Thiel Owners

JA - the disciplines are related and knowledge usually cross pollinates. But my goals in Denver relate to acoustic guitar and piano design. Making the music is my heart's delight.

tomthiel

Hello Tom, this is Sandy. Your explanation of the single most important limitation with the 3.5 explains two questions that have been bothering me for the past few years.

1) I NEVER had any problem with coping with dynamics, when the CS3.5 speakers were in my primary audio system (well, my ONLY audio system at that time). But then again, in those days, my 3.5s were in a very small dedicated listening room, only 10’ x 11’. And, that was in the days before CD was invented. So, more recent reports, claiming that newer Thiels are "better" always caused my disbelief... because how can perfection be improved upon! Well, you answered that: I didn’t have a situation that pushed their limits.

2) I heard a rumor that the 3.5’s midrange can be easily blown, from a burned voice coil, due to the wide bandwidth it has to deal with, imposed by the gentle crossover slopes. But I NEVER had a problem. That is, until I moved to a much larger room AND entered the era of CD. Since then, yes I did blow a midrange and I had to start being careful about volume. So, because those midranges are impossible to repair or replace, I had to buy a whole second pair, just to scavenger a midrange. And I have been hoarding 2nd and 3rd pairs ever since. Luckily, 3.5s are absurdly cheap now, particularly in poor cosmetic condition. But having these extras as spares takes up a lot of space!

I am SOOOO glad I found you here, so I can hear (read) more of your Thiel comments.

-- Warren (aka "Sandy"), Audio Note (uk) dealer, www.TheAudioHome.com

Hello Sandy - good to see you here. This forum is my sole on-line activity. My experience tracks yours. In all the years of demonstrating and exhibiting 3.5s, we (Thiel Audio) NEVER blew a driver, even when purposely tempting fate with high levels for extended time. But, news from the field mounted, we warranted many drivers, especially midranges with burned coils. The story was almost always moderately powered amps - 50 watts is enough to fry voice coils, but not enough to stay clean. Program material was almost always soundtracks or other oo-wow exhibition pieces. Rooms were usually large - required power rises as a cube function of size - it escalates very fast. And the "felons" often had compromised hearing - think rock concerts. A core liability of first order slops is vulnerability.

The first replacement driver was free under warranty, with a lesson and warning. If they blew another driver, the dealer had the option how to charge - we supplied the driver to the dealer at our cost. After that they were on their own. Under normal use with normal program material, a driver should last many years. But, "normal" has drifted to much higher demands than the old days.

JA - one dovetail of the XO project with my musical instrument work is that I use the same listening, mic, software and equipment setup for both purposes. So, I am taking measurements while making the guitar, and making archival recordings for later comparisons. I can compare those progress measurements against playback measurements in the same place in the same room, for a very fine-tuned reference standard.