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Thiel is officially closed!!

In today's Strata.Gee.com Column by Ted Green. Thiel confirmed that they closed operations. A sad day for a great company.
linnlingo
jon_5912
252 posts
 
The way people talk you'd think Jim Thiel knew he was going to get sick and die in his mid sixties.  He probably thought he had another decade or more left to figure out how to turn the company over.

@shadorne, as someone who has a very similar philosophy to yours and who also owns some big active ATCs, I can tell you that at least some Thiels really are great products.  I have a pair of 2 2s from the nineties and they are truly great for what they are.  They are just such a joy to listen to and were never terribly expensive.  I've also got a pair of 3.7s and they are a fantastic product.  I replaced a pair of b&w N802s with the Thiel 3.7s and I've been a little bit mad ever since.  The thiels are so unmistakably better.  Better bass, better midrange, better tweeter, better soundstage.  Just way better.  Why did I waste those years on B&Ws?  

I don't know if the first order crossovers are really important.  I suspect it was mainly Jim's passion to make great speakers rather than any particular design philosophy.  Whatever it was, man these things are great.  They won't play as loud as the ATCs and I'm sure if I wanted to do a lot of careful comparing I could find several things the ATCs do better but the Thiels are great.  
beetlemania
471 posts
 
But the Thiel 3.7s and 2.7s I’ve owned for a while now are about as close to the ideal as I think I’ve owned thus far, in terms of the things I love
Well said. I personally value transparency, resolution, and neutrality above all else. And, I don't think I can ever live again with a speaker that can't reach down at least into the mid-30 Hz. There might be a handful of sub $10K speakers that are on par with my CS2.4SE (Vandy Treo CT comes to mind) but I'm guessing I'd have to step up to something like the Vivid B1 (>$15K) to notably improve on these Thiels.
dgarretson
2,394 posts
 

@prof

Now that Thiel is gone I suppose it is fair to mention that Phil Bamberg was doing outsource design work for Thiel during the early transition to the new owners. Thiel later brought in an ex-PSB designer full time who transitioned to the non-Jim Thiel models. Phil is a talented designer who understands the importance of phase coherence. You might take a look at the Bamberg Audio site. If leveraged by the Thiel branding, his ideas might have made a positive difference.

pops
1,847 posts
 
I'm with you guys - I have had Thiels in my rig for 18+ years and currently using a CS6 which I love.  I have a 3.6 also that I might love more!  Like prof I have researched other speakers and owned others that just don't cut it. 

What worries me is whats next if my/our speakers crap out?  Usually companies that opt out turn everything to dust and sell anything not bolted down.   Not to mention I am working on original capacitors and resistors in my speakers....

I tried desperately to like Eggleston Andra II's having owned them for a couple of years and thought I would transition out of Thiel and into another speaker, higher end.  That was fruitless and I sold the Andra's.  I have an MBL dealer in my backyard and have spent alot of time listening and almost sprung for the 121's a few years back.  But my amps and preamps are built for Thiels and I was not willing to fork out the money for an entire system change. 

Hopefully some positive news will be forthcoming for legacy parts and services.....sigh....


prof
1,741 posts
 
@dgarretson

Yes, I remember Phi posting about his experience helping design the 2.7
but I’d forgotten his name.

He posted in this thread:

http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=122636.0

Here’s his post:

I designed the crossover for the CS2.7 upgrade to their coax mid/tweeter driver. It was not easy. I was present at the voicing sessions in Lexington, after some listening in my own house.

I can vouch for both the CS3.7 and 2.7 speakers having a 2dB/decade downsloping response from 200 to 2kHz, transitioning back to level in the treble. This is a tonal balance curve similar to many high-end speaker brands. However such a speaker still does not sound dark (there are other more technically involved reasons for this).

One shining performance feature that I can vouch for with the CS2.7 -- the bass is spectacular. Their 10" woofer RULES, and the cabinet alignment is excellent. Play acoustic bass or drums on this speaker to believe me.

Also, the coax unit is impressive in its own right. The midrange is actually flat to 20kHz (without crossover). I think the time-coherent acoustic alignment and fast response drivers may lead to the listeners’ reaction of bright or forward.

Thiel also spends for PP and polystyrene bypass caps for additional transparency. For these reasons, system matching is a bit more critical with the upper Thiel models. Also, all 3 drive units have aluminum diaphragms. I promise you that I addressed the woofer ring, and achieved excellent time and phase coherency - Thiel was quite demanding of this as you can imagine.

While I performed some reverse engineering of a few of their models (part of a technical familiarization of Jim’s work) I am not intimately familiar with the design and history of all their models. I suspect that their models over the past dozen year vary in tonal balance, and that it is a mistake to conclude that the company voices speakers to be bright/lean/forward overall. IOW, I think the time for audiophiles to conclude that Thiel = Bright should come to an end.

I am no longer under contract for Thiel, and I gain no benefit from their sales. These are just my own objective and subjective observations.

Philip Bamberg

I can certainly attest to his comment about the bass of the 2.7s. As I’ve written in the owner’s thread, one of the areas the 2.7s excel over even the 3.7s, at least in my set up, is in the punch of the bass, and the general "drive" to the music. It adds a foundation for everything from kickdrums, bass on up to the midrange, giving a particular density to instruments - especially woodwinds in their lower registers! - that is uncanny. You just feel the instruments are right there in front of you, vibrating the air, vs the wispier version of most speakers.  Most speaker will image a voice between the speakers, but with the 2.7s it's like someone has run in and set up a center channel just for that central image, because the sound is so dense and "there."  There’s also a bit more dynamic life to the 2.7s I find (even though they are lower sensitivity), giving drum solos etc a bit more realism in that sense.

The 3.7s have the overall smoother and more controlled bass though. They do use the updated slightly ribbed bass drivers created for the 3.7s and perhaps that’s part of the equation.

If I want to hear the last word in detail, air, fingertips plucking the strings of a stand up bass, and a purely holographic presentation of a stand up bass - that goes to the 3.7s. If I want to have the sense of the instrument being "there" in the room, vibrating the air, and feel the efforts of the musician playing it, the scales tip a bit more to the 2.7s.

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