Larry (irsky),
Do you mean you worked for Jim Thiel?
I had a conversation with Jim at a CES years ago and we got into his motivation regarding speaker design. He told me that he'd originally been very enthusiastic about panel speakers (stats and ribbons) because of what they did so well. But ultimately he concluded there were some inherent design limitations that he couldn't see getting past, and that though he felt box speakers were not quite at the level of planar performance, there was more potential to be exploited in future designs, so he went with box speaker route.
I have to say that Jim was certainly right. To my ears the limitations of panels remain to this day, especially electrostatics. That is a certain weightless lack of air-moving quality that, though transparent, doesn't excite the room. It's like watching musicians perform in another room, as it were. This is just were good dynamic speakers excel - Jim's designs being a perfect example - of bringing forth that density and presence in the sound. This I think is behind the comments we often hear about Thiels being like "maggie's with bass." It's not just the bass region, but Thiels produce a transparency and tonality quite like maggies, but with the air-pushing presence through the whole spectrum.
Do you mean you worked for Jim Thiel?
I had a conversation with Jim at a CES years ago and we got into his motivation regarding speaker design. He told me that he'd originally been very enthusiastic about panel speakers (stats and ribbons) because of what they did so well. But ultimately he concluded there were some inherent design limitations that he couldn't see getting past, and that though he felt box speakers were not quite at the level of planar performance, there was more potential to be exploited in future designs, so he went with box speaker route.
I have to say that Jim was certainly right. To my ears the limitations of panels remain to this day, especially electrostatics. That is a certain weightless lack of air-moving quality that, though transparent, doesn't excite the room. It's like watching musicians perform in another room, as it were. This is just were good dynamic speakers excel - Jim's designs being a perfect example - of bringing forth that density and presence in the sound. This I think is behind the comments we often hear about Thiels being like "maggie's with bass." It's not just the bass region, but Thiels produce a transparency and tonality quite like maggies, but with the air-pushing presence through the whole spectrum.