Have been watching this thread with huge interest and perhaps it’s time I waded in with a few initial thoughts, again on the 3.5s. I’m 100% with oblgny in his praise for these amazing speakers. Goodness knows I’ve owned a hell of a lot of speakers in the past 30 years, from three types of Quad electrostatic, to Kef 107/2s to Celestion Kingstons, to LS3/5As, to name but a few, and nothing comes even close to what the 3.5s do as a whole. I truly think my quest is at an end. They handle ANY genre of music utterly effortlessly and don’t need huge amounts of gain to sparkle either. As oblgny says, there’s something so right about them. And yet they aren’t exactly the most sought after speakers and go for prices that are punching way, way below their weight. I have no hesitation in calling Jim Thiel an utter genius of speaker design. Admittedly not the easiest speakers to drive, but who cares when the sound is so gloriously complete. Perhaps someone could answer if these were the only full range Thiel speakers? I can confirm that the Kentucky service dept is alive and well and I just bought new spikes from them a couple of weeks ago. They don’t do the rounded tip ones any more however.
As a slightly negative footnote, while I'm pleased that the new regime at Thiel has allowed the service dept to stay alive, the new designs are not worthy of the brand. You'd at least think they'd retain the coherent source concept, wouldn't you. Presumably they purchased the IP too?
