tomthiel
Responses from tomthiel
| Thiel Owners @petaluman - the 03a was a sealed box design which produces a 12dB/octave bass rolloff. I think the tuning was .707 Q which Jim considered critically (properly) damped and some call overdamped. I don’t remember the unequalized -3dB point, but a fi... | |
| Thiel Owners big_greg -I agree with Cascadesphil that Thiel’s can be more sensitive to input signal than most brands. In my opinion, that has more to do with their coherence allowing the ear-brain more scrutiny. But that discussion is beyond the scope of this ... | |
| Thiel speaker model range @kingloff - I suggest you ask this question at the Audiogon Thiel Owners’ Forum and you’ll get a thorough answer. | |
| Thiel Owners Pico | |
| Thiel Owners DIY is different than manufacturing. From 1983 / CS3 onward, all our film caps were custom with a target and a tolerance window, not necessarily symmetrical. Our commitment quantities were in the range of 10,000 pieces spread over the product life... | |
| Thiel Owners magnet7 - He is correct, that's 2.5% over target, which is OK. | |
| Thiel Owners jafant - the pleasure is mine. Good work here, guy. magnet7 - my latest schematic (22dec'87) shows an 8uF (not 8.2) which had replaced the original 7uF spec. | |
| Thiel Owners magnet7 - yes, that 8uF tweeter blocking cap is the best bang for the buck. Psychoacoustically, its function range in the midrange and treble is where our hearing is most sensitive. | |
| Thiel Owners For those interested, the original 03 EQ was similar to the 01 as a fixed point boost at 30Hz, enabling the speaker's -3dB point at around 27Hz while maintaining 90dB sensitivity at 8 ohms (6 ohms minimum). Those early EQs had less sophisticated c... | |
| Thiel Owners Jeff - my memory was unclear about the ported 03. Please confirm NO equalizer. BTW, it's great to know these speakers have given you joy for so long. They were made in our first garage shop on the little farm outside Lexington, about the time we ... | |
| Thiel Owners Jeff - here's a lesson from Thiel history. All our products shared the same goals of flat frequency, phase, time, and dynamic response. The family signature is quite similar between models. Also, along the time-line, new technologies were invented... | |
| Thiel Owners magnet7 - Others here might help you find your best brand fit. Here’s my broad input. Those woofer electrolytics are in shunt (shaping) resonance circuits which are the least sonically important. The Solen 1uF bypasses are very good. The styrene u... | |
| Thiel Owners Some of the power resistors can benefit from 25 watt versions, thus 2x12watt. This resistor thing was a short suit for Jim (in my opinion), since the compact layouts can only afford so much real estate. Modeling software can ID those candidates; s... | |
| Thiel Owners Beetle - I looked extensively at thermal dynamics as a source of 'aural congestion', drifting crosspoints, etc. That's where the new layouts came from, which have all the resistors separated from caps as well as positioned over ventilation holes i... | |
| Thiel Owners Adding to Beetle’s excellent summary, here’s a cheapskate trick for the Thiel resistors that you might keep. Turns out, a big part of those resistors’ ’sonic problem’ is the thermodynamics due to their mounting. They are non-inductive wire-wound ... |