Thiel Owners

Ah, I see - beetlemania.hope you are well and having fun experimenting w/ those xo.Happy Listening!

what was your trade/occupation prior to joining Thiel Audio in th mid-90's ?

You've misunderstood. Tom Thiel *founded* Thiel Audio with brother Jim and Kathy Gornik. Tom left in the mid-90s.

As above,the XLO test disc is excellent. Also consider the Stereophile series-test CD1, CD2 and CD3 discs.Happy Listening!

tomthiel
If I may, what was your trade/occupation prior to joining Thiel Audio in th mid-90's ? Once joined with Jim, what was position within Thiel?
Did Jim leave behind any journal(s) of his designs, details, works...etc., regarding those amps / cabling used his lab back in those days? Would Mr. Rob Gillum know?I suspect that kind of information is quite valuable and relevant, even today.Happy Listening!

I talked to Gary a few times by phone way back and he was a terrific guy.   I do suggest looking into the BHK amps and preamp as they work great with my 2.7's and now 3.7's

FYI, Gary Dayton, Thiel marketing and Jim's lab assistant, is working for Bryston and should have deep knowledge of Thiel-Bryston synergies. I imagine he can be contacted through Bryston or gary.dayton@gmail.com

Searching is a sweet part of finding.

thielrules...

I have to say that my lack of enthusiasm with the 3.6 was due more to my high level of anticipating a significant improvement over the 3.5’s sonics which were and remain impressive. I have to admit that I pretty much thought, “wow, a BIGGER version of my 3.5’s...”.  Purty dumb...

Unfortunately, it is near impossible for any one of us to live audition Thiel because...   I, for one, was willing to invest in the upgrade path without having a chance to hear them first because Thiel speakers are truly outstanding stuff.  And I started with 2.0. 

I don’t know when I’ll be getting back in the game but my wheelhouse will always include Thiel, Maggies, Vandies...

Batman, please remember that I was not involved with THIEL since the mid 1990s, so my observations reflect general approaches rather than specific product knowledge. Jim's approach was very analytical and different from many audio engineers. Jim chose to make the speaker's job that of translating its input signal into the room. A corollary is that preceding links in the chain were also required to do their part. A signal chain must be clean, which is a tall order. Most designers of my experience hedge their bets toward forgiveness. Jim went for truth.  When it came to amps and cable, Jim would measure and listen and determine how well a link, cable in this case, was performing its job transparently. I judge that Jim chose that Goertz wire because he determined that it did a better job of being wire and that silver, being a better conductor did it better, both measurably and aurally . . . and so forth. This determination is different from whether he preferred the sound of silver to copper, flat or round but rather that one was a better wire having less distortions. The lab amp lived under the measuring tower with cable runs of about a meter and the listening room had several highly regarded amps with short cable runs.

want to have some fun and give your system a real workout.   try this one.   i have used it for years to test speakers for a number of variables.   https://www.amazon.com/One-Second-Yello/dp/B000AC5LD4/ref=sr_1_9?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1528039...

The XLO Test CD speaker set up track is self explanatory. The person who is speaking walks you through it. It’s ridiculously simple. 

geoffkait, you mentioned the XLO Test CD.  Did you do the setup and calibration yourself?  If so, do you have any tips?

Come to think of it, I haven't retested my system since I replaced the 2.4s with the 2.7s so it's been over 10 years.  The place where I bought my speakers is who originally came to my home to test and set up my system way back when, but they're no longer in business.  Should I try to find someone else to do it?  How hard would it be to do the testing and re-calibration myself, and what would I need?  I can borrow an SPL meter, standard one from Radio Shack I believe, from my brother-in-law (I think he still has it) but nothing else and no test CD.  What test CDs have people here used?  If someone can point me to a good site or discussion topic that shows what I need and how to set it up, I would greatly appreciate it.  I'm always willing to try something new, or at least take a look to see if it's beyond my capabilities and get someone else to do it!

jafant,

What stage are you at with your system?

You have the 2.4SE is that right?  How are they sounding and what amps/sources are you using?

Wrong test CD. 😩

I’ve had someone more professional than I come in with a test CD and measuring devices to calibrate my system and adjust settings along with the speaker placement but there are some CDs that just don’t sound as good to me where the speakers are. It may very well be a bias with what I prefer to hear, or a flaw in the testing conditions whereby the test CD doesn’t accurately reflect the distribution of frequencies and audio wavelengths found in the difference CDs I listen to. In other words, I’m sure the placement and settings are ideal to listen to the test CD!
In the end, what matters to me is how I prefer to hear the sounds from each CD from wherever I am sitting or standing at that moment, however inaccurate they may be! That certainly is hypocritical I admit because after all, I love the Thiels for their accurate representation of the material. Could be that I’m ignorant, lazy or just simply human! I am not perfect, despite what I tell my kids.

Thielrules, the drivers were damaged, so yes.

I should think the speaker set up track on XLO Test CD and similar is independent of speaker brand or type. That’s the beauty of it. Hunting for the perfect speaker locations for using trial and error or even using a diagram is practically guaranteed to obtain local maximums only. Usually, all things being equal, speakers should be placed closer together than one might predict a “sensible” distance. The more diffuse the sound using the out of phase track the larger and more correct the soundstage will be when the system is in phase. There is no guesswork with the speaker set up track. Trying to find the locations by ear is like trying to solve x simultaneous equations in x + N unknowns. 😩

There were a few posts regarding positioning, so I will post my experience.  I started with the Thiel speaker manual and positioned my 2.7s in the beginning about 8 feet apart, 2.5 feet away from the wall, and I sat about 9 feet away.  I noticed that the soundstage opened up a bit more when I moved them a little further apart to about 8.5' (perhaps because I was sitting 9' away) and toe'd them in slightly.  Unfortunately, there are a lot of reflective materials in my living room that I cannot remove, and I can clearly hear the impact it has on the sound (slightly stronger sound emanating from the left side due to reflections).  Sometimes I just like to walk around when I listen to music, imagining the sound stage in the front.  And as others have mentioned, the height at which the ears are make a difference to the sound.  Still, the Thiels do a great job of keeping it centered and broad even if there are subtle difference as I walk around, sitting down or standing up.  By the way, I noticed that the difference between my system and other, cheaper mainstream systems is when I turn up the volume and walk into an adjacent room, the sound is still crystal clear, as if the singer was performing there.  The quality of sound from lesser systems are more muffled and don't project as well.  Just an interesting observation.

Hi tomthiel,
You had mentioned that Jim used flat Goertz speaker cables for the 3.7 development.  If I'm not mistaken, in one of the PCS speaker reviews, he had the reviewer use their AG3 Divinity cables which changed the reviewer's perception of the sound.  These appear to be their top of the line--did Jim use these in particular for developing the 3.7s?  While I don't spend a lot on my speaker cables, I do understand that there is a material difference between silver, which is what the AG3s are made of, and copper.  Do you have any insight into why Jim chose silver?  I imagine he must have used copper and decided to go with silver due to some sort of shortcoming with that material, but that's complete conjecture on my part.

Hi dancastagna,
I've got an all Thiel HT setup with very similar speakers to yours (MCS1 center, 2.7s fronts, PCS surrounds, Powerplanes rears, and 4x Higherplanes up top) except for a Martin Logan Descent sub.  It had a much more modest beginning with an Anthem AVM20 powered by their MCA50s: 180watts all channel driven at 8ohms, up to 265watts at 4ohms.  The amps were, IMHO, just adequate to drive the previous 2.4s and then the 2.7s.  I have since added Bryston 28-SST2s to power them and it was a world of difference.  The soundstage improved significantly, which I would attribute to improved upper-range bass response.  It just filled out the image better.  The MCA50s have been relegated to center channel and surround duties, which I think are perfectly fine (except maybe the center but I wasn't about to spend thousands of dollars on a matching Bryston just to power a channel I use less than 30-40% of the time.  Maybe someday...).  Sonically, I like the Anthem and chances are if I upgrade, I may get the AVM60 even though it's no longer manufactured in Canada--they're crafted in Vietnam now. FWIW, everyone who comes to watch a movie at my house are simply amazed at the sound.
As for the sub, the Descent is perfectly capable of movie duties, but I find it better suited to music since the bass it produces is nice and fast.  I've read that there are a few other unique subs that would simply leave others in blockbuster rubble, such as Seaton SubMersive F2, PowerSoundAudio T18HT, and Funk Audio 18.3 (haven't auditioned any of these in person).  But alas, I don't have a budget for both a high end 2-channel system AND a dedicated high end home theater.  Ironically enough, ever since I got the Brystons and opened up the Thiel 2.7s, I've been listening a lot more to 2-channel sound.
Regarding your question on 2 subs vs. 1, the issue of standing waves is much more prevalent with having a single sub.  Depending on your room, it can be a big issue or a small one.  Having 2 subs can really reduce that problem and give you more consistent sounding bass.
Let us know what you end up doing with your system.

Oblngy, that is exactly how I feel and afraid to make the same "mistake". I'll first see if I can identify the problem with the frequency spectrum.
Unsound, did you notice an improvement after you rebuild the mid way drivers.

Well I finally put my order in for a set of spare drivers for my 2.7s.
I'm getting a coax, woofer and passive radiator.  

This was actually precipitated by thielrules's post that I saw last night just as I was going to bed, saying that Rob "has sold a lot of his inventory and all his 3.7 were reserved."

Given I didn't think Rob sells full speakers, I thought this must mean inventory of 3.7 drivers were all spoken for.  Oh no!  Did that mean I missed my one chance for spare coax drivers for my 2.7 (since they are the same)?????

Sleep did not come easily last night!

Anyway, checked with Rob and...whew!  Drivers available.  I almost missed them when Thiel was shut down, not taking that chance again.
(And Rob says they are pretty easy to swap out, the coax in particular).

Now I'll rest a bit easier when I crank Van Halen on my 2.7s.

Dancastagna, Thielrules and all,
glad to know Rob is very busy in fixing our loved Thiel’s gear, there is no reason now to overwhelm him with emails and phone calls, I’ll wait patiently.  Thanks,
Dino

dancastagna...

Right now I’m selling off a pair of Vandy 3A Sigs that I picked up just a few months ago. You can’t go wrong with Vandersteen in general, in many ways they are THIS close to Thiels but...they just ain’t.  The bass reproduction strikes me as honest an unforgiving as Thiel, but methinks the Thiel bests Vandy in the mids and highs.  Perhaps by just a hair or two, but my humble, sixty-one year old ears love the articulate treble that Thiel does so damn well. 

I’m selling the Vandies because of reasons other and apart from my ridiculous audiot life; when I’m able to return Thiel will top my list -  hopefully 3.5’s because sizewise/roomwise/pricewise they simply kill.  I will BEGIN with Thiel and build around Thiel.  Hopefully with yet another Pass Labs amp...wotta match!

I’ve said before that buying used Thiel speakers is an investment, not just a purchase.  Now with Rob taking care of us zealots my sentiment rings even more true.  Thiel rules and Thiel LIVES!

I talked to him in person yesterday. Alive and well. Double check his phone number and email address it has changed recently.
I had both of my equalizers repaired this past year and it made a big difference. With every penny but it made me start looking at alternatives in case he could not repair it. Fortunately, he still had some donor parts

Dinopau 

Sorry here is robs contact info

Coherent Source Service 763 Newtown Pike Ste. 130 Lexington, KY 40511
859-554-9790 rob@coherentsourceservice.com
You are in good hands  he is busy Getting my speakers ready!! sorry

Hi Everyone!! 

I joined the AVS forum and posted there but it seems like all the Thiel Heads are here in numbers :)  I need some feed back before I make a large mistake and might have made one all ready but you tell me. I am 52 yro and 4 months ago heard the first Audiophile system and can believe I have been under a rock for so looong! I'm hooked hard, so like many of you I started to READ and Read, was to many hours hear on Audiogon. Was very close to purchasing KEF Ref series 2ch/HT then got drank the Vandersteen kool-aid after hearing Quarto & 7's I have quotes from three Vandersteen dealers and was very very close. Then two months ago I told myself this is insane! go get a simple system so i could start playing around with Tidal and other Hi-res sources while i READ MORE I could atleast listen to some music finally! So I marched into Stereo Unlimited and was going to buy a Vandy 3 sig or next model up to use with a SIMPLE Peachtree Nova 300 that had good reviews and was guilt free if i was only going to use for short time. Well sitting there was a pair of Thiel CS 2.7's I ended up buying them a WOW,,,,, I understand Thiels are hard to run, etc etc,,, but this Peachtree is a match!! sounded better than the Vandy Quarto being run with monster VTL mono tubes and VTL pre amp,  After 2  months of listening and reading I went on a Thiel hunt, My goal is to have in one room a 2ch/HT ALL Thiel w/atmos and in another room just two channel. For the two channel room I bought CS 3.7 and will run with Peachtree I have already. In other room I bought MCs 1' for center. CS 1.7 for rears, 4 Power point 1.2 for atmos and two SS2 theil subs and will use the CS 2.7's that started this rampage.  Sorry for long winded intro post. So the first question is what HT processor and amps to run it? Does any one have first hand running Mcintosh with Thiel? I could only find two thiel subs would you run both in HT/2ch and buy a Rel for 2ch 3.7 room or split one sub in each system? was also going to ad a Bluesound streamer to both systems so I can run 2ch on two systems at once for whole home coverage. Thank you!! and nice to meet the group. Dan     

Hello everybody, I live in Italy and own a pair of CS3.5. When I read that Mr. Gillum was repairing Thiel speakers, I shipped the CS3.5 bass equalizer for him to restore.
He finally received it last May, 5th and by mail told me it would take a couple of days to check it. Not receiving any reply within a reasonable time I decided to email back two days ago with no luck. So I called many times during normal working hrs in KY and again only answering machine. So today I sent a email to Mr. Tom Thiel, Thiel's former co-founder and to this forum.
Maybe Mr Gillum is just very busy, and I truly hope so, that he is unable to reply and still had no time to get back with me, or he lost my email, but if somebody can tell me how to contact him I would appreciate.
Thank you
Dino

Yes, it was I who preferred the 3.5 over the 3.6 for a number of quite personal reasons. (Ain’t they all?)

Like most folks would logically assume, moving up the Thiel line means mo’ better everything, correct?
While there was absolutely nothing to fault the 3.6’s for, the sonic difference between the two was, to my ears, REMARKABLY different.  Only when I played my music at higher volume than I normally do did the 3.6 strut it’s “Thieliness”. 

And many of us here know already how much I love the Thiel sonics.  Too bright?  My butt!

While I am not qualified to offer an opinion based on the technical specifications differentiating the two, my humble ears preferred the 3.5’s - everything was just THERE immediately at modest level, while the 3.6 only started to shine at a higher listening level. 

Which is no knock on the sonics of the 3.6.  I got mine for $1600 shipped from Chicago - which is a truly “stupid” price to pay for speakers of Thiel quality.  

The duration and number of posts in this thread alone is pretty damn amazing.  It’s by far and away one the most civil and informational threads on the site. 

thielrules, No, I’ve always preferred the 3.5’s. You might be thinking of “oblgny”.

Tom, very interesting! Could you describe more about your gears to run cs 2 2s and 1.5s? And how to position them (distance against walls and each other)? Thank you^_^!  I always think about two identical  pairs for back-to-back and not know it's ok with different models. If I use 7.2 and 3.7s, will they match each other?

Happy Friday - All.

Unsound, were you the person who changed from the 3.5 to the 3.6 but ended up having regrets because the speakers were mostly different, not clearly better?

Thanks Prof, really appreciated. I checked with Rob today and he has sold a lot of his inventory and all his 3.7 were reserved. He could not account for my measurements but indicated that he could rebuild all the drivers, XO and they would be good to go for about 1K each.
I have not heard any evidence of any drivers malfunctioning so I'll first double check my measurements and let him to do troubleshooting.
Unsound, did you notice a notable difference after the rebuilding?
Well, will take it one step at the time.

Thiel rebuilt both of my 3.5's midranges in the fairly recent past.

to reiterate the point that Prof made,   i recently listened to a pair of 29K Magicos driven by very nice VTL tube amps.   was it great?  absolutely.  was it better? yes as it was more articulate and had a overall cleaner sound.  however, when i came home and played my PS Audio system with 3.7's,  i was totally happy.  the fact that a 10 year old design could hold its on with a current SOTA speaker at over twice the price says something about the genius of Jim Thiel and his design team. 

I've never heard the Thiel 3.5s (that I recall) but used to listen to the 3.6s here and there, though many years ago.  So you have to take any comparison I'd make with a big grain of salt.   That said, I also lived with the big Thiel CS6 speakers for a while too, so I have a pretty good bead on the Thiel house sound in general, I think,

Whenever I listened to the 3.6s "back in the day" my impression was always consistent: a sense of accuracy, in terms of tonality, soundstaging, imaging and a sense of life - great transient quality and an overall sense of control.  There was a real confidence, a sensation of "hearing the recording for what it is."

The slight knock on the 3.6s was, as many have said before, to my ears a teetering toward brightness and a tad bit of hardness.  Just a tiny bit of a "ruthless" quality.  Not as bad as that sounds, but just tipping a bit in that direction.

The other is a slightly "reductive" quality that I tended to hear in Thiel speakers.  The density of the imaging had the great result of palpability, but it seemed the Thiels could squeeze the sound just a bit too tight, with a signature that to my ear could seem to slightly remove the amount of body and heft of the sound of voices and instruments.  (The smaller woodwinds, for instance, could become fairly thin sounding).

The CS6 speakers I had, while sounding huge overall and full from the upper bass down, also had this slightly reductive quality.  Though I found them not bright at all, and not in to the ruthless territory so much.  They sounded gorgeous with my CJ tube amps.

The difference I find with the last flagship 3.7 (and to a degree the 2.7) is that I do not find any of this reductive quality.  Voices and instruments sound smooth, big, even and as lush as one could want.  If you have an acoustic guitar recorded up close it is BIG and full.  The sense of image sizing and soundstaging goes beyond any Thiel I had heard before.  And the tonal balance seems completely smooth - missing the slight hollowing sensation I could occasionally hear in previous Thiels.

And they have a more open and delicate way with fine detail.  
While giving you that aliveness, snap and image density and specificity that Thiel is known for.

So to my ears the 3.7s take the Thiel sound and simply refine it.  

As I've pointed out in my other, long speaker audition thread, despite listening to many of the best contenders now available, I did not find any that seemed to do it all as well as the 3.7s.

Thielrules, your 3.5 performance is not normal. Perhaps Rob might supply guidance.

As you might surmise, I have been looking closely at the classic models to determine where to best expend resources for upgrades. A sad truth is that the 3.5 is old. Those drivers were modified commercial units and are no longer available. The tweeters and midranges are not rebuildable, but I believe Rob can rebuild the woofers. The 3.5 dates from 1988, so early serial numbers are approaching end-of-service-life for the electrolytic caps in the EQ and XO. Those are replaceable.

After considerable deliberation I have decided to not develop an upgrade kit for the 3.5. There are too many disqualifying factors recommending against spending significant money there. However, Rob at Coherent Source Service can help you keep them in service in stock or enhanced stock form.

First for prof, I wasted a perfectly good day reviewing your thread involving your speaker journey. Fantastic, and I greatly admire your ability to discern and articulate what you hear. Wonder if you could do the same for some of the Thiel speakers, in particular comparing the 3.5, 3.6 and 3.7 in this thread. I believe that you may be able to clarify what the differences are and help me justify keeping my speakers or upgrade. Tried to create a playlist on Tidal with some of your reference material, but need to trim it down a little. Helped me better appreciate what you were pointing out.
I did some testing with Room Equalizer Wizard and the Thiel and DBX equalizers. Only just scratched the surface, not really understanding all the variables at play. Made my meaurements from the listening position and not in close proximity to the speakers, so room factors were present, although constant for all measurements. Used pink noise track as source and did RTA checks on different settings. Discovered that the Thiel equalizer is not working properly in the 20 HZ setting, even though Rob fixed it last year. It may be the switch as the next day I was able to determine that the 40 HZ setting had less bass in comparison. The more I read, the more complex it all is and an equalizer can only do a small contribution. The comparison with DBX did not reveal any clear improvement. The DBX has a balanced output (as well as unbalanced) and needed more gain to match the unbalanced output from the Thiel equalizer to sound equally loud on the bryston amp. Here were some conclusion that I hate to draw:Maybe it is the age of my speaker showing but they certainly were not able to reproduce anything within 3db from 20-20K. Below 40 HZ there was more than 10 db drop and likewise on the 14K side. Ignorance is bliss.

Welcome! silvanikI concur in that Thiel and McCormack are sonic matches. It seems that the CS 3.6 model is gaining momentum on the 3.5 owners. Glad you found us.I look forward in reading more about your system, musical tastes Silvano.Thank You / Grazie.
Happy Listening!

Hi guys, 
I'm from Italy and newbie here, happy to join to this vaste Thiel's enthusiast community.
I just bought my first pair of Thiel loudspeakers , the wonderful cs3.6, found them  very well maintained after all these years. These artworks are currently driven by a McCormack TLC-1 pre amp and the amazing McCormack DNA-2 Deluxe (bought a week later than Thiels), what to say.....I feel absolute happiness, still to early to give an appropriate and deep review but for sure I'm getting the best sound since ever.
To me nowadays is very hard to find better sounding loudspeakers system even compared to the same original retail price, sad to know how the Thiel's story ended, Jim will remain in our hearts forever, for sure, simply a genius with our same  passion: music at its best!
Let me spend also some words of admiration to Steve McCormack having made and still doing such a pieces of electronics.
I'll never sell both Thiel and McCormack components, for sure.

Greetings from Italy,
Silvano