Thiel Owners

yyz - for your smallish space, you might also consider CS2.7s with the same coax. Lots of fans here. 

@thieliste  I do not want to press my luck. I won't elaborate on a public forum.

A few years ago some dealer in Southern Cal. had like something like 6 Thiel 3.7 speakers in storage that they wanted to clear out. I had no place to store it at that time. I should have got a storage unit, a real shame.

Tell your accountant it is a business expense 😀

Thanks everyone for your feedback on the 3.7's. My accountant was a party pooper today by informing me I have to make a larger than expected tax payment on Oct 15th. So no chance to make an offer on the 3.7 today.

However, I am going to keep my eyes open for other 3.7's for sale after the Christmas holidays. 

@yyzsantabarbara - I bought my 3.7s in 2012 and then had kids in 2013 and 2014.  I've moved 3 times since then and they've been in a bunch of less than perfect setups.  While they'll be best in a big, well setup room, I think you can appreciate a lot of their virtues in less than ideal situations.  The coaxial mid/tweeter make them much less sensitive to listener position than previous models.  I worked from home for years and used my 49" 4k tv as a monitor.  The speakers were 2-3 feet from me on each side.  I spent many hours listening to music that way and found them very enjoyable.  Even in that situation they image surprisingly well.  They are very intelligently designed to work in a lot of situations.  The dispersion is great so the tonal balance doesn't shift dramatically at different angles.  They don't try to do the deepest bass and therefore avoid a lot of room problems.  Ear height can be important so get an adjustable height chair.  If I were you I'd go for it.  I doubt you'll regret it.- 

andy2

Nah! Not along that portion of the river bank. 

If you like diamondbacks, copperheads, centipedes, scorpions and tarantulas, go to Canyon De Chelly and visit  the Northern canyon (Canyon Del Muerte.)   Lotsa' fun!

( I grew up in Arizona )

For what it's worth:
I had the 3.7s in my 13' X 15' room and they worked perfectly.  No problems whatsoever.
Then again, it's a really good room for sound.

That's a third for visiting the Grand Canyon.
Going through the canyon in an inflatible raft is an awesome experience.

and snake hunting lols.

@brayeagle I need to put my next floor standers in the space where the KEF LS50’s now reside. I cannot move anything now. I have identified 2 speakers that will work, Vivid Kaya 45, Paradigm Persona 3F, and maybe Yamaha NS5000. However, the 3.7’s is something I have a greater affinity for, even after all these years.

I would never have considered the 3.7 for this space but the person selling had them in a 10 x 10 space, which shocked me. I was left wondering if at low to med volume and in an acoustically treated room, would the 3.7’s work for me.

I owned the SCS4’s long ago and I believe they would work fine in this treated room.

yyzsantabarbara,

I took a very good look at your office and wondered where you might place a pair of 3.7s, especially as your desk is located in one corner and apparently might be difficult to relocate.

Just a thought

Advice from Thiel owners. There is a 3.7 for sale on A'gon which I am sure a lot of you have seen. My room is 12x11x9 and acoustically treated. I listen while I work so the sound level is low to medium. Am I crazy to consider the 3.7's for this space.

https://systems.audiogon.com/systems/7605

I have always been of the opinion that the 3.7's were one of the best speakers I have ever heard and I have heard a lot of very expensive speakers.

andy2,

That's a third for visiting the Grand Canyon.
Going through the canyon in an inflatible raft is an awesome experience.

Thanks Jafant.

(I admit to being perplexed by Andy's theistic allusions in regards to audio...)

I had a previous spare set of CS3.6s that I bought with dents in both tweeters. I delicately pulled most of the dents out with clear Scotch tape, but with metal domes there will still be slight undulations. It doesn't just pop up in one motion, but requires multiple small pulls. I used clear tape since I could see through to the underlying dome. If you use a straw, I would use one made of soft rubber like comes in some of the "sippy cups" and preferably clear so you can watch as the dent comes out. Jon

Bighempin - I agree with Paul: in the pistonic range the same amount of air is moved, so the frequency response is not impacted very much. But there are further subtleties in my opinion. The shape of the compression wave coupled to the air will get turbulent as the frequencies approach the upper limit of the tweeter. I think it likely that the upper octave may become ragged with the crumpled dome.

Even though we, especially older male, listeners aren't supposed to hear above 15K (I'm out considerably lower than that), we somehow register anomalies in the upper ranges. I can hear the differences in various digital high-cut filter configurations, and all that stuff is supposed to be near or above 20kHz.

So, there may not be a "huge" difference, but then again, consider the effort we spend on getting quite small sonic improvements from our systems. The human ear-brain is a magnificent piece of work.

Rojacob, Thielrules, Jazzman, Jon_5912, TomThiel and all!
Thank you all for the great responses. Yes I think one of those fat straws would fit through and I love the idea of the paper towel roll. All great ideas.

That being said I found a video(see link below) of Paul McGowan talking about dented tweeter domes. In his opinion, depending on the extent of the dent, it would most likely not be a problem except cosmetically. His attitude was that it would not affect the sound quality. I was a bit skeptical about that and wanted to hear opinions from you guys.

I called Rob over at Coherent Source this morning. I wanted to run some of these ideas by him before I tried anything. He suggested the tape method as well. I mentioned the video of Paul and his opinion on dented tweeters. Rob agreed with Paul. Rob said as long as I was not hearing any buzzing, then the voice coil was not damaged and it would likely not be an issue.

JA and I are trying to get together for a listening session at my place in the next few weeks. I’m thinking I might wait for JA’s assessment before I try anything. That will give me time to keep listening, and thinking about what I want to do. I don’t feel any need to rush to fix it at this point.

That being said, I bet getting that dent to pop out with a paper towel roll or straw is probably the most satisfying feeling in the world. If I try anything I am leaning towards the paper roll or straw(I have the perfect water bottle straw).

Thanks for all the help. I will keep you all posted when I have an update.

https://www.psaudio.com/askpaul/does-a-dented-dome-tweeter-matter/

Second, visit the Grand Canyon

Seems like a long way to go to prove God exists though.

Happy Autumn!  All

andy2

Not a chance prof would confabulate his own thread. Second, visit the Grand Canyon... (all of it).

Happy Listening!

prof 's loudspeaker audition thread is an excellent read. He covered many popular brands in detail. This information is especially helpful for those who do not have local Audio representation.

That is unless he made it all up.  Like how can you prove God exists. :-)

I've sucked out tweeters with toilet paper rolls before.  I'd try that before resorting to a vacuum.  My kids are 5 and 6 so for the last few years I've been trying to avoid them damaging my 3.7s.  I actually built light frames around them and put them on plywood platforms on wheels.  The idea was that I was going to basically Vandersteen them by wrapping the frames with some fabric mesh.  I never got to that but the frames consisting of 4 vertical dowels and a rectangle frame on top did a good job of preventing kid damage.  Just in the last couple of months I finally got rid of those frames.  I think the basic idea is a good one for anyone wanting to make it through the little kid years without a lot of dings or worse.  I'm sure you give up a little bit sonically and it doesn't look great but when you've got tiny kids those things are secondary anyway.

oblgny

Thank You for the kind words. I enjoy reading about your Audio journey from past to present date.  Hope you are well and gearing up for the Fall season there in NY.

Happy Listening!

rojacob

Good to see you here again.  Happy Listening!

andy2

prof 's loudspeaker audition thread is an excellent read. He covered many popular brands in detail. This information is especially helpful for those who do not have local Audio representation.

Happy Listening!

Yes! perhaps a fat milkshake straw for mouth suction.

Question ..... would you be able to fit a straw through the cage that covers the tweeter?

Masking tape has my vote.

biglhemp, I've had success with a model CS2 tweeter with a similar problem using an empty toilet paper roll placed over the tweeter and gently sucking. Not sure if the 3.7 tweeter would likewise respond to this, but I was afraid to use anything more powerful.

Jaw drop. They sounded, thin - almost lifeless. I double checked all the cables on everything. All good.

Perhaps the old cables need to be "re-broken in" :-)

However, the wire itself in the 2.4s is pretty high-end. It is 5-9s, high purity, low oxygen, long crystal, high polish 18 gauge solid in teflon jackets, precision twisted at 2.5 / inch.

Hi Tom,

I was only joking about the Home Depot stuffs :-)

Andy 2 - Beetlemania and Holco (?) both reported improvements with internal wire. I have wire from StraightWire and Cardas in my comparison kit. However, the wire itself in the 2.4s is pretty high-end. It is 5-9s, high purity, low oxygen, long crystal, high polish 18 gauge solid in teflon jackets, precision twisted at 2.5 / inch. We first developed that wire in 1978 via our access to aerospace instrumentation solutions. The ITT aerospace 6-9s wire is no longer available, but current Thiel wire is as good as is available for its type.

Now, all that said, I believe there is possibly room for improvement via multi-gauge litzed bundling. Remember that a manufacturer occupying Thiel's cost-effective niche, can never afford state of the art, every decision is balanced for optimizing cost-effective balanced performance. But I will be substituting more sophisticated wire to compare its performance with stock.
I should note that in the development of the original 03 in 1977, wire purity for hookup and coils was paramount to getting listenable results from the phase coherent configuration, as I have elaborated earlier in this thread. I am very tuned in to wire, wire was in my purview during Thiel's first 20 years.

Bighempin - I have never seen that tweeter up close and personal. I believe that tweeter module comes out of the midrange mount. But that's risky business for a non-adept. I personally would try it in place. Your child's finger went in the center hole, so the failure geometry exists within that central area.

TomThiel- Thank you for the response. Do I need to remove the little black cage that is over the tweeter to use the vacuum or masking tape method? If so, how do I do that? Thanks

Bighempin - try masking tape or rig a vacuum cleaner to a small diameter tube to suck it out. I suggest a vacuum bypass in your tube, such as a hole you can cover with your finger to adjust vacuum pressure. Too much vacuum pressure could rupture the foil.

https://imgur.com/gallery/RidPnxL

Well that didn’t take long! I made the mistake of taking my grill covers off for a few hours and my 6 year old couldn’t resist the urge to touch the tweeter on one of my 3.7s while I was out of the room. She dented it pretty good. Check out the pictures. Any tips or advice? Thanks for the help.

I think that the ongoing debate regarding cables is rendered moot when one considers what a difference an amp,  or a preamp,  or any piece of equipment contributes to a system's overall synergy.  Thiel took me on quite an interesting journey to find the "right" amplification in order to hear them at their best.  (Even though they sounded better than anything else I've heard hooked up with some old speaker wire I had lying around after I turned my Klipsch Epic 3's into CD cases.)  Come to think of it,  when I dismantled those Epics for the repurposing as CD cases I was surprised to discover that the internal, factory wiring was...speaker wire exactly like I used to hook them up.  Go figger.

After many an amp/preamp combo I finally stumbled upon Pass Labs.  Boing!  Kapow!  All that good stuff.  And I mean great stuff.  My CS3.5's (at the time) became incredible loudspeakers as opposed to merely great loudspeakers.  I had all my associated equipment, the amp and preamp,  the cd player,  the server,  the turntable,  maple platforms,  this and that, without ever considering upgrading the speaker wire, err...cables.  So I did.

I have to admit that all of the aforementioned equipment IS easier to judge as to whether or not any makes a tangible difference in bettering a system.  We also get to SEE all the aforementioned equipment joining the herd whereas cables disappear into the background.They don't glow,  they don't have remote controls,  there's no hands on finagling after we've connected 'em.  BORING!

So,  the very last thing I started paying attention to in my system were the cables.  Everything I had was still was hooked up with what the manufacturers provided in the boxes,  those Best Buy rca cable interconnects,  the power cords,  what have you.  I went around the corner to my local bricks and mortar audio shop in beautiful downtown Lake Grove, NY, and bought a bunch of Transparent Music Wave connects and speaker cables.  (The only cable I could not change was on the Marantz TT-15 turntable,  which was essentially a Clearaudio model with a Marantz badge slapped on it.)  For some silly reason they only supplied a proprietary cable which could not swapped out.  Harrrumph!

I had been enjoying my system for quite a while with the ordinary cables by this point.  Now, with all the new cables in place I settled back.  Did I hear a palpable,  tangible difference when I first hooked them up?  No,  I did not.  But here's the rub - after a good period of time had passed I was doing some house chores and had to un-hook most of my system.  In the interim one afternoon I decided that I needed musical accompaniment to my sanding and painting and scraping,  so I hooked up the 3.5's with the old speaker wire.

Jaw drop.  They sounded, thin - almost lifeless.  I double checked all the cables on everything.  All good.

While I will never spend the sort of money that "high end" esoteric cables ask for,  I've spent more than I ever thought I would.  I was a non-believer.  Ask Jafant.  Now my current system is all Transparent cables again.  I still have a spool of bare-assed, simple,  bigbox store speaker wire that I use occasionally to hook up a pair of Usher bookshelfs for kicks, but I'm sold on "better" cables.

So there's my two cents.

I love this thread! Whenever contrasting opinions are expressed (such as on the issue of cables), there is no name-calling or attempts to shout down disagreements.

Maybe if we try to discuss about power cables then see if that statement still holds :-)

But joking aside, looking at the internal cables used in the 2.4, with respect to Tom and Thiel's, I was wondering if they may be a bottle neck.  They look suspiciously like something from Home Depot :-).  There was a post a few months back from someone I forgot (holco or something) that when he upgraded the internal cables, there was a meaningful improvement.

I love this thread! Whenever contrasting opinions are expressed (such as on the issue of cables), there is no name-calling or attempts to shout down disagreements.

For guys like Prof and Brayeagle, who have tried a wide range of cables in their systems and ultimately decided not to invest a lot of time and money in expensive cabling, I respect their opinions on what works or doesn't work in their systems. However, for people who have never tried different cables with their gear, it may be worth a listen. 

I have never spent more than $400 on any single interconnect or speaker cable so I can't say that I have explored the cable "high end," but I have heard significant differences between the cables I have tried. Some cables were a great match for my system, while some were a bad match.

If you have never had a chance to demo several cables through Thiel speakers in your home system, you might consider borrowing a few cables from a friend or audio dealer - or checking out cables from the lending library at the Cable Company. If you find specific cables that make your system sound more natural and musical, you will be able to move a little closer to audio perfection. On the other hand, if using different cables doesn't positively affect the sound of your system - for your own ears - then you can be happy with what you already have and save yourself a lot of time and money.

This certainly is a fun and interesting hobby!  

andy2

I have to agree with prof on the speaker cable issue.  Like prof, I've had access to several varieties of esoteric cables, but eventually returned to 10-gage Belden.  

I used to "roll my own," but decided to let Blue Jeans weld on the end connects, and got rid of my small remaining stock. 

I might not have the Golden Ears necessary to discern the differences  among cables, so, YMMV.

Cheers!

Heh, I’ve had quite a bit of experience having had access to very high end cables.  I used to have boutique cabling  - I even have some Nordost right now, just sold some Wireworld eclipse speaker cables I owned, today along with a pair of speakers.  And I’ve brought Belden cables to compare in friends systems, one of whom has about 50-60k in “the best” cabling.  So it’s not like I’m not speaking from any experience.

 But....this is the place I’ve come to, and we all have our own audio journey.  Respect to you, all views are welcome!

Cheers!

He asked about my cabling and I told him it was standard Belden 10awg etc, and he was like "Wow, your system sure isn’t lacking in detail and amazing sound quality. Sounds like your cables are up to the task."

prof,

You don't know what's you're missing :-)

Yes I’ve been spoiled by the Thiels. Both by my current 2.7s and by my experience with the 3.7s. The 3.7 in particular seems to me an end-game speaker that will compete with the best for many years to come.

While I love checking out high end systems of any type, it’s the rare system that totally grabs me with a tone that makes my brain think "yes, there’s something beautiful it’s capturing there!" That’s necessary for me to get along with a speaker for any length of time, but most systems sound a tad tonally "off" to me.   (I'm not saying I'm a special listener, only that I have a strong subjective reaction to tone and timbre, and it's hard for me to want to bother with long listening sessions unless my brain says "this sounds right" in some important way....many others find this too of course).


And this doesn’t mean that there is one single sound I’m looking for. I can find a seductive tone in a "modern sounding" speaker, or an older British design, or anything in between. Never know where it’s going to show up. That’s why I own a bunch of different speakers.


But man, coming home from the Spendors, the Thiels were like an oasis of everything I like - rich, smooth, organic, palpable, punchy, dynamic, naturally detailed sounding. Wow!

(And as I often point out, the Spendors were hooked up to all the fixings - expensive Nordost cabling, you name it, and there was nothing I heard in that sound that wasn’t evident and better in my own set up, without those boutique add-ons. In fact I had an audiophile drop over to listen to my system today and he was taken by the sound. He asked about my cabling and I told him it was standard Belden 10awg etc, and he was like "Wow, your system sure isn’t lacking in detail and amazing sound quality. Sounds like your cables are up to the task." Which is why my money goes in to speakers, where the money shows up strongest in the sound).

prof,

Your taste seems a bit discriminating. Some of the on-line reviews of the D7 have been pretty positive.

Here’s a sample of one reivew:

• Massively detailed
• Exceptional dynamics
• Precise and articulate presentation
• Cohesive sound
• Deliver a huge sound for their size
• Unfussy nature

https://www.whathifi.com/us/spendor/d7/review
https://www.theabsolutesound.com/articles/spendor-d7-loudspeaker/?page=2
https://www.stereophile.com/content/spendor-d7-loudspeaker-page-2

It seems like the 3.7s have spoiled you like a secretary being spoiled
by rich parents :-)

Andy, yes my "Contemplating Devore speakers" thread.  I just added another speaker audition to it: Spendor D7s.

The Spendors just didn't sound as natural as my 2.7s.  The 2.7s seemed to beat them in just about every parameter.

prof and I had a couple of discussions on the 3.7 vs 2.7 Thiels. 
I was able to audition both speakers over a couple of weeks at the dealer's, using my collection of classical and organ CDs.   I settled for the 2.7s, plus a SS2.2 sub,   Close contest, but the sub made the difference.   
 

It never hurts to demo other brands on the flip-side.

I think there was a thread where prof auditioned tons of speakers but he couldn't find a reason to switch.  

Hi prof,

I wish I get to audition a pair of Thiel 3.7 someday ... preferably at my home :-)  I actually like big speakers.