catalysis... Your points were spot-on regarding how the 3.5's sonics improve when the amplification is warmed up a while. I've mated my solid state amp to a tubed pre-amp and I usually, but not always wait about 15 minutes before playing anything. The sonics are noticeably better after about an hour as well. It's funny how my appreciation for the 3.5's, "older models", has made me something of a zealot. I arrived late in the game to Thiel speakers, after Jim passed away, and only through Audiogon discovered them. I also find it most curious about how people find them "too bright" at times, an opinion I previously reserved for a pair of Klipsch CF-3's purchased in 1994 when I moved into my house here. Two ten-inch woofers and a horn loaded tweeter that used to grate on my ears like nails on a chalkboard. Ouch. I cannibalized the drivers and sold them off, then reconfigured the cabinets to hold most of my cd collection. Since then, discovering Audiogon along the way, I've had a LOT of speakers. Among those that I have liked are Magnepan, Totem, Von Schweikert, Meadowlark... The two that keep me curious are Thiel and Magnepan. The one that I've kept is Thiel. The aforementioned brands and a few others that I've had were all good in their own right, but the two that actually stopped me in my tracks have been Maggie and Thiel. Thiel has proven to be the winner in the last comparison, and if I may quote myself from another post, "Thiels are Maggies with bass." unsound's knowledge of the brand is second to none and his posts here have been immensely helpful to me. I will one day move up the food chain but it won't be at the expense of my 3.5's. |
Unsound, Why do you think the equalizer is so important? In my room the speakers without the eq. or the sub measured a valley at 60Hz and a peak at 40Hz. I needed the high pass filter from the sub to flatten the response curve. What you suggest will put a bigger bump in the low frequency response curve than I started with, add another layer of electronics to the signal path and create more load for my little 100-watt tube amp. The guy offering me the mid driver even suggested that the equalizer could be responsible for blowing the mid range, a suggestion I took with a grain of salt. My midrange appears worn out, not blown. Yeah, I could have moved things around to get a better response at my listening position but it's my living/TV/listening room and I have a partner to live with so there are more considerations than just my obsessive audiophile needs. |
It's possible to overload that mid range, certainly, and there are many anecdotal cases of this. The 3.5's will go plenty loud enough without the need for that, however, unless your listening room is half the size of Madison Square Garden :-) In terms of the equalizer, this is how they were designed and I see no reason to meddle with that. But as always with audio, one's own experience is unique and, of course, very room dependent. If you think your setup is better without the equalizer, then leave it out, or maybe just select the 40HZ option. I'm lucky enough to have a dedicated listening room, so the Thiels are located without any spousal input :-) I can imagine situations where if the 3.5's are placed near the rear wall that the equalizer will not be performing within spec. |
oblgny, I find your insights most interesting and very similar to my own experiences with the 3.5’s. There are certainly more "plug and play" speakers out there, but when you’ve got them set up correctly, the 3.5’s go places that I don’t hear on vastly more expensive equipment. For over 30 years I struggled to get a speaker presentation balance I was totally happy with. Frequent dalliances with Quad ESL’s of different stripes took me towards the goal, but always, always with the caveat of poor power handling and a lack of low end balls. I tried KEF 107/2s and they either didn’t suit my then listening room, which I doubt, or just weren’t as capable as I expected. Tried a slew of other brands and also enjoyed my Celestion Kingstons, which were probably the second best pair I owned. I even loved my DCM TF600s, which sounded wonderful but perhaps a little colored in the low end. LS3/5As were heavenly in some respects, but again the lack of power handling meant I was tailoring my musical program to fit the speakers, which is really not a good thing in my view. By chance I then I came across an almost mint pair of the Thiels. I’d never heard them dem’d at a show when I attended the London show for about 20 years straight, or at least if I did it never impressed me. It was a total revelation because they really do offer the best of all worlds. My listening room session last night was typical of their chameleon-like versatility. From Boston, to Debussy to Zeppelin to Yello to Joni Mitchell to Stevie Ray Vaughan to Jamiroquai to Laura Nyro to the Elgar Cello Concerto to Roy Harper to the Kings College Choir, and many other variations, they kept up a consistent standard of excellence that you just never hear with other brands. They simply don’t have a weakness and you have to hand it to Jim for such an amazing achievement. The way his memory has been cast away by the present regime is a disgrace. On the theme of the way Jim’s legacy was cast away, view this great YouTube video by a highly perceptive young fellow https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SkR5lAl22kk |
