Thiel Owners

unsound,

Your comments are excellent regarding the sound of the Thiels. (Though, again, associated amplification/position/acoustics can come into play, of course).

But I hope you don’t mind if I take some issue with a statement like this:

---"All Thiels need to be at least 8’ from speaker directly to listener for proper driver integration, and the time coherence that is such an integral part of the Thiel designs." ----

That is clearly advice given with helpful intent, and no doubt some theoretical rational behind it. However, if I had taken such admonitions for keeping 8 feet from the Thiels I may very well not have bought my 3.7s.

I’m as fanatical about coherence as any other audiophile you’ll meet (starting off with the Quad ESL 63s will do that to you). So coherency is vital for my listening.

I’d seen this "you need to keep a good distance for driver integration in the Thiels" stated before, so I worried somewhat about the Thiels being right for me as my room forces a closer seating distance, which is my preference anyway.

The first thing is it didn’t really jive with my previous experience of the Thiel CS6’s. I can’t remember the distance exactly, but it was closer than 8 feet and they sounded terrific. And before buying the 3.7s, I contacted another audiogon member who said the 3.7s at 7ft from his listening position sounded perfect.

Wes Philip who raved about the 3.7s in Stereophile’s sat only 7 1/2 feet from the Thiels. Further, if you read JA’s measurements, you’ll see that getting waveform coherence is more about situating at the right height relative to the tweeter/mid, rather than distance. At a height of 34" and only 50" away, the output of all the drive units arrive at the same time, for a proper step response.

In terms of presenting a seamlessly integrated sound, this meshes with my experience in dialing in the 3.7s. I’m now averaging 6 1/2 feet from the 3.7s and they are only getting more coherent. If I lean in some more - say another 6 inches or more - they remain coherent (and in fact sound even more seamless and natural IMO).

So it would be a shame if someone who had a smaller room, or who liked closer listening, wrote Thiels off their list thinking they won’t work
closer.

On a similar note, there is the oft-repeated claim "Thiels NEED tons of power" in terms of amps. Well...yes...and no. Depends on the sound one is interested in getting from their Thiels. No speaker is perfect and different people have their own things they are trying to achieve for the sound they like, which is why synergy (per someone’s own tastes) is so important. If you want to hear the upper limit dynamics a Thiel is capable of, then...like most speakers...a powerful amplifier will do that for you. But, with lower powered tube amps Thiels still retain most of the character that attract people to Thiel - that clarity, honesty, neutrality, specificity of imaging, density, tone, aliveness, etc. With my CJ tube amps, the bass remains phenomenally controlled and tight, as well.

As I’ve mentioned before, I’ve even driven the Thiels with an Eico HF-81
14w/side tube amp. Will that allow the Thiels to play as loudly and dynamically as they are capable of? Heck no. But you will rarely hear the Thiels sound as gorgeously rich and lush and HUGE, yet clear, detailed and lively, as with that little amp. In some ways I even prefer it to my much bigger CJ amps. As long as you don’t need earth shaking volume, and in a room like mine, and since I don’t tend to listen really loud, it’s a rewarding amp/speaker pairing.

Prof, you raise an interesting point about listener's height and seating distance; one that I raised to Jim Thiel many years ago (back when the CS 5's were released). Jim told me that at distances of 8' or greater that the sonic waves were so large that critical distance became realistically less important. He also said (surprisingly enough, to me at least) that studies demonstrated that most listeners regardless of height had their ears measured to within relatively similar distances to the floor (I seem to remember approximately 3"(?) variance and typically 37-39"(?) ear to floor distance, but I'm really not certain of either).
 In that the vast majority of Jim Thiel's work (and amongst those of perhaps a very, very small number of other speaker designers) appears to have been towards mastering time, it seems quite rational to me, to do as much as possible to allow those efforts to flourish. I seem to recall that Stereophile apologized in almost every Thiel review  for not being able to test them at appropriate distances, and at appropriate distances they expected the measurements to demonstrate superior performance. John Dunlavy was so irked (he told me so himself) with Stereophile's measurements that even he invited Stereophile to independently test his time aligned designs at his facilities. With the proper distances, measurements were much improved, with Stereophile offering the blame of small glitches perhaps to reflections from the fork lift that was used to move those large cabinets.  That is not to say that without such considerations, one couldn't enjoy Thiels (heck, most people enjoy their speakers regardless of the fact that their speakers are never in time alignment).
  Thiels will make music even if underpowered, but again they won't be able to provide the strain free dynamics, linear frequency response and bass integration that appropriate power can. One can enjoy Thiels without proper driver integration, or even power, but they won't be enjoying the full potential of those Thiels. 
 

I know nothing about this particular unit, or of the feedbackless seller, but if one could get an in house audition and pick up directly, this looks like a potential killer bargain, even if by chance it might need some maintenance, for some Thiel owner.:
https://www.audiogon.com/listings/amplifiers-threshold-s500-a-ab-amplifier-2017-04-10-vintage-equipm...
FWIW, it has more Class A output than Nelson Pass's later similarly powered Pass Labs X250's. Will work with many ss and tube pres (Audio Research is often cited).