Upgrading from Thiel 2.7 to Sonus Faber or Focal???

The only time and phase-aligned speaker is Vandersteen at this point.  It might suit your ear. 

For my smallish room, I demoed the Magico A3 and was also considering the Kanata 2 because of the ease of placement (never demoed it). However, I went with a used Thiel CS3.7 (that I completely rebuilt), I think it is still a great choice and definitely not a step down from any of the speakers I demoed. It is rather difficult to drive though. Maybe your 2.7 needs more power. I have no clue about your amp or the specs on the 2.7. I am just going by my experience with the 3.7.

I demoed the following:

Magico A3
Vivid Kaya 90
TAD ME1
Paradigm Persona 3F/5F
Vandersteen Treo CT
Yamaha NS5000*

*The Yamaha is the only one that I liked as much as the 3.7. I need to navigate some house politics before I can buy the Yamaha for another room. It has more bass than the 3.7 and is a little warmer (maybe). You can get home demos of the Yamaha from the online seller.

Definitely not Focals if you want warm, though they are warmER than Thiels.

I think the 2.7 has the same COAX as the 3.7. If so, the Focal is definitely not as warm as the Thiel.

Might be worth getting REW, a UMIK-1 calibrated USB microphone, and doing a frequency sweep of your room.

This is a great suggestion. I did the same to get my large speakers to fit into my small room (plus some other things with the data).

Well, it's all subjective but...


I have the Thiel 2.7s and love them (Also owned the bigger 3.7s).I actually find my 2.7s to sound rather rich and even "warm" (I'm partial to rich sound - I also own Spendors for instance).  Though I'm driving them with tubes, CJ premier 12 monoblocks.  They still sound rich even driven by the Bryston 4B3 I have on loan. 



Having auditioned the Focal Kanta speakers and and the Magico A3, I certainly wouldn't call either of those speakers warmer than the Thiels.Just the opposite IMO.   The Focal will give you a more toppy high end - grain free, but more vivid.   They are warm in the bass, but not in the mids/highs IMO.



Magico is very "audiophile" in the sense that when listening you know you are listening to a highly engineered product with very low coloration and box colorations reduced to negligible.  Quite detailed.  But I found them actually a bit more fatiguing and more analytical than my Thiels.And most of all, to my ears, less dynamic.   I played some of my favorite tracks and the palpability and drive seemed to be missing.   When I got home and played them on my Thiels that density and dynamic drive was back.


Of course, those are just my own impressions.   But it is a little hard to get at what you want, when you mention wanting "warmer" while mentioning speakers that are not known for "warmth" but the opposite if anything.

+1 Cal3713.

I wish I had started measuring my in room response much earlier.  I just started about 2 months ago.  You have no idea what you are dealing with until you get some measurements.  The difference I have achieved in my bass response, the overall sound, and imaging just by using measurements and making adjustments to my speaker location, seating location and bass trap locations, has been huge.

In one location I was achieving 0db at 28hz and -3db at 24hz from stand mounted speakers with a 7” midbass driver.  My initial measurements, where my speakers had been for 6 months, I was -7db from 40hz-200hz.

If you arent even going to use dsp, taking measurements of your system to see where you are at is really helpful to achieving better sound