Thiel Owners

I wouldn’t sell the 3.5 personally.

Is there a known replacement for the 2.2  8" woofer?  Are any still available?   There is a pair of 2.2's for sale locally at a ridiculous price with one woofer likely blown.  Alternately - is rebuilding the woofer an option?

I won't be giving up my 3.5's but at the price offered I'm thinking of getting them for a relative or friend - or just to have around for fun

theaudiotweak

Thank You for sharing this valuable information. How many product line(s) are available via Starsound?

Happy Listening!

Tom Thiel

The metal and its shape is more reactive to vibration. In this case the reactive material will dissipate the vibrational energy because of  the bearing motion. The steel bearing can also be another barrier to RFI penetration along with any other metal barrier that may already exist around the conductor. 

Back to the whole shear velocity thing. In this case you don't want even smaller more densely packed particles that have very slow velocities because they could or will over damp the copper or silver wire. As I wrote earlier with the same material and shape the smallest material that could be more densely packed did not sound as good as it's larger brother of the same shape which is less densely packed.
Any single material boundary can swamp and overwhelm the sound of another material and its boundary.. 

From the International Atomic Energy Agency below.

I found this years ago and forgot and found it again recently. I want to post this on other threads as it will describe how particle waves react with each other and their material boundaries.  https://www.ndt.net/forum/files/ut--.pdf
Look to pages 38 to 41 or so. What is described is how and what we hear and how different materials and shapes sound the way they do.

I want to thank a lady Debbie Miles, a seismologist for 40 years, she has greatly influenced my venture into how materials and shapes interact and their influence on what we hear.. Tom 

Tweak - can you speak to why you chose iron (magnetic) rather than stone (more innert)?

Tom Thiel..

About the Sonoran wire from Starsound..this product line has been made since the early 90's and has never had any relationship with MIT. As with all our products the Audio Points and Sistrum family of audio racks and platforms.. and most of the cables... we have designed in methods for resonance control and mechanical grounding. 

We know from years of listening experience that any mechanical conductor such as a listening room a speaker cabinet a stand and any type of electrical conductor can be altered by vibration and resonance. We have learned from previous works that if you overdamp a product that you eat into the spectrum that suggests that you are listening to a live event. There is a fine line in keeping it real. Even a signal wire can be over controlled and we accrued many  hours listening to the same wire again and again surrounded by different materials and geometric shapes even in the same family of  elements. While we thought that a container of steel bearings 5 million per pound would sound the best around our conductor we instead sonically chose surrounding the conductor with the same material and geometry but one which had a part count of 970,000 bearings per pound. And no I didn't make a part count myself.  Even the conductor can be damped to sonic detriment. Same with speaker stands. No to sand or lead shot as those materials have a very low shear velocity and will overdamp the device. Even with the steel shot we usually suggest filling a post 1/2 to 2/3's..As you add more you suddenly hear too much darkness and then the sound stage begins to shut down.  Darkness and virtually no light. Not that. 

Recently I have been experimenting with materials and coatings that can be easily applied to many different shapes and surfaces. They control shear induced resonance which travels on and thru any solid material.  I have applied this same material to an active room device that greatly enhances laminar flow and reduces the impression of room boundaries. Listening in wide open space.  Tom

tom,

That's wild all the tweaks you are trying out!

It's hard to know whether, even if "improved" by technical or modern standards, whether I'd still prefer the 02s with all those changes.Would love to hear some of them, though!

prof

Which Silver cables/cords do you endorse?

Happy Listening!

I don't endorse any.  In most realistic use cases there would be no need to pay extra money for silver cables.   Silver is a teeny bit more conductive than copper, but even that can be made up by a higher awg copper wire.   And in most non-extreme cases (e.g. crazy long cable runs) it's not hard at all to choose a copper wire of sufficient awg and characteristics to work just fine.


Properly used, there is no inherent "characteristics" of "silver wire" that changes the frequency balance vs copper, such as to actually thin out the sound (e.g. by attenuating frequencies in the warmth range - e.g 60 to 250Hz or lower mid 250 to 500Hz range).  



It's a psychological thing.  We know silver is visually "bright" so audiophiles imagined "sounds bright," this became an audiophile meme, and so now there's the "silver sounds bright" or "thin" concept among audiophiles.

Silver coated cables may extend the life of some cables, but that's about it - it's not going to change the sound in proper use cases.

JAFant - jazz is great all around for its layers of nuance. And there's a lot of well-made jazz out there. I landed on my wide rather than deep approach to sources partly as a contrast to the usual way. Thiel, and most others I knew at the time, used favorite tracks, known to be well made, thereby minimizing the variable of aural input "noise". I call that deep as in drilling farther and further into the subtleties of that track. But, what if those pristine tracks didn't stimulate the "sizzle / tinsel ", etc. Whatever the cause, a problem could be dismissed as a "bad recording". But what if (as I now suspect) some of those "bad recordings" might just be exacerbating shortcomings in the speaker. This territory is where most of my detective work is happening.

Tweak - your Starsound wire comment is fascinating. As I seek to reduce jacketing contribution, you are using it as an electromagnetic design element. Are you guys associated with MIT?

Prof - I would love your feedback regarding their sound, when the time comes. I'll say that the more that I improve the technical performance and address the shortcomings caused by our naivete in 1976, the less they sound like Thiel 02s, and the more they sound like more recent Thiels. And it's not simply that better is better.

Prof - for my explorations of imagination I use the 02 as a path not taken. An entire business could have been built on developing and enriching that simple two way box. My unambiguous progress is in the realm of the acousto-mechanical: grille and baffle treatment, port mechanics, cabinet bracing, etc. Enter electro-magnetics and tings get much murkier for me. In the XO, my straightforward progress has been separating the XO halves and moving away from the driver. The drivers themselves represent middle ground. Substituting a modern Thiel (CS.5) woofer removes the normal distortions of normal drivers. Similarly, higher grade caps and resistors certainly solve more than they confuse.
But the realm of wire is truly deep stuff. I have ruled out silver entire or plated. Entirely silver is unaffordable; plating introduces problems, both audible and measurable. I suspect you would enjoy finding someone who really knows wire. The guy in charge of Belden's normal wire has created a high-end entry. It looks a lot like the Kimber stuff that blew our minds in the early 80s. (At $1,000 / pair foot in the day) it broke down our mental barriers to how wire can matter. I don't know enough.

Wire experiments are cumbersome, tedious and expensive. I have migrated to using the 02 with a CS.5 woofer (very linear full range) with no crossover and 4 sets of inputs connected to 4 lengths x 1 foot long, all wired to the driver. Each input pair is fed by equal lengths of Straightwire star quad Octave II. One cable twisted pair per input pair. A second speaker stretches my test samples to 8 pairs. A second speaker stretches my test samples to 8 pairs. I compare the 4 variants in one speaker and then run a FuzzMeasure sweep, which shows distinct (albeit small) differences. No test is perfect, but this one is fairly streamlined.

Wire differences, both audible and measured, are definite and have become instructive. But, far from definitive yet. More study required as the academics say.

By the way, guys, I'm looking for a few pairs of 02s to hotrod.

tomthiel

It is a great aural exercise to test loudspeakers with different passages and tones of music for evaluation. Jazz is excellent in this aspect.

Happy Listening!

prof

Which Silver cables/cords do you endorse?

Happy Listening!

I've been shedding my speakers.


I finally let my MBL 121 omnis go, and now tonight just sold my Waveform Mach MC speakers.  Both killer speakers!


But I'm simply never going to let the Thiel 02s go.  No way. 

@tomthiel
That's so great to hear about the 02s!
Honestly, I'm afraid to touch mine for fear of changing the sound I love.But of course I've wondered what an upgraded pair of 02s could sound like.
If you end up having some upgraded 02s for sale at some point, I'd likely be very interested!

At Starsound we have our wire in our speakers that is surrounded by a  double jacket. Between the void of the 2 jackets we fill with our Micro Bearing Steel. The bearing acts as a shield and as a reactive resonance control system. The bearing dissapates vibration before it contacts the conductor. Tom

tmsrdg - I don't have a track. My MO is to play more music rather than concentrating on a single cut. So, I skip through the disc to find passages that do whatever I need to do. I will say that disc one is more obnoxious, disc 2 is the best, and the disc 3 out-takes are variable.If I had to choose, I would choose disc 1 as most likely to misbehave. I hope that gives you somewhere to begin. 

Tom - are you able to specify a track or two on that Rhino collection that produces the sizzle effect on your end? I'd like to hear how that plays on the 3.7. I just called it up on Qobuz...always liked Dolly's music...somehow, After the Gold Rush started playing right away...whoa...

As I mentioned, I don't have 3.7s. If I were testing them, I would find some music and/or test signal that reliably produce the problem. I would use a stethoscope to reliably hear it. I would then mount felt and test, then add UltraSuede and test. Etc. The process is slow and deliberate. There is room for other input such as internal wire rattling, etc. I saw a video that showed the driver wires fed through silicone tubing. Perhaps that's a culprit. It is interesting that more than one person has heard something similar. I don't know the answer, but I do register your experience. 

Tom - I have to admit I'm, um, baffled by your laminar launch baffle treatment suggestion. How would that be done with the 3.7?

Try it. Send a PM for more detail.
TT

So put a felt cloth on the flat space above the tweeter on the 3.6’s?

" Cascadesphil - my working hypothesis is that dry air and moist air couple and resolve the various forces differently - not a theory, but a hunch developed over the past year of experimentation."

Tom - thanks.  I sort of figured it could be something like that.  After one session, where I had some issues, I actually grabbed my allen wrench to make sure the drivers were tight and they were.  For a bit it drove me a little crazy (and some would say that's not a far drive) and I went back to the video on how the 3.7s were made and was thinking about looking inside.  Then when I played the same stuff where I didn't notice a problem.

Back in early March of 2020, I had my AC units tuned up (as I usually do annually and I have two zones, one for a large bonus room upstairs and I go upstairs about once or so a week to move dust around and flush the toilet).  Bacteria gets attached to the area around the coils and they get cleaned with either wipes or Lysol.  I decided to put in the Patriot UV light (https://www.patriotiaq.com/#!/Patriot_UV) on the main zone (and my bedroom and the living area I use is on the main zone) at the time of the tune up.

Since then, I began to notice (don't know if it is coincidence) a couple of things.  I've been sleeping a drop better.  Also, I began to notice (at least a bit more) those anomalies with the 3.7s.  I probably noticed them before that but to me it seemed less that I chalked it up to perhaps my ears were dirty (I go to the ENT on average about every 10 months as my ear canals build up wax) at the time.

Tmsrdg - I don't have 3.7s, but there is some baffle flat. My 1.6s benefited from laminar launch baffle treatment.

Tom

About your hunch concerning dry and moist air and sizzle sound ,
I have noticed that everything sounds smoother and sweeter when it's raining or high humidity, so you might be on to something .
I always suspected it had something to do with the transmission 
of electricity .

Prof - I want to thank you personally for cheering the 02s awhile back. Your enthusiasm caused me to get a few pairs which are now my primary workhorses for comparing solutions and making sense of upgrade package choices.

The stock 02 is surprisingly good. Plus, it is readily upgradeable via braced cabinets, XO components, etc. and the application of the laminar-launch baffles and work in process of the new port fluid-flow technologies. I recommend all of you find some. We'll have both DIY and home-based upgrade packages sometime this year. I have some as Christmas presents with stock drivers and crossovers, with modified baffles and grilles. What a treat to give, And BTW, they shine compared against some current market darlings. 

You guys are on to something. I got a pair of 3.6s about 1.5 years ago and discovered the phenomenon you all are addressing. It barely, if at all, exists on the CS2.2 or 3.5, of great familiarity to me, and subsequently not very present on the CS1.5, 1.6, PowerPoint or 02. I have spent weeks, spread over months, learning about "tinsel", which I called "sizzle". My observations are anecdotal, but quite thoroughly studied and addressed. This sizzle has led me down a rabbit hole into a warren. I have teamed up with Douglas Pauley who has newly patented a technology to manage turbulent fluid flow - in this case air coupling to the room. Big story there, more later.
The sizzle problem revolves around the comparatively large flat area above the 3.6 tweeter, where the 3.5, for example, has none. With a manual or electronic stethoscope, I can hear the problem distinctly as sonic eddies skittling around that surface. One contributor is the mid-tweeter both driving the same frequencies from different physical positions and geometries. I can stimulate the sizzle most readily with female vocal. Yesterday I hung out all day with the Rhino collection of The Trio - Parton, Harris and Rondstadt. The 3.6s are at the north end of the room with the PowerPoints in the southeast corner and my 02 under development on a corner baffle in the same southeast corner. I switch speakers with knife switches to audition same cut, same equipment, same room at same time from the same listening position. The 3.6s are the worst offender by far.


Cascadesphil - my working hypothesis is that dry air and moist air couple and resolve the various forces differently - not a theory, but a hunch developed over the past year of experimentation. 

Grille cloth helps a little, but not much. My best solution has been pruned from bunches of ideas and materials, landing on UltraFine UltraSuede on F11 wool felt on the entire baffle. I haven't developed a meaningful measurement scheme, and such may be beyond my resources. I know through study that we're in esoteric territory. Another factor in play is the turbulent waveform launch from the drivers. Various technologies applied to driver bezels and faceplates aid in transforming that very turbulent launch flow into more laminar flow. Substantive improvements there.

There's much more to share, and I'll have some news to report very soon.

" Just some occasional "tinsel" in the sound that you have to be up close and at a slight angle to really hear."

I've heard that in some instances from one of my 3.7s (and from the listening position).  Then I don't hear similar stuff for a couple of months.  Sometimes, I've gone back and played what I thought were the same cuts and heard nothing.  

@solobone22 --

If you listen off to the side and rather close to the tweeter you can hear crackling on music with strong lower treble upper mid energy - like timpani for classical music. If you listen out front you can't hear it at all at any volume.

I hate to say it, but I've discovered exactly the same issue with one of my 3.7 speakers. It happens most audibly with solo piano music. Just some occasional "tinsel" in the sound that you have to be up close and at a slight angle to really hear. But sometimes it's audible from farther away. I wish this was not happening and I'm not sure what I blown tweeter would really sound like. I mean, I played in a rock band as a kid. Now, we blew speakers. What I'm hearing is nothing like that.

Too clinical, dry and thin to my ears. Silver cables will present this way on Thiel loudspeakers, especially, the newer models.

Sigh.
It's worth pointing out occasionally that there is no actual basis for such a claim, beyond imagination.

Audiophiles misleading audiophiles....
Anyway, back to Thiels...

solobone - I do not have that Mahler.

@therealpupalei what do you think of the PS amp? 

I have a Denon HTR and have hooked it up to my Krell to Thiel setup. This wasn't a good match at all.  The preamp I use now (Levinson 326S) is significantly more expensive however is an excellent match for the system. I've also used the Mytek Brooklyn as preamp/DAC and the MSB Analog as preamp/DAC.  The Levinson gives it more weight with more meat on the bones without interfering with what the 3.6's do so well.

@tomthiel do you by chance have the Mahler 7 - CSO Abbado on DG?  The track I used was the beginning of mvt 5.  If not I can post a snip of the track for testing purposes.

@solobone22

Yeah, tbh I was just ready. I could have put more effort in, but I got about a third of the money back for it that I spent on it 20 years ago. It had a good run. Hopefully "they" will fix it up and someone will get some joy out of it.

I don’t know about shorting out the XLR input, and will look into it. I am getting a little hum through my current system when I connect my PC through HDMI. So far, unplugging the PC’s HDMI cable does the trick and the amp goes dead silent.

@solobone22 - I'd be glad to listen to your test tune; I have a pair of 3.6s in my studio as permanent references. Note that Rob has rebuild kits for that tweeter (CS2.2, 3.6, 5). If it is fried, I suggest sending the whole unit to Rob, because the ferro-fluid can get cooked and thick and need replacement. Extremely low likelihood of XO damage.

@therealpupalei yes you needed to short out the XLR inputs when using the single ended inputs as that can cause issues

its unfortunate that you had such issues as the Krell TAS is an excellent piece of gear.  I would have liked to hear your impression of it once it was working properly.  I have called Krell on several occasions and have had no issues.  With regards to the Krell TAS they said unless it was broken or having issues it did not need to be serviced.

@jon_5912 I would have shipped it back.  Had that happen with a pair of 2.4's unfortunately.  The cabinet arrived cracked and one of the drivers was blown.  Honestly I think the owner knew they were damaged and wanted the insurance money.  Fortunately it was through Ebay and I promptly got my money back. 

@solobone22  that speaker is still taken apart in the corner of the garage.  Maybe I'll get to it and maybe I won't.  I've already done 2 repairs and bought a replacement part.  Knowing that I need at least two more parts to get them working has me considering just keeping the one that works and ditching the other.  I bought a single PowerPlane 1.2 off ebay for $135.  I'll probably just troll for bargains rather than sink more time and money into this mess.  

@solobone22 @tomthiel
It’s very hard to compare the PS Audio to the Krell for several reasons. I suspect the Krell has needed service for quite a while, so I’m sure I haven’t heard it at its best for a decade. Other changes I’ve made at the same time: I’m running two matching subs on the left and right corners and I’ve set the crossover at 60 hz instead of 80, which I always used before.

It still worked okay through 3 channels with balanced cables but when I replaced the Onkyo Pre/Pro with a new Denon receiver and had to try RCA inputs, the Krell hummed badly. I looked into getting it serviced, but I can hardly tell if the company still exists. I left a message at a number I found online (that sounded like some dude’s cell phone) and never heard back.
I didn’t have time to do a lot of research, but found the @whitecamaross thread and saw the positive blurb at the top about the BHK 300 and saw the TAS buyer’s guide positively comparing the 250 to the 300. When I saw that PS Audio was made here in Colorado and gave a generous discount for old broken trade-ins, it was a no-brainer for me.
The main thing I can say in comparison is that with the Krell I always felt the treble was too harsh. I may be over sensitive to treble anyway, but I was never 100% able to listen to violins or trumpets until I heard about Audyssey. It was less about room correction and more about rolling off highs, but Audyssey was a game changing technology for me.
With the PS Audio, the 2.3s are still forward if not bright, but although I keep thinking I’m going to get that ringing in my ears I never quite get it. I didn’t need to be in a hurry to run Audyssey at all.  Now that I have run it, I’m running it "Flat".

I listen between 70-75 db on average. Louder than that is still a little too much "in my face". But at that level it really does sound better than ever. Like I said before I no longer need to mess with surround modes to get 3D sound.

@jon_5912 Were you able to repair the crossover?

@ctsooner That is what my hunt has been for. Any speaker can produce sound. A carefully matched system can reproduce music and that is what I’m after as well. Currently my most involving setup is this:

Intel NUC running wtfplay (Synergistic Active USB) or Cal Audio Labs CL-10 (Synergistic X coaxial) --> MSB Analog DAC --> AudioQuest G Snake --> Krell FBI Integrated --> AQ 4 (I think) speaker cables --> Thiel CD2.7

Big wide deep dynamic with what I hear as accurate timbre of instruments.

When I need bass that the 2.7 cannot reproduce I hookup a Definitive SuperCube II to the preamp outs on the Krell.

Sounds like a fried tweeter to me. I think what causes it is when the leads break, the strands tend to be touching at low volume but at high excursions they lose contact and then regain it, causing a crackling sound. I recently had this problem with a Thiel Viewpoint I got off of ebay. It was damaged in shipping and I glued the woofer together and got it working. The tweeter was crackling though, I took it apart and saw that strands of the wire leading to the voice coil were broken. I ordered a new tweeter and it had the same problem almost immediately. I took it apart again and the leads were broken just like the other one. I measured the crossover output for the tweeter at 60hz and it was the same as the output for the woofer. The crossover was damaged in such a way that it was frying tweeters.

Another thought - does anyone have 3.6's that could run a test for me?  I can send you a song that produces the crackling.  I'm thinking this may have always been there however you don't hear it unless you are really close and off to the side of the tweeter.

I've already tried this on the 2.7's and did not hear the crackling regardless of where I stood or how close I was to the tweeter.

@therealpupalei - what do you think of the PS compared to your previous Krell?

I'm using a Krell TAS to power a pair of 3.6's.  Love it!

Does anyone have the specs on the tweeter for the 3.6(D26AG-36)?  If you listen off to the side and rather close to the tweeter you can hear crackling on music with strong lower treble upper mid energy - like timpani for classical music.  If you listen out front you can't hear it at all at any volume.  I'm not sure how long this has been there either. 

What are the chances that something has gone bad on the crossover?

Will be calling Rob about this on Monday.  Want to see what else is out there should I need new tweeters.

snbeall - Rob at Coherent Source Service might have some definitive answers for you. In general, a big voltage swing in audio is 10 volts.

Interesting thing about hearing is that our brain compensates somehow. My HF rolls off starting at 4K, but I can reliably hear the difference in filter types at 20kHz. I remember a study in the 80s or 90s demonstrating how we differentiate signals on carrier tones even when we can't hear them solo. At that time I could differentiate a 30kHz signal, which we all know is impossible.

I'll visit that Science Review site again. Thanks

@tomthiel...from 12/28... on your question concerning DAC/pre’s and the Benchmark DAC... have you been to audio science review.com? I think you will find it interesting. Your Benchmark amp truly lives up to its name. The Benchmark DAC does very well, but you might be interested in the testing of others there.

Have a question about the PX-02/05 crossovers. As we know, they are passive speaker level low pass filters to feed the Thiel active subs. They have only a single XLR output that I assume is “balanced”? So does anyone know what volts they output and if it is truly balanced? I realize it would be a function of the volts presented to it by the speaker power amplifier in question, but get me in the ballpark...

I have to say that I wish I had the hearing that many here seem to have that they distinguish the subtlety of cables, etc. However, it is probably a good thing. What I experience is addictive enough as it is. Were my ears that good, I’d likely never get anything else done. I was able to pull up test tones on a search on Tidal. I know my Thiels can reproduce it, but I thought I’d blown my tweeter on the 14kHz tone. Nope. Just my ears. Too many live concerts over the years and work noise exposure.

Real - I for one am interested in your comparison of your Krell vs the BHK.