Thiel is officially closed!!

Thanks for the insight beetlemania.  Seems reasonable.

As for post-Jim speakers:  Jim must have passed on some engineering as the 2.7s were completed (and I believe designed, or partially designed) after his death.   I can't remember the name of the guy(s) who worked on the 2.7s but I seem to remember reading of them at one point.

We blame the buyer of Thiel but surely they were in trouble before. The enemy of the good is better and the competition in great quality speakers has increased.

For example, I was impressed to see the amount of engineering in Paradigm Persona line! I would equate Paradigm philosophy to Thiel in that it is an engineering driven pursuit.

On the flip side, the move away from performance and measurements towards “trusting ears” has allowed fancy marketing with “good enough” speakers with cheap parts to carve out a large part of the market too. This must have hurt Thiel who focused heavily on quality parts.

RIP jim and your great company, certainly once great! legendary really

Jim must have passed on some engineering as the 2.7s were completed (and I believe designed, or partially designed) after his death.

Good point. I think the CS2.4SE was Thiel's last project that was completed but maybe he had started on the CS2.7 before he passed? Would be interesting to hear the rest of the story.

We blame the buyer of Thiel but surely they were in trouble before. The enemy of the good is better and the competition in great quality speakers has increased.

Jim Thiel died without a protege', the economy crapped the bed (the middle class continues to shrink even now), *and* the new owners didn't know what they were doing. High-end audio has always had good competition and Thiel kept pace . . . while Jim Thiel was alive. I surely haven't heard everything but I'm comfortable thinking my CS2.4SE are as good as anything new under $10 or, even, $15K. YMMV