Thiel Owners

I’m glad to report that bluestone is local enough and/or intrepid enough to arrange pickup of the 3.5 drivers and crossovers next week. Seems as though he is as fond of these old speakers as I had been. And I’ve had a few. They are most definitely worth sustaining for as long as feasibly possible.  30 year old speakers that sound this good?  Yeah!

The pair of 3.5’s that I gifted to my nephew - with the mids repaired by Rob a while ago - still sound excellent. At low to moderate listening levels I don’t think I’ve had a speaker that put out such impeccable sonics - which may very well be the strongest suit of this model. Yeah, it’s an old design, replacement parts are scarce and growing even scarcer, but they’re still an absolute bargain on the used market.  There’s a pair in California asking $800, and there’s been a pair in New York for well over a year asking $1000.  That would be my personal ceiling given all the drawbacks aforementioned.  

It has been a LOT of fun watching the discourse continue here; the conversations regarding upgrades and tweaking these speakers is interesting as all hell even though I wouldn’t know a first order network from a short order cook. That so many others also find Thiel to be something very special is - forgive the very weak pun - music to my ears. 

Thiel was responsible for me getting back into “hifi” around six years ago with my first pair of 3.5’s. Hard to let that kind of influence just go away. 

Rock on, thread!  Best there is ...

jon_5912 , jafant --

To me it is fairly simple --- when you go to a jazz club or classical concert you hear the music.  If well performed, there is absolutely nothing to create tension, stress, or even untoward focused attention.  You tend to let the music and performance wash over you.  You are immersed in it.

To me, the Thiel and Vandersteen speakers (as well as some planars) do that.  Other speakers do not, except perhaps a few planars.

 Interestingly I grew up in a household with a very large JBL C-30 front loaded corner horn (two 15" woofers and a D175 horn mid-tweeter that dispersed widely via baffles and covered everything from 175hz on up.. It was mono, but music was produced that was effortless and low distortion, with pretty coherent phase given it was handled mostly by a single driver.  It had much of that same "effortless" , relaxing quality you feel.

tomthiel,

Ha...yeah I feel a bit strange lauding them so highly.  They just happen to hit my buttons. 

As I said, at least my pair has an upper mid/lower treble peak of some sort that unfortunately can make them shouty or piercing with the wrong material.  And they won't turn up terribly loud before straining.

But they have such an in-the-room palpability.  And they seem to be a match made in heaven with my Conrad Johnson tube gear and especially with vinyl playback, which I think plays to their strengths and mitigates some of their weaknesses.   I'll have to try pairing them with my subs at some point for fun.

Prof - you might enjoy a little history trip, even if a particular or two might be blurry. The model 02 was a particularly formative step in Thiel's early evolution.
Remember, things were very different in the mid 70s. There was no "high end" yet. Major niches were JBL monitors and Advent coming from academia, geared toward wanna be sophisticates, and Bose promulgating the new paradigm. Thiel's first model 01 was a 10"x 1.5" two way with sealed box equalized bass, 3rd order - very dynamic and efficient (94dB?), but lacking gentleness, nuance and grace. Early advisers counseled that a very different product would attract a very different market and provide experiential input for deciding how to best proceed. We were making up our future on the fly.
Jim designed the 02, somewhat reluctantly, to address these nascent audiophile sensibilities, to be sweet and enveloping and enjoyable. Jim was puzzled by and somewhat resentful that this  experiment was so successful. His heart wasn't really in it, but it hit lots of people's buttons. It was the only product which Jim refused to have reviewed, because he felt it was a form of manipulation of sensibilities, psychological design, re-mixing common ingredients, nothing new. However, as a good engineer, he did give it his full attention. We collectively chose the Peerless silk dome tweeter as it was the darling of the day. The Seas (I think) woofer practically engineered itself to fit the need of second order roll-off and ported bass - so crossover part count was minimal. Our vision was very low cost x high appeal. I designed a cabinet to Jim's enclosed volume specification which left NO / zero waste except sawdust. We even sold the dropouts from the woofer and grille frame rout to recover that cost. The walls were 5/8 particle board to get Jim's volume requirement and yield the palels from standard 49" x 97" sheets. Their retail price in 1977 was $200 / pair in all four standard woods: Walnut, White Oak, Teak and Brazilian Rosewood. That inflates to $885 in today's money. They were a hit.

The 02 served as an influence, a channel to learn what things matter to some listeners who could become our customers. I also have a warm spot in my heart for the 02. The pair coming from my brother is the Rosewood prototype we showed at our first CES - June 1997. The 03 silent prototype we showed there was an 01 in a tower; it never saw daylight. A major reason was the affection and enthusiasm directed toward the 02 by our first public audience. That input was formative and motivating.

The 02 also played a survival function. The late 70s was a financially turbulent time. A particularly wild currency swing caused an imbalance between the German Mark and American Dollar which allowed US products to sell in Germany for even money as in America. So, a competent German distributor came aboard and did a great job selling our fledgling products, 01 and especially 02s, into one of the most sophisticated markets in the world. Italy and England followed. That fact got the attention of some high-profile, top tier East Coast US dealers. They never would have even noticed a new little company from Kentucky, but were eager to take on a company making such good headway in Europe.

The 02 experience caused us to change course in the 03 development. It became a far more sophisticated product than originally imagined. One of the major differences between the 01 and 02 (among everything being different) was the 02 second order vs 01 third order crossover slopes. Second order slopes never exceed 90° phase shift and transition smoothly to the other driver with inverted polarity. There is an ease and rightness about that transition, even though it inverts polarity; there are no abrupt phase shifts or ringing as there are in higher orders. By the way, the newcomer Dave Wilson incorporated the 02 woofer and crossover design into his new "WATT" small monitor. Doesn't that make the Thiel 02 some kind of mythical grandfather or something?

An addendum here is that the 02 precedes our knowledge of pure wire and foil caps, which developed via the rigors of the phase coherent 03. Guess what I'll be doing to my 02s. Do any of you know if that 1" Peerless soft dome tweeter is still supplied?

@Tomthiel - thanks for the trip down memory lane ! The 02 had a rightness about them- paired at the shop with Audionics of Oregon BT-2 and CC2 and a decent Turntable and Grado they would shine !
older brother still has his pair today !!!!