Thiel Owners

oops - that's vicious.

Too bad they don't measure at distances that allow for proper driver integration, time accuracy or actual listening positions.

Most Thiels measured by Stereophile (at 50") show a suck out at the mid-tweeter XO point. Sometimes the text would explain that this was likely a problem of distance and sometimes not (but kudos to them for even trying!).
Soundstage measures at 2 m, about 79". If the CS2.4 was disadvantaged in their test you can't tell by the "listening window" graph. +/- 2 dB from about 33-20K! I've only noticed one other speaker in their database that can match that! (A $$$$ Magico - no thanks)

Tom,
How did Thiel measure speakers, and what type of facilities did Thiel have for measuring speakers?  Thanks.

• Bad (compromised) information is in some ways more harmful than no information. Real anechoic chamber or outdoor measurements are expensive and Stereophile et al choose to side-step that expense without, in my opinion, proper contextualization / education for their readers.

I agree that JA often fails to include a few simple statements that can help the reader interpret the graphs, including how the measurements might be misleading of actual performance. IMO, the quality of that publication has slipped over the years.

It is impolite for manufacturers to raise such issues in print, thereby becoming complicit in the misleading measurements.

I recall at least two examples where Stereophile printed measurements provided by the manufacturer (Vandersteen and Avalon) but, yeah, risky for manufacturers to push back.

Thiel seems to have generally measured quite well, despite the limitations of the Stereophile methods.

A lot of manufacturers diss Stereophile and Atkinson for measurements that don't go their way.  But nonetheless, I am grateful for the work JA has done.  Even if flawed in ways, he's given us an amazing, wide-ranging body of work in terms of measurements of speakers and other audio gear, and attempts to correlate measurements to sound.  I can't think of any gathering of data on high end gear that approaches what JA has provided to the paying public.  (And even now, online, for free).