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Taming bright Thiels

I have been attempting for months to find a way to tame the brightness on my 2.2's. Ended up with a crudely simple short-term solution after much tube and cable rolling and equipment fussing (System is Theta separates, ARC LS2b preamp, Rowland 1 amp, Harmonic Tech cables).
I experimented with taping thin material suspended in front of the midrange driver to produce roughly a couple decibels acoustical attenuation in the 1Khertz to 3khertz region from each channel. (I experimented with 1- and 2- ply tissue, cotton cloth, etc.)
What a magical difference. My wife immediately asked for a listening evening, something she hadn't done in over a year.
So I wrote to Thiel (many times) and asked if a low-value resistor wired in series with the midrange driver would have the same effect with less likelihood of side effects.
While they responded to every query promptly, they absolutely would not give any information on any possible modification of the speaker to attenuate its overly bright character.

Anyone attempted such a modification? Results? Caveats?
hug
etbaby
138 posts
 
Auido Ideas Guide (the Canadian publication) produces a product (damping ring) that improves the dispersion pattern of the thiel tweeter and damps the reflected sound off of the tweeter plate. This $10 option works very well and it will solve your problem.
petewhitley
163 posts
 
There is a cable choke called the Image Clarifiers that plugs into the end of you speaker cable on the amp side that works very well at taming high but not losing any resolution and increasing soundstage. They work VERY well.

http://www.empiricalaudio.com/
hee
22 posts
 
IMHO, the LS2 is horrible, bright and edgy. I would look for a Rowand preamp instead of "improving" the sound by altering the epeakers' freq response.
gjrad
145 posts
 
I would sell them and get something else, and I do take my own advice, I have owned 2.2s and 2.3s and after endless changes in electronics and cables I gave up, I did get them to sound better but never great. Best results occured when I went to a tube preamp (VTL) and changed to MIT cables. The sound never was very natural on the high end. Ended up going with Virgos and ProAc 2.5s which better fits my music tasts. Good luck, these speakers will drive you nuts trying to get them right.
tubemiser's avatar
tubemiser
98 posts
 
Thiels are absolutely fussy with the components that drive them. If you are determine to keep these speakers, I suggest playing with different tubes in your preamp frist and then audition other front end players, amps.

If you have enough patience, it is possible to get these speakers right and they will reward you with great sounds.

I use to drive my Thiels 22 with Classe, Audible Illusion, and Cal Audio. I now drive my Thiel 3.6 with Pass Labs 1 monoblocks, ARC LS2B Mk ll, BAT D5, WireWorld Gold Eclipse, and Audiotruth Dragon spk cables. Good Luck !
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