jonandfamily.
Man that's ruff! I can't believe they sold for that (admittedly, the lowest Tier finish but still...) I absolutely hate missing out on gear like that, which is why I often take a hit in paying more than others will if I really want it.
It's always possible to have the Thiels re-finished (that is what I'm still contemplating. Rob G at one point said he'd do it for me, but I found a local guy who will do it as well).
Not to rub it in, but last night I was listening to one of my favorite Bernard Hermann scores, Jason And The Argonauts. I love the way he wrote for those guttural sounding woodwinds, low growling oboes etc.
If a speaker doesn't do those instruments right, it's immediately removed from contention. Through the 3.7s last night those instruments were glorious: huge, full-sized, rich, just vibrating the air like someone playing in front of me, all with the appropriate organic warm tone. And no matter what register they played, nowhere did they sound remotely like they were coming from a box. It's the same with voices, whether its a female singer traveling the upper registers there is zero discontinuity and never a sense of a tweeter or treble being separate or on top of the rest of the spectrum. Or a male singer singing into the chesty range - which on many speakers gets into that zone that excites speaker resonances or cross-over issues etc, where suddenly you start to pick up the lower notes as being augmented in some fashion. Not the Thiels. No matter where the voice travels, it remains perfectly rendered, organically full, continuous, and without any box or resonant presence at all.
Auditioning other speakers, even newer ones, only make me come back to marvel at what Jim achieved with the 3.7s!
