Thiel Owners

I'm a fan of having a couple of sets of speakers or a couple of systems.  I think there is some difficulty in getting a single system to do everything well.  Thiels excel at lower to moderate volume, acoustic music.  I don't use them to really crank, though.  I've got some active ATCs for that.  They don't sound as nice at low volume or image as well but they will play very loud without distortion or fear of breaking anything.  That's what they're made for.  I can get on my 17 year old noisy treadmill and crank up something loud enough that I forget the treadmill even makes sound.  It's fun.  

Well, I used to swap more often than I do currently.  Maybe once a month or so.


And previous to that I used to do it almost every night.   That's because I used to use my home theater (Hales) speakers for two channel as well.  So I had speaker wire leads from my tube amps sitting near my HT L/R speakers, and when I wanted to use them for two channel I'd just unplug the speakers from my home theater cables, and plug in the cables to my 2 channel tube amps/sources.   So banana plugs were very easy to deal with. 


Still...I own at the moment 5 pairs of speakers that I swap in and out, so any connection that makes that easier is the one I prefer.

@prof How often do you swap connections? Spade connection is tough to beat for a solid transmission of the signal. Set it and forget it. 

BTW, as someone who has numerous speakers, spade connectors drive me nuts.  I much prefer bananas for the ease of use.

Yeah I know 70 db should be no problem for any decent speaker.  As I mentioned I do like to crank it more when I'm listening from a distance, so that's when I have to watch it.  Though the Thiels are so clean, and have such punch, it's hard not to keep turning them up for Van Halen, dance music etc. ;)

wow 70 should be easy on the speakers.    i probably should not say this here,   but using my phone app to measure the volume,   i probably listen about 80-85 tops.

Thanks for the input.   (Scary stuff for us 2.7 owners, ronkent!)

The record played that caused the crackling was probably the most dynamic recording I've ever played on the Thiels.  I didn't really know how loud it would get and usually I have a volume control right near me ifI think things are getting too loud.  But I didn't want to ruin this gentleman's listening experience by suddenly dropping the volume.

Anyway, the speaker seems fine.   I generally don't listen really loud - about 70 db seems to be my comfort zone, unless I crank it more when I"m listening down the hall.  The 2.7s seem to be able to take quite a bit of volume, but I believe I normally play well within their limits.

my experience with blown Thiel drivers is as follows and i have owned a set of thiel speakers since 1985 starting with the 2.0.  never have blown a woofer in all these years which is good.  Blew a midrange on a 2.2 but it was about 12 years old and i think it just failed due to nothing i did.   nothing ever with the 2.4's.  not so lucky with the 2.7's.  have replaced  3 of the coax mid/tweeter.   the first time i think it was a bad driver as it failed after 2 months.  i have been using the PS BHK 250 after the first failure and it is a very robust amp and not prone to clipping so not really sure what happened on 2 and 3.   however i keep spare mid/tweeter coaxes here just in case.

The most common oddity from a woofer is the bottoming of the suspension: the spider hits the basket plate. Thiel's short coil is out of harm's way from bottoming on the back plate. The voice coil adhesive is high-temperature. So, unless you overheat to the point of burning out the voice coil, most noises are transient and do no harm.

However, one can hope that your experience might help you set future limits. Drivers do burn out.

this should prove interesting.   i sometimes get a crackle when i play the cut Gaia from James Taylors hourglass.   i call it the system destroyer

Yikes,

Had someone over auditioning a turntable I was selling.  Playing through my Thiel 2.7s.    He put on Wagner and then Also Sprach Zarathustra with a crazy amount of bass from an LP.  I was sure at one moment when the low organ peaked I heard a crackle, which I presumed came from my speakers.

Worried about damage (thank goodness I now have spare drivers!).

Though playing some dance music with really low bass afterwards, everything seems fine.

tomthiel, since you are here....do you have any hunch/insight as to whether the speakers likely survived ok given the above description?

Thanks!

I like spade connectors.

Dan,  you might want to ask them about the "zoble" networks as my friend is running 13' and is using this little add on from them.  

Great info and perfect timing! Been racking myself hard on what wire to go with, I start installing next week. Price seems to vary severely from site to site, this site sells bulk :) http://fatwyre.com/mi-3-divinity-bulk/ 

I need 230ft   Do you think I can get away with using the Mi 2 Varity model for the 4 PP1.2 for Atmos? bonus is its white and will have a bit show on walls/ceiling  http://fatwyre.com/mi-2-veracity-bulk/  And less money! What ends are recommended on Thiel side?  Love it, im getting closer!! 

he ordered them with silver

he is using these though not sure of termination  https://www.thecableco.com/mi-3-divinity-speaker-cable-pair.html

Jafant, I have used 2 models, MI 2 and MI 3.  I prefer the MI 2 model to the larger AWG 3 although the comparison might not have been fair.  The MI 2 has silver spades and I ordered the MI 3 with Rhodium spades and I believe that termination is inferior and resulted in highs a bit on the harsh side.

The MI series is copper, I have never tried the AG models.  

I don't know models, but I know that Jim used Goertz flat cables in the development lab as his reference.  Jim's perspective was that cable performance is cable business. He felt that Goertz performs cable business the best he found. That may seem obvious, but it is not commonly practiced. Many designers choose to ameliorate or mitigate various upstream problems . . . pull punches, soften, generalize, etc. to keep things polite, avoid offense. Jim, however, was committed to high resolution translation of the signal at the input terminals. Some folks appreciate that. Thiel assessed that to be the purest statement of the art.

http://www.bridgeportmagnetics.com/contents/en-us/d62_MI_AG_Speaker_Cables.html

Alpha core goertz and thiel legacy speakers are one of the all time audio synergies.  I have burned through many more expensive cables to come to that conclusion.   

a friend of mine who has 3.7's just sent me this.

Hooked up the Goertz speaker cable tonight. First impressions- more detail in the bass, more natural mids, images more separated. They are nowhere close to being broken in and I already prefer them to the Acoustic Zen Sartori. Using Zoeble networks with them. I will let you know how they progress.

Check out the Lyngdorf 3400 It address the room!! and integrates subs perfectly!   

Bryston BDA-3

thosb,  i certainly recommend the newer DAC from PS,  but think that we spend too much time worrying about the gear.  as i posted earlier,   efforts to fix the room and putting in a PS power re-generator will fix a lot of issues.

frozentundra - good question - I have a PS Audio Perfectwave, haven't auditioned anything else in my newish system, and did get some feedback via the virtual system post suggesting a McIntosh DAC would bring more warmth, less dry air to the overall sound?  I plan on trying room treatments first (and maybe cables) but it does make make me wonder....

Happy Friday! All.

@frozentundra Benchmark DAC2 here with CS3.5s.

@dancastagna  a modest Classé Audio CAP-151 integrated.Obviously the jump in performance from where i'm at now to either the Ypsilon pre-power or the Aries Cerat pre-power will be out of this world.I have the possibility to audition the Aries Cerat Impera II Ref + Concero 65 monos on a  pair of 3.7s in Switzerland by the end of this year.

Gents;

As Thiels are "somewhat" resolving
lol
What DAC's do you guys run to get the most out of the system?

are there some that accentuate brightness or edge.

Jeff

apologies Prof, got you crossed up with Dhoff. Running dedicated breaker makes alot of sense.  

hi Dan,  if you are serious about the P10 please let me know.  i will not be selling it until next month when i receive the P15 as it is on back order.  they are serious devices and are not just conditioners.  for those who are interested, please watch some of the videos on the PS site explaining why and how they work.   if we all listened to music at 2am we probably would not need them as much as that is when the power lines are the cleanest.  but since i have had one,   especially the P10,  i have not had to worry about it.   there is no snake oil with any PS products. 

It seems to me that if there were really a significant problem with the power coming from the wall that sources and preamps past a pretty moderate price point would all be battery powered.  It wouldn't be particularly expensive to implement.  You don't need to turn AC into DC anymore.  Low power components don't use that much electricity so you wouldn't need huge batteries.  It could be easily designed so that it automatically switched between two batteries where one was charging while the other was in use and the battery in use was completely physically isolated from the dirty AC.  

I've thought about trying it myself with my Benchmark DAC2.  I don't think a lot of people realize it but they'll accept DC so you could, if you wanted, string some batteries together and power it that way.  Complete isolation would be better than the best power cord and power conditioner.  The DAC only takes 15 watts I think.  

dcancastagna,

I don’t have a slp-05.

But I do have a lot of equipment - all my home theater source equipment on one rack, and beside it all my 2 channel equipment (which include Conrad Johnson Premier 16LS2 pre-amp, Conrad Johnson mono block tube amps, an Eico HF-81 integrated tube amp, Benchmark Dac, Transrotor turntable, phono stage, JL Audio crossover, raspberry pi server...)

I have most of it plugged in to some Furman power bars, as they are good quality, a perfect design for where they had to go, and I at least wanted some level of protection as we have quite a number of futzes and power outs in our power.

In my own research looking in to power conditioners, and looking in to what people from various sides had to say, I was not sold on them. And it did seem that even the more "objectivist" electrical engineer types seemed to agree that they are more apt to be deleterious than beneficial - e.g. they can in principle limit the power going to your amp when it needs sudden big surges. So most said best to just plug power amps in to the wall - most people’s power is fine and most decent amps have a power supply designed to handle the level of noise they are most likely to encounter.


I had a dedicated line put in quite a while ago, and my amps go in to there. My sources/preamps etc go in to the furman power bar.

Hi Thieliste what are you feeding your 3.7 with now? 

Prof Thank you! This is why I asked. I guess your slp-05 isn't plugged into a power conditioner! So that's two thumbs up for the PS power regenerator over the box of snake oil, So it might be some shirts and a p10 from you Ronkent   

I don't know that gear, but I have some relevant experience. First, with regenerated power with good specs and enough storage, it doesn't need to be reconditioned. Proper regeneration is proper power. When mixing and mastering music and burning first-item gold master CDs, I have always waited until the electricity cleaned up around 2:AM to noticeable sonic improvement over daytime electricity, even with industrial line filters.

Clean power is a big deal. I don't know the current products or PS' offerings, but it is worth paying attention to, in my opinion.

hi Jon,   it is an amazing device and i would make it the number one piece in my system.  it allows all the devices that plug into it to run and sound better.  i think we audio guys typically spend too much attention on the gear and not enough on the room and the quality of the electricity that feeds it.

I can vouch ronkent's remarks. I run all my gear through a PS Audio P10 and it makes a noticeable difference. Voltage into the P10 fluctuates and voltage out is steady....it regenerates the power but does not condition it. 

hi Dan,   all i can tell you is that basically it is like having your own power company.  i am not qualified to describe how it works,  but boy it does work. The difference is not subtle.   everything is just better.  It completely recreates the electricity that feeds your amp and other gear.   I am selling my P10 in order to step up to the P15.  I have learned that when Paul McGowan says something is a big improvement,  then it is. 

As for my shirts,  they are great.  best we have ever carried.  

dancastagna,

Why do you think you need power conditioners? Is that perhaps something your dealer is telling you because he sells power conditioners?   Dealers aren't always the best consultants on how to spend your money :)


Maybe make sure you look at what you really need before being influenced to overspend.

So dealer is telling me I need a power conditioners that doesn't limit power, suggesting I buy a Shunyata Venom PS8 and an msp model. Ronkent The PS regenerators I understand holds  power in reserve but does it clean it also? Does it make a difference if running tubes or other? Also I am going to step up and try your peruvian T shirts ;)  o ya