Thiel Owners

Good to see you guys enjoying the exchange of ideas, banter and celebrating of our beloved loudspeakers.  Like so many here in these forums, I enjoy Conrad Johnson gear, as well.  Keep up the friendly fire.

Happy Listening!

So all this talk about room size, and placement theory, had me experimenting and moving the 2.4s around again.  The room has absorption panels on the side walls, corner bass traps on the front wall, and diffraction on the back wall.  Room is 13'6"W x 23'L x 8'H.

I ended up with them 57" from the front wall, 44" from the side wall, and 75" apart.  Listening position is 100".  All measurements are from the centre of the THIEL name plate.

So I lost none of the soundstage width (which often goes wall-to-wall), gained some depth, and a little tighter focus in the vocals.

I'm somewhat amused by this, because it seemed to fly in the face of the wisdom of most literature recommending an 8' minimum distance between speakers.  I've been able to free myself of the head in a vice behaviour, as a result.

I've been running through my usual test tracks and have been pleased with the results.  Painter's tape markings have been repositioned accordingly.

My mileage has been varied...

Cheers,
Warren

Hi unsound,

It wasn't a serious consideration because the room doubles as a home theatre too; where we often add a second row of seats.  

There's a structural telepost (masqueraded by a 16" wooden column) that interferes as well so it was better to have it off to the one side rather than directly in the middle of the seating. 

Anyway I was just playing around with the Cardas golden ratios and such, and seemed to have reached a good sonic solution for 2-ch.  

That reminds me to build my next house with floor trusses; and free up the space for even more flexibility...

Cheers,
Warren

I was moving my 3.7s to make room for the 2.7s I’m getting tomorrow.
For the heck of it I set up my old Thiel 02s. For those who don’t know that model, it was before the time/phase coherence - just a regular box speaker, but engineered for a flatter response than most speakers at the time (even though it’s not perfectly flat - a bit of emphasis in the upper mids). Not sure I’d listened to them yet since I got my CJ Premier 16LS2 pre-amp a while back.

Unbelievably musical. So clear, alive sounding, yet warm, with more sparkle than the 3.7s. It’s actually my benchmark for the sound I’ve been chasing for years, which is why I can’t ever get rid of them.
Every time I fire them up I end up thinking "maybe this is all I need" but I know after time I can start to crave some of the finesse of a newer speaker (and scale). But boy do I love those speakers, an unbelievably synergistic match with the CJ amps. (And my Eico HF-81).  I actually prefer listening to them over the Harbeth SHL5 Plus I just sold!

I should have my 2.7s tomorrow so this will be interesting...