Thiel Owners

As a 2.7 owner, I don't think you will be missing much as compared to the 3.7. I never heard the 3.7, but I find the bass satisfying. Actually, when I auditioned them I was very surprised by the bass, much better than I expected. (Although I do use a smartsub, to be honest you would never know it was there.)

robinbarour,

Thanks....though your comments on the 2.7  bass sounded promising...right up until you mentioned you use a sub with them.  It's no wonder you find the bass satisfying  ;-)

BTW,

Auditioned the Raidho C 1.2 monitors today.  They would normally be prohibitively expensive but a dealer has a great demo pair deal so I gave them a listen.

Very nice high end frequencies in terms of smoothness combined with subtle detail - open, lifelike, while not too bright (generally).  Bass quite surprisingly big and impactful from a monitor.   Decent soundstaging.

But...didn't care for them over all.  Tonally I found them somewhat bleached and bland.  They also sounded somewhat sculpted (as they actually are) with a BBC-like dip, which made lots of vocals and orchestral music sound naturally smooth, but showed up as a more obvious tonal and dynamic reticence elsewhere: for instance drum snares, rim shots I knew to have excellent presence in other more neutral speakers like the Thiels were dulled and made more distant.  Acoustic guitar finger picking  attack was made too polite - one classical guitar piece by John Williams which has shows tons of effort and energy on the Thiels and some other speakers sounded weakened and far less exciting on the Raidhos.  Also, even when there's significant (apparent) bass extension there's something about a small monitor trying to sound big that I never quite buy. 

Once I got home and played all the same tracks on the 3.7s I was amazed by how much better I thought the whole presentation was - clarity, organic quality, control, imaging, dynamics...just everything seemed better.  Played the same John Williams guitar track and it simply sounded more like a real guitar in front of me, being played enthusiastically.  It seems to me Jim Thiel didn't have to sculpt the frequency range to make for smooth sound - the 3.7s just are smooth, yet full and exciting at the same time.

Jim Thiel was one of the best, if not the best speaker designers!  In a way, under appreciated.  Yet as time goes by, he is justifiably getting his due more and more.  If he had lived longer, Vandersteen would still be in the rear view mirror.  My opinion of course.  Best......

Amen to that!