Thiel Owners

Jafant,

Thanks :)

I am not a guy who can write a good description about how something sounds, I can tell you that my Thiel's sounds best ever out of this world good to me IMHO, and it does!!, but this is for sure no reference to others, it's the same for me when I read sound descriptions from others, there is simple no reference for me to compare.

My brother is also a audio freak like me and we know from each other how our systems sounds, he knows directly what I mean when I say how something has improved because he has a reference ;)

Jafant,
My current system is SAM reference TT+Audia Flight phono pre/Raysonic 168 CD player/Bluenode streamer feeding an ARC Reference 3 driving a pair of Levinson 436 amps for this system. As for cables, I am firmly in the budget cable camp, so I use a mix of Blue Jean, Monoprice, and custom made cables. I have more gear than I can use at any one time, so things get swapped in and out periodically though:)

-Gary

An update on my upgrade impressions . . .

There have times over the past couple of weeks when I wondered whether the new boards were fully settled. Regardless, I’ve noticed more than ever the differences in recording and mastering quality among albums, so it could be that’s some or all of what I’m hearing. Michael Fremer, among others, has commented on speakers that are “too” revealing. I don’t agree with his conclusion but now appreciate what he is referring to.

While listening a few days ago I recalled Shane Buettner’s review of the 2.4. He generally raved about it but one complaint was that he heard “slightly on the cool side of neutral sound”. He caulked it up to the aluminum diaphragms (he’s a huge fan of Vandersteen). I ran this past Tom Thiel and he pointed out that aluminum drivers can sound bright or tizzy if poorly implemented but not “cool”. Anyhow, vocals on some songs do sound a bit thin or cool. I suspect this reflects the recording quality because vocals on other songs sound dead neutral. Something like the Norah Jones debut album or recent Keb Mo sound superb but something like Shawn Colvin’s debut not so much. Tom also mentioned that John Atkinson would find flaws in his recordings while reviewing Thiels.

To be clear, I have zero regrets about the upgrade. The textures and spacious sound are intoxicating. The resolution and transparency are pretty much SOTA. This is easily the best sound I’ve had in my room and, in most ways, rivals the best systems I’ve heard. Although recording and mastering foibles become apparent on some albums I wouldn’t go back. And the well recorded music is just so freaking good. I listen to my system almost every evening and I can now bliss out more than ever.

But, this might be a warning to those who share Fremer’s point of view if you are considering the XO upgrade. Curious to hear responses from the community.

My upgrade is not finished. I still need to replace the hookup wire with Cardas and replace the binding posts. I’m also toying with the idea of trying a Jupiter copper foil 0.01 uF bypass cap on one of the coax feeds.

Thanks for the extra pics, holco. I tried unsuccessfully to add pics on Audiogon systems a couple of months ago. Not sure what the problem was.