green mountains

Bombaywalla, perhaps I'm the one that's mistaken, but I think you might be confusing electrical phase for mechanical phase?

Thiel's previous products before the use of concentric drivers had different plots, e.g.:

http://www.stereophile.com/content/thiel-cs2-2-loudspeaker-measurements

http://www.stereophile.com/content/thiel-cs36-loudspeaker-measurements

http://www.stereophile.com/content/thiel-cs5-loudspeaker-measurements-0

BTW, for those that might not have been aware of this (IMHO, perhaps the best thread to ever appear on Audiogon):

http://forum.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/fr.pl?cspkr&1032037028&openflup&151&4#151

I agree with Bombaywalla's post. Although I have not heard the RIOs, I did hear one of the last Europas at GMA and I own a pair of the first EOS made (recently upgraded by Roy to EOS HX). Each EOS is supported on LF by a GMA Hammer Lite using an Audio Control Richter Scale III low pass xver at 48 Hz, no high pass filter used for the EOS. Each of the 4 speakers are fed by ~200w monoblocks - new Hypex NCore for EOS, W4S SX-500 for Hammer. I listen mostly to acoustic music - classical, country, folk, and some classic rock and jazz. The 200 watts is much more than is needed to drive these speakers to very loud levels. The EOSs provide very accurate and realistic music reproduction, be it seated at the "sweet spot", standing 3-4 feet behind, or even in the next room (listening to a CD of the same musician playing the same Bach violin sonata on the same Strad that I heard live at a local performance while walking in the foyer of a local hall). I have no reason to change to anything else; the GMA speakers - EOS and Hammer Lite - are bargains in the current market.

Georger,

I feel the same way as you do about my C3 HDs. Sometimes I have fleeting thoughts about upgrading to something else, then I spend a few hours with them and those thoughts are chased away.

Shakey

03-29-12: Unsound
Bombaywalla, perhaps I'm the one that's mistaken, but I think you might be confusing electrical phase for mechanical phase?

Thiel's previous products before the use of concentric drivers had different plots, e.g.:

www.stereophile

www.stereophile

www.stereophile

BTW, for those that might not have been aware of this (IMHO, perhaps the best thread to ever appear on Audiogon):

forum.audiogon#151

Unsound, no I was not mistaking mechanical phase for electrical phase.
All-the-same thanx for posting those measurements for earlier Thiel speakers. Those imp & ph plots look a lot better than the ones I posted of more recent Thiel speakers. I can see now why Prdprez posted that Thiels are coherent speakers.
So, why in the world, did Thiel depart from a good thing - his original coherent speaker design as the more recent speakers from Thiel measure worse imp & phase-wise meaning more distortion of the music signal??

yeah, I agree that thread was an awesome one. That's exactly the thread I read again & again & again & again + spoke to Roy about its contents for many hrs & ultimately ended buying a Green Mountain Audio speaker! I would recommend reading all those posts in that thread until the contents are fully digested. The reader will learn a LOT....

Bombaywalla, I can only guess why. Perhaps for cost savings, improved time and dispersion coherence, and ease of loudspeaker placement? Since it appears as though the concentric drivers use a mechanical rather than an electrical cross-over, perhaps the sum at the listening position is corrected for?
Considering what was posted by Roy in that thread, I have to wonder why there isn't more use of sealed box enclosures by the loudspeaker designers that adhere to this philosophy.?
I think ultimately somehow digital technology will make these ideas more accurate and practical.