Fatigue Subjective???

Listener fatigue is sujective and very real. I'll tell you a little secret, I find it often happens sooner at live musice performances than on good "systems". I find many live performances unnecessiarily and/or over ampilified. Sean is right on about how sound quailty seems to vary with ac and time of the day. As I've previously posted, I used to live in an apartment in New York that was across the streeet from a high school computer lab. With in hours of the school's closing, the sound of my system would improve. Upon the school's reopening the grundge would return. The Thiels aside from the low impedance, usually provide an easy load for amplifiers. I don't believe them to be bright, just not rolled off, as such they will show up componenet colorizations quite easily. You seem to have identified these coloriztions quickly. That's probably a very good thing. As there is no such thing as a completely neutral componenet, one has to find ones that have a balance that works for you. May I suggest you try the Thiels with Pass, Krell or the high current Conrad-Johnson (2300 or 2500 series) amps. There are other's that come to mind but I have not heared them with the Thiels, so I'm hestitant to recommend them. Good luck.

Based on personal experience, the Thiels sound good with the Rowlands and the BAT amps, also.

I'll second the Rowlands.

I guess, because Meadowlark Shearwaters were incredibly fatiguing to me. But no one else has ever mentioned Meadowlark as being fatiguing.
I don't get your comments on Naim having good soundstage depth. I always found it worse than pretty much anything else of comparable price.
Naim stuff is colored in the midrange and is overpriced compared to other brands IMO.
Try Thiel with Musical Fidelity, or tube gear. I found it to be clear but not fatiguing.

I'm currently using a tube amp with the Thiels, and it has a low fatigue factor. And for only about 35 watts a side, I'm not complaining about missing power. As far as the soundstage depth, it was there in spades with the NAIM relative to the Levinson integrated. This is of course just what I heard one day with about 25 minutes of listening in total. I know the Thiels are not rolled off like others, and Thiel does not stipulate tubes like some other makers, so I believe they get a bum rap on the fatigue side. And there was a good point that live music is fatiguing. for rock, I usually wear earplugs if it's a small space, so I don't notice. And there are alot of sounds we encounter everyday - saws, sirens, some voices, which would be fatiguing if recorded and reproduced perfectly, god knows they're bad enough in real life. I think I have different expectations for recorded music than live music. Like the soundstage at the symphony vs what I want from a cd through my system. Definitely expect it to be more pronounced on the system. I had not considered rowlands. I'll check 'em out!

Thanks,

Robert