Current Thiel and Aerial owners-- please comment..


After ten happy years as an Apogee owner, I've got the itch for a change. Unfortunately, my wife also has the itch for a change, so I'm under a bit of duress. Anyway, enough complaining and on to the questions:

As you can see above, I've been out of the speaker market for some time. I've got fond memories of both Aerial and Thiel from my speaker shopping days 10 years ago. Accordingly, I'd like to start my new search with them. My current short list is Thiel 3.6 and 2.3 and Aerial 7B and 8B. If you own any of these speakers, I'd like to know what speakers they replaced and what they did that your old speakers didn't.

I'd also appreciate some set-up information. My wife's biggest gripe is that my Apogees are 42" from the front wall and she's tired of walking around them (no jeers from you single guys, you'll get yours :-) ).
128x128macdonj
Also the 2.3's are no longer current, they were replaced by the new 2.4's. Thiels are not friendly speakers and are very hard to drive. Please dont misunderstand what I'm saying. I love Thiels and own them but they are not for everyone. I know a lot of people who put them in less than deserving systems and right away blamed the speakers for the crappy sound they were getting. If you cant feed them with lots of quality power, they will sound thin and brite.
They are also very sensitive to cables.

as always good luck
Vader
I owned Aerial 10's and changed to Montana EPS's. (Both driven with tubes.) However, just about any speaker needs to be away from the wall.
Thanks for the thoughts. To answer your electronics question:
I currently have Threshold amplification (Cary pre-). Avguygeorge, good point about placement; however, I think WAF would improve if I could reduce the distance to the front wall by a foot or two.
Check out Revel studios or the performa serials. I always loved Thiels and agree they need the right engine to drive, but finally purchased Revel Studios. These have something of the analytical style of the thiels with more mid range. A tad more musical although still somewhat unforgiving of poor equipment.