Thiel Owners

The sound clarify in the second one is far from natural and has much distortions. I like heavy rock but would not measure speaker characteristics based on that kind of music (even some early Black Sabbath recordings are better for this purpose).
There is no way to reproduce such recording naturally so it is hard to judge on speaker quality for that kind of recording, in contrary to the first one. 
Thiels never fail to reproduce naturally
human voice, in particular. 

Thiels never fail to reproduce naturally
human voice, in particular.

I would agree with that. On the other hand, higher order speakers tend to have some extra details or trebles on the voice that makes the voice "clearer" but not naturally. When you listen to a person talking in real life, you don’t hear the extra details that sometimes being reproduced by the speakers.  On the same token, when the drum beats, the higher order speakers have some extra sparkles on the top end that makes it appear to have more slam, but probably not there on the real drum in real life.  

But some people may prefer the extra slam and sparkle of the higher order speaker so it's not like one is better than the other.

Then you may prefer Wilson Audio speakers.  For my taste they sound coloured and a bit aggressive (nothing to say about the difference on price). 

As you might have guessed by now, my installation is weird. My PPs are in a corner at 3' each from the corner with their tails near the ceiling. ( I couldn't get 4' due to physical constraints.) Their 45° vertical and horizontal launch from the symmetrical corner fills the room with little to no modes.


Tom,
Im trying to visualize the placement. Are the PPs each in a corner on the front wall (wall you face to listen) mounted hanging downward?

Mr. Bill- looking down on the room in bird's eye view, my floor standing speakers are 4' out from the south wall. But my PPs are not along that south wall. The "testing corner" is the south east corner. The right speaker is 3' out from the SE corner, hanging on the south wall with its tail near the ceiling. The left speaker is 3' out from that SE corner, hanging on the east wall. The floor to ceiling corner baffle is in that SE corner with the left subwoofer  under the left speaker, flush mounted through the east wall, extending into a roofed area. The right sub cannot be flush-mounted because the south wall is not thick enough. I face the corner to listen, which makes a very flat, even recording and playback response, due in large part to the non-rectangular room layout. The room is an L, with one leg going along the south exterior wall and the other going along the east exterior wall, providing long symmetrical walls for each speaker propagation. There is no wall behind me to reflect sound, but rather the crook of the L, and those remaining walls are all porous, providing enough air containment for spatial signature, but not enough to support room modes.