When people upgrade from Thiel

I may be able to answer the OP question soon, but let me say that trying to "upgrade" from Thiels is very, very hard...;-)

I had B&Ws for a long time.  First the N804 and then the N802.  While I had the 802s I bought a pair of used, old Thiel 2 2s to try them out.  I really liked them so a couple of years later I replaced the N802s with Thiel 3.7s.  In my opinion the Thiel 3.7s are superior to the N802s in almost every way.  The B&Ws will play louder and have more bass but the Thiels have more defined, better bass, clearer midrange, better off axis response leading to less room sensitivity, better midrange intelligibility and a smoother tweeter.  It's not that the B&Ws are bad, just that the Thiels are better in every area I care about. 

I was surprised by this since B&W is a much larger company with a far larger research budget and all that.  I decided that I think B&W, like a lot of producers of high end products, is more concerned with marketing talking points than they are with performance.  It's fun to talk about all of the characteristics of B&W speakers.  The big black head, the Kevlar midrange, there are a ton of things to talk about.  This reveals, in my opinion, how performance can take a back seat to talk and aesthetics in high end audio.  Whenever a company's marketing material starts talking about a lot of fancy manufacturing techniques and exotic materials I tend to lose interest. 

I’m a confirmed “Maggie” lover when it comes to moving off the Thiel plain - not much of a stretch really when one considers what both manufacturers do so well. 

Maggies grate on me after a time due to their physicality, not their sonics.  If I had a room larger than the one I do now - which ain’t exactly small - I’d probably move up beyond the 1.7i model which is a veritable Hifi bargain.  

However, I’m once again back in the hunt for Thiel - the first speaker that really introduced me to great sound. 

As I've detailed in other threads, I've had to look for alternatives to my Thiel 3.7 speakers.   It was very problematic.  Almost nothing sounded as good, and I could not find anything I truly found an "upgrade" in many areas (one or two maybe, but not the whole package).

I did sell them and have the slightly smaller Thiel 2.7s which sound very similar.  I've kept my ears out for a speaker I might add to my stable of speakers - for me Devores 0 speakers and Joseph speakers do some things I like a bit better than the Thiels, but the Thiels are such a cohesive over all package of great tone, imaging, palpability and dynamics they are hard to replace (hence...I don't plan to replace them, but only possibly add another pair of speakers). 

I just on a whim listened to a pair of Audio Physic Avanti 3 and my Thiel CS2.4's are now moved into storage. The AP gives me everything that made the Thiel's amazing, but is quite a bit smoother (without losing details) and they can simply "disappear". Super musical and just sheer amazing.