Thiel Owners

I like the newer Wilsons a fair amount.  I just love the Steen's, but I could easily own a pair of Wilsons.  My buddy just reviewed the Sophia 3 for TAS and I think he's going to get a pair of Alexa's potentially.  

The Nyquist showed up today.  I thought I could use the volume control, but just read that it's not meant to run directly to the amp. I could have sworn I read that it did.  Now I need ot get a used preamp, balanced and zero feedback (or possibly a used balanced Tortuga passive) to run until the pre I want to get is finished.  Oh vey... ha... I'll use the balanced headphone out at least.  

Interesting conversation about the Wilson’s. I heard the Alexia 2’s for the first time about 10 months ago and auditioned them in depth in June. The Alexia’s have fantastic bass. The mids and highs sounded faster than the Thiels but the Thiels have better imaging and vocals, I thought. Since then I replaced the carpeting with hardwood in my listening room and adjusted my subs to improve the bass and added dedicated power lines. The wood floor made the Thiels sound faster. The dedicated power lines helped too.
I too thought the Thiel’s tweeters were lacking and still a bit harsh until I added the Niagara Power Conditioner with a Hurricane Power Cord. The highs are creamy smooth now. My lust for the Alexia’s is waning as I have made these progressive improvements to my room and system. The bass is much improved but still not quite the caliber of the Alexia’s but I feel like I would be giving up a lot to gain that little bit better bass. I plan to make another audition in December perhaps.

tonywinga,

We have conversed in other threads regarding the bass of wilson vs Thiel. I am still surprised you are wanting of bass owning two subs. 

A few thoughts, have you measured your room? You could have a hole in the bass. I struggle with a 10db dip from 60-70hz in my room regardless of whether I ran the mains full range or highpass the subs. I really had to move my speakers around to get rid of it. Could be as simple as a db meter and a test tone track streamed. 


I started with my mains the audiophile way, way out into the room. 6’ off the rear wall and my subs 39” off from the driver face. At one time I had the speakers 7.5’ off the front wall and the sub right beside the mains and also tried the subs 24” off the front wall with the mains at 7.5’. So my point is I have had them all over the room. But I measured each setup and the 60-70hz dip was persistent. 


Then I set my mains only 24” (from the driver face) off the front wall… and got flat bass. It sounded ok too but a hair chesty/boxy. I then broke out the calculator and started figuring out distance and wave lengths I was canceling to put some science behind it. My final solution was to put the subs at 24” off the wall and my mains at 43.5” off the wall. Using a 60hz crossover point puts the long waves out of the subs and the shorter waves out of the mains. 43’ seems to be enough not to cancel at 60hz-90hz. Between 24” and 6.5’ is no man’s land where bass does odd stuff. Don’t forget the ceiling and wall distance sum too and they are normally fixed. 

Here is the kicker. I bought a pair of Revel 228be about a month ago and we’ll they have the exact same issue. Dip in the bass between 60-70hz. After a week of moving them around I also ended up with the subs 24” off the front wall and the speakers 43.5 off the front wall. The room wins every time. You could buy new speakers to end up having the same bass issues you have now. 


Another example:


I alway struggled for bass slam with my 2.4 in my main listening room. A few weeks ago I put the 2.4s in the living room for the wife (she loves them) and I placed them 24” off the wall so the kids don’t bump into them running around playing and guess what? Crazy bass, I mean wow wall shaking bass, with slam I have never heard come out of a thiel. I am talking subwoofer type bass. So I took out the db meter and ran some sweeps. Flat bass to 40hz and down 6db at 33hz. No dip at all between 40-90hz. The room is 26’x19’x8’ with the speakers centered on the long wall and the rear wall opens to the rest of the house. Lots of furniture in the room and kids toys everywhere, total mess, no extra charge for room “treatments” lol. Again just comes down to the room. 
These days I have grown somewhat tired of chasing gear. At this point I am looking at spending most of my further budget on the room. 

james633

Thank You for sharing your impressions and thoughts on CS 2.4 loudspeakers. Your ears do not deceive. The CS 2.4 is not Bass-shy (weak).  Nor are the CS 2.7 and CS 3.7, which can accommodate higher rated Power amps.  An inherent room and/or room treatments can add to the Aural experience.

Happy Listening!

Thank you for sharing.  Using subs adds a lot of flexibility to tuning the system to the room.  I also experimented with speaker/sub placement.  I like the Thiel's well away from the back wall to create a deep and wide soundstage but that does lean out the bass a bit.  So the subs ended up close to the back wall and toed in just a bit.  I wouldn't think that toeing in subs would matter but it seems to help.  The bass is very satisfactory, very good now in my system.  I happened to take a CD by Stanley Clark titled East River Drive, with me last summer when auditioning the Alexia's.  I played the first track and I could hear the skin of the bass drums on the Alexia's.  The Alexia's bass is very fast and crisp.  That sound was very apparent.  I now have my system to the point that playing this same track sounds really close to that of the Alexia's but I listen for the skin of the bass drums and that detail it is almost there but not as obvious.  This is the difference that I'm talking about.  And that difference could be due to the D'Augustino amps driving the Alexia's vs. my Pass Labs Amps at home- or the DCS DAC at the store vs my Ayon DAC or a hundred other things.  Think of the bitter disappointment were I to bring the Alexia's home just to learn that I need different amps.  This is the thing about Thiel speakers.  It will be very expensive to find a speaker that can surpass the Thiels in every way.  And then I heard the new Vandersteen Model 7 XTRM speakers in August.  They sound better to me than the Alexia's...