Thiel Owners

All - lots of good information. Bottom line is that most of those who try are prone to fail. An underlying cause is that coherent transducers are roughly an order of magnitude more difficult.

Andy asks why more manufacturers don't "do it". Short answer is because they can't afford to solve all the problems for the very limited market to pay for the development costs.

Case in point - Thiel Audio. We began with customized drivers from the usual manufacturers: Seas, ScanSpeak, Dynaudio, Vifa and others. Early on we forged a relationship with Vifa where Thiel developed what it wanted / needed and Vifa prototyped and eventually produced it. We got favored customer status and they got to put it in their catalog for anyone to buy.  The other manufacturers were not as adventuresome, preferring to make their own designs with less expense for larger market share. Our drivers were inherently expensive with bigger magnets, tighter specs, more critical surrounds and spiders, etc. It worked for both of us. Good partnership.

Except that we wanted to go beyond their comfort zone for some of the reasons Andy mentions. So by the 1990s we were deep into prototyping our own drivers and sourcing parts from speaker manufacturers and other industrial sources. By the mid 90s we had to make our own drivers from scratch to get what we needed.

There are no "good" concentric drivers on the market because most of them end up in car or home cinema uses with lower budgets and expectations. It would be hard for you to imagine the effort that went into Thiel developing its own driver-making capability, not because we wanted to, but because we wanted to build speakers beyond what the supply market could deliver to a demand market which doesn't require the rigors of broad bandwidth, high-performance drivers.

Regarding the prior thread of other coherent manufacturers, and why there aren't more. A case study that applies broadly is the "New Thiel". Ownership hired folks who cared about preserving whatever Thiel was doing, who hired among others Mark Mason formerly of PSB - smart and talented design engineer. It fell to him to prove to ownership and management why coherence matters. Fact is, that task is nearly impossible. They collectively decided to put their eggs in the same basket as everyone else and make very good "normal" speakers. 5 stars from Stereophile, etc. But, who cared? There are myriad good normal speakers. Unique vision lost. Company failed.

So why did Thiel take on the awesome task of making coherent speakers? Why do very few others succeed at it? I've said that it is hard and expensive - so why do it? I have previously shared how we looked at many topologies and possibilities of where to spend our efforts. Here are a couple examples of how we landed on coherence as a requirement.

The cats.
The farm / commune always had animals. The cats ruled the interior space. The living room was the test room. One of our test sources was a simple (no effects) recording I made of nature sounds, including wind in the bushes . . . and birds. The cats never cared much what we were doing. But during a session of 1st vs 2nd vs 3rd order slopes - Precious, the energetic black cat, scrambled up the speaker and took out the tweeter while it played twittering birds in the bushes. Hmmm. The 'cat effect' joined with the 'leaf effect' as unique signposts along the road to coherence.

The leaf effect occurred when we hauled the experimental 03 about 20' high into the Walnut tree in the side yard for outdoor anechoic-free-field measurements. (Poor man's anechoic chamber) We got differing measurements for unexplained reasons that turned out to be summer leaves vs autumn leaves vs bare winter branches. Score one for my daughter to decipher the cause! But, another thing became evident. The sound of the wind in the leaves and branches made sonic sense with a coherent transducer whereas we dismissed it as noise with higher order slopes. Very, very interesting.

There are other examples. I may have mentioned the teenage girl effect and the passerby-neighbor effect. We became convinced enough to surmount our skepticism and challenges of courage. We knew it would be intensely difficult to pull off coherence, but we chose to do it because we believed it mattered.

Notice that in the general industry narrative, they conclude that it doesn't matter enough to pay for the troubles. That opinion dominates. From 1978 onward, we never lost faith, and that term is what the skeptical scientist would apply to it. The Canadian Research Council proved to the New Thiel owners that coherence could not be heard. Most manufacturers believe it can't be heard. Thiel's dedication to the aspect of coherence is a matter of belief when viewed from a scientific perspective. And it isn't like Thiel's dogged pursuit proved anything. The world still says it doesn't matter.

But some folks, from previously unexposed novices to high-end recordists, "get it". Once they do, they generally don't let go, even though some aspects of smoothness and dynamic range are inherently compromised by the factors required for coherence. Nothing is free. Thiel chose to chip away at all the aspects and continually develop solutions to all the elements brought to bear by opening Pandora's Box.

I doubt that Thiel, as a fledgling, internally capitalized company, would have continued just making 'normal' speakers. It didn't matter enough in a marketplace inundated with companies already doing that. But there was something about the truth of the musical experience that fanned our flames, that kept us going for what turned out to be 35 years and would have been as long as Jim was able to keep making progress toward his vision of the complete loudspeaker. Thank you all on this forum for 'getting it', for honoring the decades of work that went into augmenting this obscure corner of the playback experience . . . 'for the Love of Music'

andy2
excellent points all around. Absolutely! ScanSpeak, Seas and Vifa could build such drivers- why those guys chose not to do so, I do not know?
Happy Listening!

The conclusion from some of the previous discussions is that concentric drivers with the tweeter located coaxially mounted within the midrange driver is the best way to achieve a more consistent soundstage.  Some have commented on the Meadowlarks and pre-concentric Thiel speakers to have a sound that is sensitive to listening position.  I am very puzzled that we don't have any good concentric drivers available on the market.  If Thiel could do it, I don't see why either ScanSpeak or Seas could not.

In my own design, with separate tweeter and midrange, the sound balance is also sensitive to listening position.  There is one way to fix this is to lower the xover frequency from the tweeter to the midrange so that the dispersion characteristics of the midrange and tweeter are more evenly match.  The problem is the tweeter has to play lower so that could add to tweeter distortion.  Some of the new tweeters from ScanSpeak could play lower but the less expensive tweeters may not be.

This affect is more prominent with first order filter vs. higher order filter design.  

stevecham
I, for one, would like to see you return to Thiel Audio loudspeakers.
Happy Listening!

jon_5912
I concur. Perfectly balanced indeed.  Happy Listening!

@prof, pre-concentric driver Thiels have that same phase cancellation effect.  If you're fairly close to them and move your head around vertically you'll notice huge shifts in sound.  I still love my 2 2s, though.  It's hard for me to imagine anybody not.  You never know what some people will think, though.  I saw a thread where some people were saying they're bright.  They're nothing of the sort.  I would say they're very close to perfectly balanced but if they're anything they're maybe just slightly warm.  

Sterophile never really measured any of the speakers claiming to be time coherent at the appropriate listening distances for proper driver intergration. So measurements were compromised.

I suspect some manufacturers models might have been more effected by these measurement gaffs more so than others (Green Mountain?).
  Though I’ve wanted to for  some time, I’ve never had a chance to hear their stuff. Roy of Green Moutain has contributed much on one of the best threads ever on Audiogon. It is very much worth seeking out. Be warned, he’s a bit critical of the Thiel coincidental drivers. Still a great read.

With that said, the Meadowlarks claimed that there “simpler” 1st order cross-overs sucked less energy from the output. IMHO, in using such simpler 1st order cross-overs they glossed over the corrections needed to correct for driver irregularities, box and baffle considerations to make for a fully true time coherent speaker system. Some of their more expensive offerings used what are now pretty much irreplaceable drivers. Some of their more moderately priced models offered some time coherence on a small footprint, furthermore some of these models were pretty easy to drive. Some even with tubes. 
Some of these models offered pretty good value for those with more modest budgets. Unfortunately they disappeared with rumors of creditors chasing them. There has been some recent chatter that the brand name might be resurrected. 

Tom,

Stereophile reviewed and measured the Meadowlark Shearwater speakers.  2nd page of measurements (and showing time coherence) here:

https://www.stereophile.com/content/meadowlark-hotrod-shearwater-loudspeaker-measurements-part-2

I had listened to many Meadowlark speakers and had the larger Meadowlark Blue Herons in my room for quite a while.   They wounded warm, airy, lush and spacious.  But I never found the Meadowlark transmission bass design to be completely successful to my ear.  And as I've mentioned before, the Meadowlarks didn't have the type of concentric mid/tweeter design etc like the Thiels, and suffered a sort of suck-out phase cancellation effect with vertical movement of the listener, giving the tone and imaging a sort of "shifty" quality if one moved about.

I owned small stand mounted Meadowlark monitors for quite a while and though somewhat coloured, I really enjoyed the heck out of 'em.   The disappeared and imaged like the bejeesus!  Sold them and still kind of miss them.  

Back to Green Mountain - it seems I read a review of a fairly early model. Later 6moons reviews of their further work sounds very impressive. I still hesitate to comment without measurement verification of success.

Sorry for my first response based on 1 review of the Diamante.

andy - I don't see any claims for the Meadowlark, nor technical specs or lab reviews. Good reputation, but I can't comment on their coherence.

Green Mountain has tons of claims and an approach that seeks coherence. There is a Stereophile review that demonstrates not really achieving what they claim. The impulse response is clearly not time-aligned and not integrated with best tonal response listening height. The designer's review reply side-steps the issues. I would call it a technically deficient attempt. I haven't heard them.

tomthiel
Thank You for the Nakamichi story.  More please.  Happy Listening!

samzx12
Nice score! The CS 2.7 is a fine speaker indeed. Keep me posted as you massage them with the Mark Levinson or B.A.T. power amp.  Happy Listening!

Thank you Tom for your insights.

As for time coherent speaker manufacturers, Green Mountain Audio is a brand that also has that claim although it does not seem to be reviewed by any main stream magazines.

There was also Meadow Lark but I am not sure it is still currently in business.

prof -  Our 'other' listening room was my victorian farmhouse living room, where the company began. That room was 10' high x 15' deep x 17' wide plus a bay wall adding another 3' depth with 45° clipped corners. It also had a door in each wall except behind the speakers. I never heard the room overpowered, mostly because of the doors to relieve standing wave buildup and the non-resonant plaster on wood lath walls and ceiling. Good rooms are at the heart of good playback.

unsound - I love that amp. We met Nelson Pass early-on and had the Stasis 500 for all our development work from about 1980 (pre-production). That amp was still there when New Thiel bought the company. I don't know the Series II, but the basic architecture was state of the art at the time, plus it had gone back to Threshold for service. The Stasis variable bias was brilliant and effective. I would consider using that amp today.

Time for a story? OK.
Nelson developed Statis, and patented the technology. Nakamichi who dominated the car-audio / cassette player market at the time, wanted in to the emerging high end market. They contracted Nelson to develop two Stasis amps for them. He did so for the then princely sum of $quarter-mil. Nakamichi took it home and in true Japanese-culture fashion proceeded to remove any and all traces of the novel Stasis technology. Those of you who Japan - 1985 know that signing off on anything not in the textbooks might require ceremonial death. Forward 1.5 years. CES introduction of the Nakamichi Stasis. No one cares; it doesn't sound exciting. Nakamichi challenges Nelson. Nelson buys some amps on the market and evaluates them to contain NO Stasis stuff. Nelson objects that his reputation is being impinged. Nak doesn't get it. Nelson sues in international court that his reputation is being damaged via the failure of his Stasis technology in the Nak amps which contain no whif of Stasis. Nelson looses. Court says that Nak paid for and is free to use any of the assets, even if just the Stasis name. Nelson has bigger fish to fry and goes on to his brilliant career.

tomthiel, I have an updated Threshold S 500 Series II. It might be able to run CS 5’s, but I think there might be better options. 
The amplifier requirements might be the only thing that’s scared me off owning the CS 5i’s.

Thanks sharing that interesting history regarding Thiel and Vandersteen dealers, Tom. I’ve read most of those journals Hardesty wrote and edited and he was certainly a fan of both brands (and not a fan of Wilsons, Pipedreams, etc). You might look to his writings for amplification ideas. He was a fan of ARC and Ayre - hey, so am I - and I recall he liked VTL among tubed electronics.

I’ve heard both the CS7.2 and 3.7 but in different rooms and different electronics plus a few years apart. I cannot pick a winner but both were extraordinary, just below the very best I’ve heard (but at a fraction of the price). I probably sound like a broken record here but I think Tom Thiel’s XO upgrade could bring both models into that next tier.

I'll have a pair of 2.7 coming next week so cant wait to hear these puppies.  Never owned Thiel before but a local buddy has the 3.7 and I love them. Will drive them with either a BAT VK55 or Mark Levinson 27.5. I'm sure the 27.5 will control the speaker best since it's 4 ohm  but the VK55 will sound sweeter.  

Tom,

Yes, those 7.2s sure are rare on the used market.   Whenever one showed up on audigon or wherever, I'd get melancholy.  They were something of a dream speaker for me and used prices were affordable.  But their size has always precluded a purchase.  The size of the CS6s when I had them long ago unfortunately pushed just past the boundaries of acceptable in my room, in terms of aesthetics, which is why I didn't keep them.  It's not a big room and once a speaker gets too large for a room I find the aesthetics awkward.

But that's an entirely different question vs whether large speakers can work in small rooms.  I've had full range floor-standing speakers, flat to 20 Hz, that worked great in my room and I've heard some big speakers work well in other even smaller rooms.  (The CS6 sounded amazing in my room too).

ish_mail
I, too, had an audition w/ TAD (floorstander around $30K retail a few years ago) and was disappointed. Especially for that kind of money? The rest of the gear- Esoteric DV-60, Pass Labs XP-10 preamp, Threshold T-400 and Aesthetix Atlas power amps, Silent Source / Signal Cable / Wireworld Electra Silver power cords all around. The room was really tight and dead silent in nature. Still, I preferred a Thiel loudspeaker strictly for it's rich timbre to my ears.

Happy Listening!

unsound - point taken. Sealed box bass is more phase correct. I like it too. The brutally low impedance of the CS5 deep bass might be ameliorated by a separate amp for the bottom end. Also there is the matter of those huge analog bucket brigade time delay lines for the lower and upper midrange drivers - even with very high quality caps, there is a hypothetical veil.  I wanted a geometric solution of concave driver plane mounting. But small companies can only pull so much out of their collective sleeve under real-time development budgets and schedules. Fact is: Jim was enamored with the bucket brigade delay which he had independently "invented" before learning it was already 'out there'. And he didn't accept any down-side beyond cost. CS5.2? 

Do you have an amp to drive the CS5 well?

FWIW, I preferred the sealed box CS 5’s to the 7’s.

tomthiel,  see my post on 8/15/18 on page 74 of this thread. It would appear that the Bryston’s might have been better equipped to deal with the earlier Thiel’s better than the more recent ones.

prof - Please note that I have not heard the 7.2. I am relaying insider remarks from those who lived with the products, the process of evolution, the politics of markets and the necessary contraction of the company after Jim's death. I have also extrapolated factors regarding components and their sonic contributions. And then there is the undeniable fact that each new product stands on the shoulders of all of its predecessors, giving the x.7s a distinct advantage in many particulars.

All that said, I would choose the 7.2 as the epitome of Jim's work. He was working on a 7.3 which incorporated the 3.7 coax (or derivative) and the wavy driver geometry. Such a product could justify the cost of the quality components which beetle and I are lavishing on our upgrades. The low-level cabinet resonances could be quieted. Thermal management could be applied to the drivers and resistors, and so forth and so on, to create a next-league contender. I have little doubt that the 7.3 would be his very best work. But, I don't have a real answer to your query from personal experience. In hindsight, I wish I had stayed another day in Lexington in 2012 to absorb the upper models in the listening room. Time moves on.

I hope to learn enough and find the time to soup up the 7.2s. Notice that they don't show up on the used market. Rob says that the large majority of CS7 owners upgraded to 7.2s and are happy as clams with few reported problems. Plus, I find them beautiful in a way that reflects my design sense.

(Thanks again to the well-wishers for your kind comments!)


Tom,

Where does the 7.2 sit in your estimation?   Is it still the pinnacle of performance in Jim's designs?

Good points unsound. Amps from the same manufacturer often have differing goals and topologies and do not perform similarly. Thiel speakers got progressively more demanding - I guess the 5 bass was worst, but the earlier speakers were more benign, probably because Jim didn't yet have the Krell FPB-600 and Levinson 33Hs. Bryston amps seemed to get better and better at driving Thiels, partly because Thiel was their design-test torture load.

^Enough power for the load at hand.

As I've said in the past, I use a pair of Cambridge 840s with my 3.7s and I think they're completely adequate, at least at the moderate volumes I listen at. You'd pay in the 3-4k range for a pair. I know a guy who hangs around on audioasylum uses a $2,500 parasound a21 on his 3.7s and has for a while. I tend to think that amps are a good place to make a compromise on price. As long as they have enough power the differences tend to be small compared to speakers. I think the preamp makes a significantly bigger difference overall.  The Benchmark looks like it'd probably do fine with most Thiels, although it's pretty small compared to your pair of Classe amps. I'd be interested to know how a bridged pair would do with the low impedance.

I assume going forward people building Thiel systems will be the type who are more interested in getting great sound for the money than in big names or eye candy.  I get more satisfaction from knowing I got great performance for a moderate amount of money  I've got around 16k in my system and it's so good I have no interest in messing with it.  Benchmark DAC2, Bryston BP26, Cambridge 840 x2, Thiel 3.7, Infinity Intermezzo 1.2 sub.  The electronics definitely won't win a beauty contest but they perform great.  

My only experience of amps on the 1.6s has been Accuphas (too tame), Rega Cursa/Maia (not quite enough in reserve when called upon but up for it), and Naim 282/250 same RMS power as the Regas 80W but with a much better transient reserve and these coped very well. With the exception of the Accuphase these amps could make the Thiels Rock, not something they seem to be noted for I gather. A Rega Osiris would be worth a try if available too from what I've heard from it elsewhere.

Ish - TAD makes great speakers, thoroughly engineered with world-class materials, at very high prices. The have a strong following in pro and audiophile worlds. I was very impressed with the ones I heard.

However, they are neither time nor phase coherent. See Stereophile's measurements:
https://www.stereophile.com/content/tad-micro-evolution-one-loudspeaker-measurements

The verbiage surrounding tilt and assymetrical slopes is to lead one to believe that all fronts have been addressed. I do not dispute that excellent sound can be heard through non-coherent transducers. Thiel coined the Coherent Source phrase to mean "Minimum Phase - Time Coherent wavefront". TAD does not meet that definition, nor does KEF, B&W and others who suggest that they do. I would not put them on andy-2's list.

@prof I too am sorry for your setback and wish you a thorough recovery.

I would add Technical Audio Devices (TAD) Reference Series as another product line whose design shares many of the same goals with Thiel but with a cost-no-object market strategy. These are crazy expensive speakers even at used prices. TAD’s concentric Coherent Source Transducers and slanted baffles should be familiar to Thiel enthusiasts. A TAS review http://www.theabsolutesound.com/articles/tad-reference-one-loudspeaker-tas-218-1/ describes the crossovers as "asymmetrical [with] non-classic shapes", possibly similar to Thiel crossovers which are acoustically (not electrically) first-order.

I heard a pair of Reference One floor standers http://www.technicalaudiodevices.com/reference/ at an early (first?) Axpona sourced with a master copy reel-to-reel tape of John Lennon solo. It was spooky real. I was running Thiel 2.2s at the time, and had not yet upgraded to 3.7s, treated my room, added subs and a Thiel SI-1 crossover, or upgraded most of the rest of my system. At the time, the TAD system was far and away the most convincing music reproduction I’d ever heard. It was long ago and a different room, so I can’t reliably compare it to my current system. But I can say the gap is much smaller now.

On Thiel dealers: My sales rep in one of two high-end dealers near me was a doctoral student studying voice in our Music department in the mid 1990s. He was quite knowledgeable about audio and sold me on a Classé / Thiel system. I’ve stuck with those two brands ever since with no regrets.

Good dealers are a treasure! That world is generally fading in the rear-view mirror of Crutchfield, Amazon, ebay and so forth. I bet you will love the 2.4SS (just playing-whatever it will be called).

Now, back to amps. As you know, my reference amps are old classic Classe. Fine amps, hotrodded, drive the Thiels fine, especially a pair of them. Etc. But I need a second amp for proof of upgrade work; I have special considerations beyond my own enjoyment.

Jim judged that the amp's limitations are the amp-maker's problems. Logical enough - except for the consumer who had to spend 5x his speaker price for the right amps, which bucks pretty much . . . everything. As you would expect, I have been surveying the amp world for some solution for driving Thiel speakers with even higher resolution than the originals. That's a double-edged sword . . . wonderful when the signal is great, and even more revealing of trouble when less than great.

I have appreciated your amp leads. I have also investigated the PS Audio BHK-300s, Ayre and other heavy hitters. I don't want to fall into Jim's trap of designing with the stellar amps, which leaves most listeners with less than best or even objectionable performance. What to do? I would like the group's feedback on the following possibility.

Benchmark straddles the fence between pro and audiophile. Their stuff is very clean, neutral, transparent and relatively affordable for its performance level. They now have a power amp, the AHB-2, a hybrid AB amp powered by a class H power supply and class A feed-forward error correction amp. Intriguing concept. The high end pros rave about it. Its measurements are stellar. I am inclined to try it for several reasons, one of which is that it is a marginal player facing the new world with a different vision. Flashing forward 20 years, I want the Thiel HotRods to be sonically viable without requiring Krell, Levinson or similar heavy iron.

The AHB-2 breaks my double-down rule, but only a little and on technicalities. Class H is a switching power supply (which break down when past their current limit). At 100 watts / channel - 8 ohms, it is only marginally adequate. It is precisely that marginality which attracts me. I want to explore that limit of great performance with shallow pockets. Benchmark engineering is analyzing the Thiel loads to make a technical assessment. I admire their approach and there are Thiel fans at Benchmark. Their vision reads like Thiel promotion of my dreams. (I feel that Thiel never promoted itself very effectively.) I am specifically investigating stereo-amp, monobloc-strapped, and vertical bi-amp configurations. The latter would assign one channel of a stereo amp to the bass and the other to everything else. So much to learn.

Anyhow, do any of you have experience with this amp? Or do any of you have thoughts or opinions about my ideas? I would appreciate your feedback.

 

Right On! Tom,
Good to see you today.  While we are mentioning names, Audio Video Excellence in Raleigh NC had Thiel Audio. I was impressed with Ryan Deans at the helm whom is / was adamant about his loudspeakers. This is the Audio shop where I spent several months with the CS 2.4SE, CS 2.7 and CS 3.7 models in audition. It was a fun experience and experiment sifting through those models in an attempt to find the one for me.I chose the CS 2.4SE as the best performer to my ears. My listening room is not large enough to accommodate the CS 3.7 loudspeaker properly.Ryan's fave was the CS 2.4SE as well. He would not sell his pair to me- smart on his behalf. This was back in the Fall of 2014. It would take searching weekly to find another pair of this model until January of 2016.I acted quickly and made the trek to Austin TX, without reservation, to purchase. Turned out to be a slam dunk, double reverse. Now, to decide on the rest of my gear...
Happy Listening!

@prof  Sorry to read about what you are faced with and are going through. Hope you and the experts are able to get you back to your normal, normal. All the best.

Regarding "other similar speakers" - they are very few indeed. The rigors are far greater and the results far more perilous than ordinary solutions. A company seeking to "make it" financially would not go there - to phase and time coherence.

Vandersteen and Thiel started at the same time in different places but with synonymous goals, the truthful and complete replication of the musical experience. The details of startup were different, but both founders were self-educated, and used live and directly recorded music as well as thorough measurement as core tools. Both addressed diffraction from the beginning because diffraction and other errors are glaringly obvious in coherent systems. Thiel developed engineered curves to reduce diffraction effects whereas Vandersteen used minimum sized baffles for similar results. There were far more similarities than differences. And you may notice that there is surprisingly little direct comparison between the brands over the years. I attribute that separateness to market politics more than product vision and performance.

The invisible player is the retailer. The displaying retailer played a very significant role in presenting, selling and servicing new, upcoming brands like V and T. I call those dealers pioneers. Only an avid, informed and competent dealer could pull it off against well-funded advertising and promotion from the big brands. There weren't enough great retailers to support both brands. Thiel was sanguine about sharing turf with any competitor, but Vandersteen was not willing to share turf with Thiel, under threat of losing the line. We quickly learned to not approach V dealers. The exception I remember best was Dick Hardesty of the California retailer Havens and Hardesty. Dick was a consumate audiophile / educator who went on to extensively write and edit in the field.

http://www.theabsolutesound.com/articles/richard-dick-hardesty-19442014/
https://www.vandersteen.com/audio-perfectionist-journal

In product terms, Thiel developed many more products at a faster rate than Vandersteen. In market terms, Vandersteen out-sold Thiel by some significant multiple. One huge cause was cabinetry. Vandersteen had in my opinion a brilliant solution: staple particle board into functional modules and dress it in a sock. I say brilliant because their cost of enclosure was a small fraction of Thiels, which left budgets for sonic-only aspects. Thiel's early growth was production-limited due primarily to cabinet-making process development. In many ways the V speakers of the day were musically more refined than Thiel counterparts - V had the luxury of focusing more on sonics without the cabinetmaking burden. When folks visited the Thiel factory they were blown away by the scope and finesse of Thiel's cabinetmaking. Many manufacturers would plausibly claim an order of magnitude greater cost of cabinets. They were also blown away by the internal development machine with its measurements, iterative samples and records and the listening room. Thiel was extremely vertically integrated as was Vandersteen. But V didn't have to lavish attention on furniture until much later, then in products with big prices and much simpler cabinets than entry-level Thiel.

The third horse is a little different. John Dunlavy built Duntech, a successful speaker company in Australia, largely with taxpayer support. John's inventive expertise was antenna theory and implementation. With a patent attorney for a partner, he developed much of what became wireless power transmission - the cell phone network. He moved to Colorado in the 1990s applying his funds and knowledge to building the Dunlavy brand. I saw in his work much careful attention to radiation interference and wave propagation analysis - of course. He had big computers and multiple anechoic chambers. The speaker-making was streamlined by Thiel standards: buy stuff and wire it up in a good box made elsewhere. The target is the same as T and V: cover all bases including time and phase.

The three companies didn't really pay much attention to each other. We were very busy doing out own thing.

Beyond those 3 brands, I noticed that the serious 6-figure brands, mostly in Europe, pay at least lip service to phase-time. There are some including PS and Wilson among others who give a nod to the importance of phase, but their crossovers are second order which requires each adjacent driver to be polarity reversed for smooth summersaults through the spectrum. The Thiel 02 was second order which we abandoned as "not quite real".

I hear that there were a couple of other first-order companies who came and went between 1995 and 2015 while I was away. I can see why they failed; it is very difficult. I can say without reservation that the engineering required to create a truly phase-time coherent speaker with correct tonal balance and dynamic range is a mountain of an undertaking compared to a little rough ground for higher order solutions.

pwhinson
I am looking forward in reading about your impressions, thoughts on the Pass Labs amp.  I have only auditioned the XP-10 which is a very fine preamp indeed.   Happy Listening!

Happy Friday - All.

OK Thanks Tom. I have a pair of Naim NBLs in another system and they have a specified tightening torque of 3.6Nm for the mid range drivers (but just a warning not to mess with the bass) possibly a bit tight for the Theals, which do have metal to metal threads, it feelt tight to me anyway. I didn't tighten the Theil's bolts as tight as that.

Yes, unsound, I agree that when Dunlavy were around their speakers tended to share the general characteristics I hear in Thiels. 

jon_5912:I supposed you can use digital but it has its draw back but ultimately you need to have the drivers that can handle 6db roll off which is usually the problem in first order design.
But digital has other drawbacks which I am not sure this thread is the best place to discuss.

Though not currently on the market: 
Dunlavy Audio Labs..

@andy2, I've been wondering that myself.  For those of us who mostly use digital playback I think the ultimate setup will use digital/software crossovers that can be switched to whatever you want.  Heck, my 12 year old Velodyne sub has this option.  You can choose any slope from 6 to 48db/octave.  There is a built in digital equalizer, etc.  They aren't the only ones to have done this.  DEQX is still around and does everything digitally.  I don't think they provide the option for phase correct 6db crossovers right now but I'm pretty sure they could if they wanted to.  It's just software.

Of all the speaker manufacturers currently on the market, which company would you say whose products are most comparable to Thiel? 

As for time-coherent, Vandersteen probably comes the closest but the sound is a bit more should I say warmer?
I can't really think of any brand from the top of my head.

Tight connections are a must, but be careful, I’ve seen Thiel’s with stripped driver screw mountings due to over tightening.

Add: tight driver screws make a surprising amount of difference in resolution.

yeti- I don't have torque values, but I do have some thoughts. Wood products (MDF) hold screws well against vibration; more exotic baffle materials require threaded inserts. I don't know the 1.6. Metal to metal threads are prone to vibration creep. I personally put a dab of Permatex type 2 (non-hardening) on the thread before torquing to taste. There are other brands and types of non-permanent thread goo at the auto parts store.

Is there a list of torque values for the screws that hold the drive units in place? I had to retighten mine when the speakers started buzzing and had to guess at how tight. I remember reading somewhere that all the screws were torqued during assembly but Thiel never replied with any values when I emailed them several years ago.I have CS1.6s.

dancastagna

You have a very nice system indeed.  Nice to see such a wide variety of Thiel speakers under one roof.  Happy Listening!

Life is full of unespected situations for the bad and for the good.

Unfortunately the unexpected usually turn out to be bad.