Thiel Owners

tomthiel 

These wood species tend to change hues with time and UV exposure. Wondering how the factory mitigated that?

Spring Equinox- All

foamcutter

Welcome! Good to see you here. Yes, I have seen those very speakers per your query. Those white woofers are quite rare. If you like the presentation and sound of CS 1.5, the CS 1.6 is a measure better. The CS 1.7 is significantly better.

What gear and cabling is in your System?

Happy Listening!

madero1964

Welcome! Good to see you here. I look forward in reading more about your Musical tastes and System.

Happy Listening!

tomthiel

I hope that you are well this Spring day.  Thank You,  for more Thiel history. As always, a detailed and fascinating read.

Happy Listening!

I thought this might be of some interest to followers of this thread, though this paper is nearly 10 years old, it just recently came to my attention:

https://www.keele-omholt-technologies.com/papers/Keele-CBT-Paper-08-Oct.-2015-Time-Phase-Behavior-of-CBT-Arrays.pdf

for those that want to take a deeper dive into the subject:

https://www.keele-omholt-technologies.com/papers.php

more discussion:

https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/constant-beamwidth-transducer-cbt-speakers.12060/

Greetings Thiel fans, I wanted to update you on a modification that i made (with the great help of my friend Bob M. who did most of the leg work on this). This was inspired by a suggestion that Rob Gillum had made to us in putting some three ohm resistors in front of the mid and tweeter in the 3.7’s.

Rather than add one three ohm resistor we put two parallel going to both mid and tweeter. This would reduce the nominal impedance by 1.5 since they were in parallel. The result was a easier to listen to top end with a bit more naturalness to it. Rob gave us the idea and Bob did some digging and came up with the idea of running them in parallel rather than Use a 1.5 resistor. of course YMMV. this is what we added and it took 8 total. Dayton Audio DPR10-3.0 3 Ohm 10 Watt Precision 1% Audio Grade Resistor. Parts Express.

I would not do this unless i was pretty proficient with a soldering gun.  i would use solid silver and it takes two to make it doable,  one to hold the driver and one to solder.  when using the resistors in parallel,  be sure to twist them together. 

@ronkent 

What did you mean by "solid silver"? Did you actually mean solder containing silver?

ronkent - Regarding your mod. Be aware that the 3.7 mod that Rob suggested applies to only some speakers, not all. There was a QC problem with FST that required Thiel to test and characterize all incoming 3.7 coaxes and apply padding resistors as needed to bring the amplitude to standard. There were also harmonic distortion problems, which were failed and rebuilt in-house. When reworking drivers, CSS would add the resistors directly to the input terminals, or as in this case specify where to put them in the crossover.

Later, the coaxes were built to proper spec and noted with black trim rings. The 3.7 has an octave-to-octave balance within ± 0.5dB. So, you don’t want to pad it down unless it is out of spec, which is possible.

Note also that the mod as described here (padding both mid and tweeter) would effectively raise the woofer level a couple of dB. Moving the speaker closer to a boundary wall should accomplish the same thing. Also, any perceived brightness could be caused by harmonic distortion rather than simple excess amplitude. In that case padding down would reduce the gross amount of distorted output, but not cure the cause.

Roxy54 - for the record, with the 1987 CS3.5 we converted from 60/40 solder to silver solder for all our speakers. Our choice was the aerospace standard Alpha SAC-305 which is 96.5% tin, 3% silver, and 0.5% copper. It is not only permanent, but is technically superior. The improvements are audible. It requires higher melting temperature, but achievable with a 140 watt soldering gun.

@tomthiel 

That is exactly what I was thinking. As a former bench jeweler, I knew that pure silver would be impossible to use for this purpose. I have used the 3% type that you mention on crossovers. Thanks for the clarification.

ronkent

Thank You for sharing your "mod" project. Enjoy the Music.

Happy Listening!

Happy Friday! All

hi Tom,   thank you so much for your response to my post about the mods i did to the coax of the 3.7's.  To clarify it was Rob G who suggested this tweak if we found the top end to be a bit bright and he sent me four 3 ohm resistors to try along with some silver solder.  My friend Bob is much more proficient and comfortable working with a soldering gun and tried different iterations on his 3.7's.  After using the ones Rob had sent he also tried some from Parts Express (see above) in the same value.  Thought the padding was too much and then tried using them in parallel  (becoming 1.5 ohm) which he really liked.  Same here.  We both have extremely good gear with me using a Coda 16 amp,  a BAT VK-80 preamp,  and a digital front end by PS Audio.,

What i heard is along the lines of what you described.   If I could put it in layman's language (i am not very technical),  if i had tone controls in my system,  it would be as if i turned the treble down one click and the bass up one click.   It really made the system more enjoyable than it already was and it was great.  The VP of BAT (Steve) visited my home last fall (before the mod) and was incredibly impressed with the sound i was getting out of a speaker from 2008.  So impressed that he actually may get a pair of the 3.7's someday. 

Others may not like the way the resistors changed the sound but for myself and my friend Bob,  it was a move in the right direction.  Thanks for all you do Tom.  It is greatly appreciated.

ronkent

If you scroll back to 6/29/2024 page 266 you'll find my experience adding resistors on the crossover to speaker wires you can also read Tom's response on that page .  

hi VR68,  that is so interesting.  I am going to study that more intently.  and TomThiel,  thank you so much.  I am not that adept at doing that kind of project but will tell my friend Bob about it.  Maybe the truth is that he and I both just like a bit of "tone control" here and a slightly muted treble?  I just find the sound a bit easier to listen to, especially at higher volumes. 

vair68robert

Thank You for your DIY contributions to the thread. It is great to have so many pillars on The Panel.

Happy Listening!

ronkent

Thank You for being a pillar on The Panel. I look forward to more contributions.

Happy Listening!

Hi all,

This has likely been addressed already, but the 276 pages of this thread are a bit daunting. My question is, what is the upgrade path for Thiel speakers? After getting my hands on the CS 1.2’s, I’m hooked and would like to know which pair I should have my eyes on next. Absolutely loving the 1.2’s, but the beast must be fed.

spacebird - the number before the decimal point is the model. Higher is bigger. The number behind the decimal point is the iteration. Higher is more recent. More recent products incorporate all the learned advancements (that can be afforded).

Next up the ladder for you, if you have a larger room or want bigger bass or louder playback might be a CS2.2, 2.3,2.4. The 2.4 is a stellar sweet-spot.

I'm working on a product summery / timeline to help make the product journey clearer.

Welcome.

hi Spacebird, I have owned five generations of Thiel speakers since 1985.

2.0 (1985), 2.2 (1989), 2.4 (2007), 2.7 (2014), and now the 3.7’s (2019) I would second Tom’s suggestion, but if you can swing it, go for the 2.4’s. A truly wonderful speaker and a big jump in sound quality of the two that proceeded it in my system.