late last night then I found myself listening to a pair of beautiful CS7.2 in a large mansion no less ... then I woke up, no speakers, no mansion, no beef :-)  Maybe I should stop working on speakers for awhile.  

tomthiel,

Very interesting comments! Thanks for taking the time to explain some of the issues involved with the structures in front of the 2.2 tweeters. I didn't even notice that the center plate was actually a hex shape until you mentioned it.

I'm fascinated by your work on the sharp edges on the back of the structure, and I hope your mods will have sonic benefits.

I think I will hold off on attempting to epoxy the detached legs/prongs until you figure out what sort of contouring or edge-coating may be helpful on the structure. I also want to consult Rob before I do anything.

Thanks again for the great info! 

Sdl4 - this is the first time I've heard of one leg being disconnected. They all three should hold the center plug in place. If those tweeters were mine, I would repair them with aluminum filled epoxy. You might consult Rob before doing anything and see what he thinks.
That fore-structure performs multiple functions. It protects the fragile dome. It also spreads the on-axis energy for broader dispersion at the high end. It also acts something like a phase plug in that it retards the leading energy at the apex of the dome to average it with the circumferential energy closer to the surround. The hex shape of the center plate is engineered as superior to a round one.
Considerable effort went into developing that structure, so I find it interesting when various pundits recommend removing it. I suggest trusting Jim's work, those kinds of details represent the meticulous care he took in the design process.

What I am looking at is the sharp edges on the back side of the structure, both the 3 arms and the plug. We didn't address that level of detail in the 80s, but I wish we had, and I now am attending to unfinished business. I do not yet have confirming measurements (working on it), but I (believe that I) can hear improvement via contouring the edges of all members and coating with soft agents. Work in process.

tomthiel,

Your mention of your work on modifications on the faceplate surface for the CS 2.2 tweeter reminded me that the tweeters on my 1992 2.2 speakers have an anomaly that I've always wondered about. Many years ago, I noticed that the black metal frame protecting the face of the tweeter has a small gap where the top prong (of the 3 prongs) looks like it should attach to the round center piece of the structure. The tweeters are identical on both of my speakers, with only the top prong not connected to the center disc. The tweeters themselves have no dents or creases and they seem to work well.

What is the purpose of the black metal frame in front of the tweeters (protection, waveguide, something else?) and are all 3 prongs supposed to attach firmly to the center disc? I obviously haven't been too concerned about this issue since I've ignored it for years, but your explorations into reflections off the surface of the speaker got me thinking about other issues that might affect tweeter performance/vibration in some way.

Thanks for any insights you can provide.

Andy, what you call more natural maybe related to the lack of frequency dependent phase shift. Your mind will need measurements to make sense of this. Simulations are no substitute. Don't under estimate the skill of making accurate measurements, I'm still improving in that area.