Thiel Owners

Hi guys,

Been a while. Hope all is well. Still here and lurking mostly. I still have my 3.6 which I have had for around 20 years now. However, I am presented with an opportunity to get a Sophia 3 so I'm at a crossroad. Not sure if I should do it or not...
Any firsthand experience with switching from a 3.6 to a Sophia or something else? Thanks,
jay

Guys, my observation from afar is that you guys are like we Vandersteen owners.  The major reason we are so drawn to these two designs are because they are time and phase correct.  It's the only reason I find other GREAT speakers not my favorite or where I put my money.

I know a ton of Vandersteen owners who have owned original Thiels and visa versa.  It's very rare that someone who owns Thiels won't also like Vandersteen's and visa versa.  That's not marketing hype, that's really life listening.  Not everyone hears the difference between a phase and time correct speaker, but I bet 95% or more of you folks on this thread do.  JMHO

@ctsooner , I couldn’t agree more, but it’s curious how many that don’t appreciate the time coherence assume that there wouldn’t be cross appreciation of the brands by the owners of each. I regularly read of people that have or do own both. FWIW, I think the Dunlavy’s are in the mix, and perhaps even more so for Thiel owners.

@jcatral14 I hope you can audition the Sophia before committing. I’ve not heard the Sophia but I have heard W/P 7, W/P 8, Sasha, and Maxx. I’ve also not heard the 3.6 but have owned the 1.6 and 2.4 plus heard 3.7 and 7.2. IMO, Wilsons are good but not worth the price. They do have heroic cabinets, probably their biggest strength and one reason for the price. They also seem to have quality passive parts but I’m not a fan of their driver choices. One thing I’ve heard on Wilsons that I’ve not heard on anything else is a profound sense of the hall space on live recordings. That’s a really cool trick . . . but probably an artifact of the midbass bump. 

For about the same price, I would rather have killer electronics mated to Thiels than modest electronics mated to Wilsons. But you won’t know until you can hear the Sophias.

jcatral14,

It was a longtime ago but I made notes that day and still have them (sometimes it helps to be a dork). I demoed the Sophia 3 and Thiel 3.7 in the same room, same system, moving each speaker out of the way for each demo. I switched back and forth for roughly 3 hours. The next day I went back and did the same with the Sophia 3 and 802D2.  I have also owned the Thiel 2.4 for 10+ years and it sits in one of my secondary systems now (Revel 228be with JL subs in my main system).



So these comments are from notes made the day of.  The Thiels were setup with 10-15 degrees of toe in and wilson had heavy toe in to cross just behind the listening seat. Again same room roughly the same spot on the floor. Also used multiple amps. musical fidelity and ARC front ends, tried both on both speakers. The room was large (20x30x15ish) and the speakers were in the middle of the room with the seats on the back 3rd. I sat 10-12’ away.



- tonal balance: the Sophia’s have hard hitting slamming bass compared to the Thiels. Shook the room with what seems like much deeper notes. The 3.7 seemed a little light in the bass in direct comparison. The week before (yes 3 days total) the Thiels in isolation had great bass. The mids and highs seemed to have comparable tonal balance to me. Nothing stood out on either other than the bass on the Sophia 3



-sound stage: The 3.7 has noticeably wider soundstage but less center focus. The singer was a hair more collapsed to the speakers on the 3.7. The center focus on the Sophia was somewhere between the 3.7 and 802D but the singer stood center stage better than the 3.7. The 3.7 sound stage was wider and much more stable. Moving my head did not change it much. The Sophia 3 on the other hand changed and collapsed with my movement. If I sat up or leaned to one side I could heard a clear shift in sound. The mids and tweeter blended well but on a much smaller window and I had to be in the pocket for the drivers to blend well. The Sophia will be harder to setup for sure. But I like the center focus of them. In the sweet spot they were great. As a side note I feel like sometimes deep male voices would collapse to the bass driver on the 3.7.


-details: this was a tie for me.


-enjoyment: that day I came away liking the Sophia 3 a lot more. I put a very high priority on bass and the Sophia was great and at the time the best bass I had heard. Now in a smaller room would it be problematic? Maybe. The Thiel would also gets some room gain… so hard to say.


-my general thoughts. The Thiel is a near perfect speaker imo. Really no flaw but sometimes extra bass is what I want. The Wilsons are clearly voiced to make vocals pop and bass slam and deviate from perfection but they were more enjoyable as I am not an objectivist. After the demo I bought a pair of JL subs (use a high-pass) and was happy for a long time. Being able to tune the bass in my room both for nodes and taste really stopped be from upgrading for a longtime.


  
Since then I have heard most of the Wilsons under $70k and since owning subs  I have not been as impressed with them. Still one of my favorite speaker brands but their prices are silly and a pair of Thiels or Revels with subs still challenge anything on the market imo. Where I think the Thiels are showing their age is in the highs. Some of the new tweeter are simply fantastic.