Thiel Owners

@tomthiel

Somewhere way back in the thread we discussed the design of the 2.7 vs the 3.7. I’d remarked that the 3.7 seemed to have an edge in a slightly more open and subtle level of detail. I believe you said this might be attributed to the fact the 3.7 had the aluminum front baffle whereas the 2.7 used a different material.

Do you happen to know which material the 2.7 uses for the front baffle?

(Now that I think of it, I’m sure Rob Gillum would know...)

prof - I believe the 2.4 has an MDF baffle, as the model 2 has had from the beginning. Whereas earlier 2s had 2" thick, I think the 2.4 is 3" thick like the 3.6. beetlemania knows, he has been in there.

The baffle is one thing. Another is that the 3.7 XO is all high-quality film caps in all feeds and the only electrolytics are in a resonance / shaping circuit of the midrange and tweeter, which is the most benign place for them and they're bypassed with the custom 1uF styrene / tin foil cap. The 2.7 adds a 400uF electrolytic feed cap in the midrange feed. But it is bypassed with a 15uF PP and the 1uF styrene / tin. That electrolytic feed probably does a little damage.

Then there is geometry. Looks aside, the 3.7 aluminum nacelle rocks from a functional perspective both interior and exterior diffraction. And as you say, the aluminum baffle. More budget for the 3 than the 2. Our 2.7 hot-rod will replace all electrolytics with custom ClarityCap CSAs. We'll compare sonics for cost efficacy.

Interesting Tom, thanks.  I thought it might be MDF.

It made me wonder what a "baffle" mod might look like.  What comes to mind (for someone like he who has never designed a speaker and hence is naive bout it), is simply re-enforcing the existing MDF baffle from within the speaker, by attaching a solid aluminum plate to the inner face of the baffle (cut out in the shape of the baffle).  Just to re-enforce stiffness.

I have no idea how implausible this is, or if adding any thickness to the interior of the baffle would alter other parameters (cavity volume?) that could throw things off sonically.  

There are multiple brace shelves stacked in the speaker. I will find resonant areas such as between woofer and passive on the 2.2 and devise a brace. I am also getting promising results soaking the driver mount areas with a wood hardener. My super charged idea is to add a hard spine up the back of the cabinet and connect all magnet assemblies to the spine with rods for combined cooling and anti-recoil effects. An aluminum plate seems unfeasible, or at least I haven't gotten any ideas.

@prof,I’d be interested in what is the best way to brace a cabinet as well. I believe Merlin embedded some metal bars in the baffle for this purpose. I’d think something that was deeper than it was wide would be more effective at combatting cabinet wall flex. I also wondered about ceramic or porcelain floor tiles. They’re incredibly stiff and strong (and cheap). Would something like that attached to the inside of an MDF cabinet be better than aluminum?