Thiel Owners

@tomthiel

Prof, as a technical note, that wavy driver behaves better than any of the previous cone drivers as well as supports the tweeter wave-form launch very nicely. Therefore the direct series crossover path is simpler than any previous Thiel driver. Jim had always corrected for slope anomalies in all the drivers, which puts additional components in the signal path. In the x.7 models, fewer components are required because the fundamental driver performance is so good. Part of what you hear is the thrill of nothingness.

Sorry I missed responding.

Thanks for that info. Very interesting.

It’s been a while since I read up on first order time/phase coherent crossovers, but I remember that one of the detriments can be some form of interference, or cancellation, I think between the tweeter and midrange driver if I remember. In any case, although I also really liked the old Meadowlark speakers (first order time/phase coherent) this cancellation is something I really noticed. Sit at just the right position or height and it was great. But move, especially vertically getting up from the chair and there was this weird hollowing and a sort of odd "shifting" of the sound, that turned me off. I forget whether I ever heard this from the Dunlavy designs.

I did perceive a very slight hollowing out of the midrange on the old Thiel CS6. But as I’ve said, to my ears this last generation coax by Jim nailed it. It’s just totally coherent, in a way almost no other box speaker I’ve heard can manage. No apparent suck-out or discontinuity, and from a large listening area as well, tonally.


In another forum thread I’ve been detailing an extensive list of speakers I’ve been demoing. Every time I come back to the Thiels they just show up the speakers I just heard in terms of utter coherency and disappearing as obvious forms of distortion or as sound sources. The truly amazing trick with the Thiels is that they not only "disappear" effortlessly as sound sources in a way most speakers are aiming for, but they don’t end up with the wispy sound that many "disappearing" speakers conjure. Instead the sonic images of the Thiels have such density. The impression I sometimes have is that the field in between my Thiels have been replaced by more speakers making sound!

Yes speakers are sold!I enjoyed them  and  now the next owner will too! I still have my 1.6 !

Happy Friday -All.

Hi ,Jafant
According to several posts by the CEO, Bryston has purchased a good stock of the transports for any future repairs of the BCD-3. 

Except for a Magnum Dynalab FM tuner, I'm 100% Thiel and Bryston. 

Rk:

sweet setup!  How big is room?

now, we need a couple more guys to post!

jeff

i just added my system to the list of virtual systems on Audiogon.  https://systems.audiogon.com/systems/7226

Benedict Arnold here;

Gents, many of you appear to have spectacular systems.
Many with integrated subs!!

BUT; many have not posted a System picture & item description!!!!

please do!

Prof; I would love to see the CJ stack along with your room

jeff

Good to see you - dhoff01Do you know how many pairs of the Les Paul Edition were produced?I concur that finish is simply beautiful. I know that you are enjoying your pair.You have a nice room and system set-up. I would not worry about rear wall reflection. The absorption panel is doing its job.
Happy Listening!

You have quite a few years of Audio experience - brayeagle.It must be exciting to have witnessed all of those changes over time.I am a CD/SACD guy myself. The Bryston BCD3 is a very fine spinner.I would not mind having a BCD1, but, the company did not stock pile replacement transports/other critical parts for repair?
Happy Listening!

Say it ain't so, corvette! I get the reason, but to me, those Les Paul speakers are a work of art.  Must be hard to see them go..

As for mine, I've been playing with speaker placement over the past few weeks, and (for now) have determined that I prefer them on the long wall of my listening room.  The room is roughly 15 1/2 x 20, and initially I had them on the short wall spread 8' apart with about 2 1/2' from the rear wall and 3 1/2' from the sides.  On the long wall, I keep them 8 1/2' apart. 3' from the rear and 5 1/2' from the sides.  My listening position is also moved back, from around 9' to closer to 10'. 

I've found that the soundstage and imaging have both dramatically improved by this setup.  I was concerned about rear wall reflection now that my listening position is up against a wall, so I purchased a combo absorber/diffuser panel to hang behind me.  I haven't suffered any high frequency fatigue or noticed any timing issues since I hung the panel, so I guess it's working.

Hi jafant,
I became an audiophile before WWII, listening to Victor Red Seal 78s on my parents console using cactus needles. After WWII, I began building and assembling a series of systems, including using the Thiele Small parameters to construct my speaker cabinets. I transitioned from Heathkits to Scott, then quit assembling the components when I got hooked on Macintosh.  I went from 78s to 45s to LPs, to reel-to-reel tape and finally to CDs.
I switched from tubes to solid state when the supply of KT88s became iffy in both quality and quantity. I'm a classical music nut, with more CDs than common sense. My current CD player is a Bryston BCD-3. My children and grandchildren are wondering why I don't switch to streaming - - but that's another story. 

Welcome! brayeagleyou will find the 3.5 model very popular here. I will second the Bryston 4B-SST/SST2 power amp. This combo is a very fine match. I want to demo the new 4B3 (cubed) for a comparison.  I look forward in reading more about you and your Audio journey.
Happy Listening!

I started my Thiel experience with a pair of 3.5s - - the only infinite baffle floor-standing speakers Thiel put on the market. I called Thiel, and somehow ended up in a conversation with Jim Thiel. Our conversations lasted over a few years, with our last conversation being about the amplifiers  to drive the current line. He said that there was no substitute for clean power at both ends, viz., at the several watt level and the hundreds of watts level. He steered me to Bryston. I now have a pair of 2.7s and a SS2 subwoofer connected via a PX02 crossover. A Bryston 4bsst2 amplifier provides the watts. It took some time to find the best speaker placements, but now I'm a Happy Camper. The 

Can't post pictures, just links to pictures like: .....https://systems.audiogon.com/systems/6163

i may be a little dense here,   but i do not see pics nor any way to post them.  what am i missing.

Corvette01,

Did you sell your Les Paul Edition Thiel CS3.7s?

^^^^ Hey, who let the riff-raff back in here?

No turncoats allowed!


Well, seeing as you like CJ gear we can still talk.  ;-)

That CJ ET3 looks nice!

I consider my CJ Premier 12 amps and Premier 16LS2 preamp my secret weapons.  They are "organic sound" machines that always seem to portray a sense of smooth luxury to whatever I hook them up to.

JF

yep, toob rolling 
The OEM tubes are bright and forward.
I almost returned ET3

I tried Amprex.    Smooth & big bass
I tied Gold Lion.     So,so
Then, Mitsubishi with cyro.     Ooh,baby.   Detailed,bass & smooth
  Telefukun like, I'm told

The CJ with Tube is English gentleman of Pre's-pure & grainfree

jeff

frozentundra
Much Thanks! for the over-view on factors that you are trying to accomplish. Several of you guys across many Audio forums are using Pass Labs/Conrad Johnson. The ET-3 is sweet. The ET-3SE is even sweeter. Are you tube rolling?
Happy Listening!

Gents;

I originally wanted CS2.7’s and had heard them, but that was in 2012 or so

i could not take the scs4t’s unless the sub was running.  To thin on bottom
I knew that going in, when I bought them

I , had also, tried the F208’s at home( see pic) and highs were “ouch” with peachtee stuff. 200 watt ice class d & pre & bass so-so 

I went to a bunch of AXPONA shows and thought the Revel Ultima line was ok but, not much of low end...
mac amps, ml, Bryston, amps etc
Bryston was nice bottom end, but high end was “ ouch”

In Florida I heard them with Pass Stuff 
holy crap
what a difference amps have with speakers 

Anyway , Up and running with sub 
and I gotta say:  the be tweeter is very resolving and smooth
with the CJ ET3 and NOS tubes
( Thiel was pretty hashy, till I did the CJ, too)

 I’m pretty happy so far, Full, accurate and resolving....

I know this is “ blasphemy “, but the sweet spot is bigger than the Thiel and bigger soundstage 

so, Far the full range Studio2 is pretty nice, way better than the F208’s 
Treble is really, really, good

Time will tell
what a hobby! !!

Jeff

Jeff,

Congrats on the Revel speakers. They have such good engineering (and science) behind them that it's almost a sure bet a Revel speaker will produce excellent sound.   While we may hear they are not to everyone's taste, it's very rare to see someone say a Revel speaker sounds bad.

I auditioned a number of Revel speakers recently seeing if I was going to replace my 3.7s (or even 2.7s).   All were extremely competent sounding - really even sounding and controlled top to bottom. The Revels seemed to me to perhaps come closest to what I heard at home with the Thiel 3.7s.   In the end I just preferred the Thiels. I'll be very curious to read what you think once you get the Revels.

Excellent points - JonI, too, did not find Revel nor Aerial nowhere near appealing once I discovered Thiel. This turned out to be a good thing and saved me from making a poor purchase decision. There is something positive to be said for time-phase coherence. Vandersteen gets as close as possible, still, it is not Thiel.

Happy Listening!

frozentundra,

It looks like you are using Thiel SCS4Ts with a subwoofer. Have you tried the more full range Thiel speakers without a subwoofer?

I came back to my Thiels after having Revel Ultima Salon2s in my system for a short while. To my ears and in my setup, they didn't come close to my 20 year old Thiel CS3.6s. The most obvious shortcomings were with timbre, bass impact and soundstage. Possibly it was bad synergy with my Audio Research Ref tube gear, but my wife totally and independantly agreed with me (she has no musical background and I don't consider her an audiophile, but she trusts her senses).

One day, I would really like to audition the Pass Labs classs A amps in place of my ARC Ref 150, but I don't have any dealers near me. Keep us updated on your adventures.

Jon

Happy 4th of July - All.

Good to see you -Jeff
why the change?  Happy Listening!

Prof;

Well said:. It's like talking about your kids,.    "..........make them puke"
lol

Coherence is definitely Thiels thing

I'm afraid I'm leaving you guys.....
just got a Revel Ultima Studio2

I'm going thru death throws finding a baseline , again
what a pain....just shoot me

pass amps work with everything!!!

jeff

I concur  - prof
to my ears, the CS 2.4 through CS 3.7 loudspeaker models have incredible coherency. After I overcame the overtly rich timbre of these speakers, I noticed how remarkable the coherent factor, top to bottom. 
I consider myself very fortunate to have had such auditioning sessions prior to any purchase.
Happy Listening!

Good to see you as always - tomthiel
Thank You for the PowerPoint / CS 2.4SE updates. I know that you guys have been researching and working hard on this tasker. Having a little fun along the way helps as well. No doubt that you and your team are going to become a success with this endeavor.
Happy Listening!

Prof, as a technical note, that wavy driver behaves better than any of the previous cone drivers as well as supports the tweeter wave-form launch very nicely. Therefore the direct series crossover path is simpler than any previous Thiel driver. Jim had always corrected for slope anomalies in all the drivers, which puts additional components in the signal path. In the x.7 models, fewer components are required because the fundamental driver performance is so good. Part of what you hear is the thrill of nothingness. 

I am glad to hear your enthusiasm.

My present work on prior models is to refine the required passive components to minimize their contribution to the signal. Most of the parts are on-hand for my PowerPoint experiments which will also inform beetlemania's CS2.4SE upgrade. We can't brag about vaporware, but I am pretty excited about the potential improvements.

The other thing about the coax driver design in both the 3.7 and the 2.7 is the coherency achieved!   Try as I might I just can not "hear out" any tweeter sound from the midrange.  It just sounds perfectly meshed together.  Even the most challenging material - sibilance on female singers, or listening to a violin play up and down it's highest registers - perfect coherence.  No mechanical tell-tale signs at all, just a voice, or instrument playing, without any cues the sound is passing between different drivers.

jafant,
I have the MFSL gold CD for SNF and, yeah, it was a GREAT CD version.
I haven't really investigated the best pressings for SNF in vinyl - picked this one up at a record show and was told by someone in the know it's the most recent release.

Nice musical selections - prof

The MFSL gold cd set for SNF soundtrack are reference discs. Not sure if MoFi released a LP version?
Happy Listening!

This thread reminds me of talking about your kids to your spouse.

You can’t really go on about how wonderful your kids are to anyone else. It would make them puke. But your spouse is someone who shares your feelings for your kids, so you can tell them every wonderful thing your kid did today.

And on that note, I can blab to my fellow Thiel owners: Spinning the Saturday Night Fever LP on the 2.7s now. Absolute heaven. Quick, tight, impactful kick drum, present dense snare drums, voices natural, every element delineated yet richly so, not at all clinical (as I’ve recently heard from some other speakers). I’m not just getting audiophile goodies; I’m getting the fun and verve of spinning records when I was young.

Played a new copy of John Coltrane’s Blue Train. Unbelievable. Sax, trumpet, so clear and present with their differing tonality - organic, not electronic and silvery. Drums with clarity and snap "right there" in the room. The stand up bass maintained tautness even from well outside my listening room down the hall.

Yeah, I can let go of the 3.7s without much regret.

Thanks Al.

I’ll try that.

In fact I just did.


And I think it works.

And now that I think about it, I rembemer this happening before and having to add this double-space. I just can’t remember how it ever got fixed.

Ah well....

... anyone know a solution for when formatting stops working on this forum? I can see everyone else's formatting is working, but now all my spacing and paragraphing disappears when I post.

... I don't use a PC. Firefox or Chrome on a mac. Neither are formatting properly. Weird.

I use Firefox on Windows 10, and I've noticed the same thing ever since the update of Firefox to version 60.  I have no idea why that is occurring.

To get paragraph spacing to come out properly what I've been doing is to initially put a second space between paragraphs, then clicking the Preview button to see what that produces, and then usually for just some of the paragraphs eliminating the extra space based on what I see in the preview.  Followed by an additional preview to verify that everything looks right.

Best regards,
-- Al 

   

Thanks jafant.  I don't use a PC. Firefox or Chrome on a mac.  Neither are formatting properly.  Weird.

Thanks ronkent!
Btw, anyone know a solution for when formatting stops working on this forum?  I can see everyone else's formatting is working, but now all my spacing and paragraphing disappears when I post. 

hi Prof.  thank you so much.  I sold my  2.7's about 10 days ago and know they have a good home.  i never had a lot of time to really compare as the 3's were not good when i got them so i let them play all the time. they finally surpassed the 2's but not by much and i could have lived happily with either.  i think because i listen to classical about 70% of the time, the 3's were the better choice.  BTW:   you should be writing gear reviews as you are very articulate and really convey a real sense of what you are hearing.thanks again.

Sorry for the ugly formatting above.
I"m having trouble on this site:  I format a reply just fine, but once posted the formatting is all screwed up.  I don't know why - if it's a browser thing, a site problem, or what.

ronkent,
I still think the 3.7 is the "better" speaker.  It's more open, slightly more detailed, more evenly controlled top to bottom, more neutral, casts the bigger more impressive images and soundstage, and disappears better.
That sounds like a slam dunk for the 3.7, but subjective taste enters the equation and that's where the 2.7s catch up quite a bit for me.
I find the sound of the 2.7s a bit more tonally rich and dense, with even more precise reach-out-and-touch-it palpability.  And a punchier mid-bass on down that really drives music even more than the 3.7s which can sound more reserved.  For instance, that tune I may have just heard on the radio may or may not satisfy on the 3.7s, but it's likely to have the "fun factor" and drive on the 2.7s.
And as I've said, the 2.7s seem a bit more dynamically alive - even the way a trumpet player or saxophonist will run up and down a scale, there is a bit more lively micro-dynamics of each note that give the 2.7 presentation a bit more life-force-like presentation.
Plus, the 2.7s image huge as well, so it's a very life-like presentation even given their more modest size.

So it's a question of taste, really, for me.  Sometimes when I hear the way the 2.7 doesn't image as well to the sides as the 3.7s - instruments panned hard right or left tend to sound more coming out of the speakers than floating behind them like the 3.7s - I'll pine a bit for the 3.7s.  Other times when I hear the utterly engaging density and punch of, say, drums on the Police record on the 2.7s, I feel like I couldn't live without that.
From my experiments with a subwoofer so far, I get more of the speakers disappearing, even for hard right/left panned instruments, on the 2.7s once the subwoofer is on.  So I think I won't really have anything to pine for if I can successfully integrate the subs.  That is, so long a I can maintain the tone of the 2.7s that I like so much.  I'll finally have time within the next couple of weeks to give my JL Audio subs and crossover a real go.

hi Prof,  after all is said and done,   and room size or traffic not being a consideration,   do you think the 2.7's out perform the 3.7's

Oh man, I’ve been spinning various records on my system and the Thiel 2.7s have just been killing it!
I’ve been receiving old Brazilian jazz/funk records and they sound gloriously huge and rich and punchy on the 2.7s.

Spinning the Police record Reggatta De Blanc - the 2.7s just reproduce this with such verve and energy. Having had the CS6’s long ago and then many speakers in between, one of the things I always missed was the Thiel’s way with bass - so focused, punchy and dense, vs the more bloomy quality of many other speakers. That’s what the 2.7s give me as well. Bass and kick drums have such a satisfying solidity and impact and density that just drives the music.

I can never see myself getting rid of these speakers. (Even if I buy more speakers).
Gotta sell my Thiel 3.7s though, within the next couple weeks! (I have some time off work to get such things done).

For the record, the CS1.6 is on my  upgrade list, as it has sophisticated, all-Thiel drivers and represents the pinnacle of the 1-series (pre-coincident driver) and there were thousands of pairs produced. There has been no expressed interest in the 1.6 upgrade, nor do I have a pair. So it is on the back burner, but simmering nonetheless.

Jafant,
Yes,I posted my speakers for sale!As my daughter approaches college age,I’m looking to downsize somewhat.I may use my 1.6 in the basement?Im hoping to find the right person for them!They definitely are going to be different then what every body else has!I am original owner,have everything they came with! Wish me luck!
p.s. I’m still looking for a Jafant YouTube channel!All Things Thiel!