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Ever Have One Of Those Evenings?

Tonight, I went downstairs, turned on the system, and it sounded like crap. Within an hour I had:

>Discovered that one of my Thiel 2.2's has either a dead woofer (most likely), or a crossover or internal wiring problem. Testing to diagnose will commence tomorrow, tonight I'm too P.O.'ed.

>Additionally discovered that the tweeter on the other side is distorting badly, and will need the dome/voice-coil assembly replaced (again).

>Confirmed that my most costly set of interconnects has a bad jack connection (these are Harmonic Technology Magic Link Ones, which naturally feature a plug design that cannot easily be opened up for inspection or repairs without destroying the heat-shrink sleeve).

>Faced the distinct possibility that my futzing around behind the preamp trying to ascertain the culprit in the latter problem - without first turning down the volume - may well have been the cause of least one of the first two problems.

>Realized that now, not only can't I listen to my system the regular way, but since the OEM (non-standard) headphone amp output jack I got from Musical Fidelity's distributor to replace the faulty original in my X-Cans quickly developed the same exact problem as the old one (no right channel with either set of 'phones), I cannot even listen with my headphones for the time being, except through my CD-R recorder's wimpy monitoring jack.

Looks like I'm on a steady diet of cable movies and NPR for a while. (Way to go, Trent Lott: at least you'll be out-of-sight, out-of-mind by this time next week, you plastic-haired cretin - your plight is the one redeeming feature of my evening!)
zaikesman
maxgain
526 posts
 
Yes Unsound I am suprised. It was just that they were talking about a higher priced speaker than the Three(whatever version it was at the time). I felt that at least the EQ that they used at the time degraded the overall performance.It suprised me that they were so dumbfounded that anyone said that they could hear the performance loss the thing introduced. Yes, the sound was bass shy without it but everything else improved dramaticly. At least they looked into improving the EQ for future use. Was there a CS5 at anytime in their line?
Yes, Tom is Jim's brother, but he did seem to have something to do with the development process. He was asking dealers opinioins of what they would like to see in a more expensive speaker from them in the near future. When I asked for one with no EQ he just stared at me in disbelief for a while, it was sort of uncomfortable. They beleived that it was totaly transparent. I didn't. Don't get me wrong, I like the people at Thiel and I like their products.
unsound
6,115 posts
 
Maxgain, yes there was a 5 (and 5i), it didn't use an equalizer but instead more drivers in a much bigger box as Sean suggested. The 5 was considerably more expensive. My favorite Thiels all seem to be sealed boxes.
zaikesman OP
3,017 posts
 
Maxgain, Thiel would seem to have learned much since those times - which is of course not at all surprising. Unsound, I hope if I go there and take the tour, that some of these issues of conjecture might be able to have a small amount of light shed on them.
unsound
6,115 posts
 
Zaikesman, I hope I can count on you to share what ever you learn. Good luck.
zaikesman OP
3,017 posts
 
Well, that would depend on whether, if I see JT and get to ask a question, he answers with "If I tell you that, I'll have to kill you".
:-)
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