Thiel Owners

arniespin,

You deserve these because I did what I have done before....hesitated because of the distance between me and the 3.7s. I did not want to chance the shipping. I could not convince my wife that we needed a vacation to Tulsa. I thought I had worked out a deal for him to personally deliver them to Birmingham for 4K, but I think my extra money wasn't worth the 22 hour round trip.

I was lucky to find a mint pair of CS3.6s for $1.2K about 100 miles from me 5 years ago, and I have bought and sold several speakers since then never bettering the magic I get with my Thiels. This included the Revel Ultima Salon2s which lasted only about a month before I sold them. Boy, were they a disappointment, and I had to crate and freight those across the country over 2000 miles.

Yes, welcome arniespin and I look forward to hearing your impressions of the 3.7s. Also, I think most of us would like to hear about the rest of your system. Maybe you can add your "virtual system" to Audiogon.

Cheers, Jon

AH, Found the Thiel thread. Just got a pair of CS2 and am putting it through the paces. Powered by a Modwright KSA 150 SE with a 9.0 Anniversary Pre. Marantz SA-11 SACD player.  Only had them for 2 days and hav not had time for a good session or time to read this thread, but my initial impressions are that these are sweet sounding speakers. More to follow. Jeff

We have a couple of new Thiel owners, so if you haven't seen this site, its a good start for understanding legacy Thiels.  https://coherentsource.wordpress.com/

jonandfamily.

Wow, you got rid of the Revel Ultima Salon2s?  Those are among the most universally lauded flagship speakers!  And you probably know they were designed via the blind-testing facilities at Harmon.  There's a big thread on them, along with great input by Floyd Toole, at the AVSforum.

Can you tell me what disappointed you about the Revels?

I haven't heard that model, but I've auditioned a couple slightly lower on the rung and while I was generally impressed as they sounded really neutral and well designed, I still preferred my Thiel 3.7s (and 2.7s).  Something about that Thiel tone, soundstaging, realism...

prof,

I negotiated an unbelievable deal on a new pair of Ultima Salon2s from HiFi Buys in Nashville. Believe me, I read all the reviews and I listened to them in their Nashville store with some high powered McIntosh gear in a large listening room. When I put them in my smaller listening room with my tube gear, they lacked the huge soundstage I was accustomed to, they lacked the Thiel warm bass that seems to penetrate my viscera, and they were simply fatiguing to listen for more than an hour. I really did a bunch of repositioning and changing around my acoustic treatments, but I just never found that magic. Since I have a tough time connecting my right brain feelings to my left brain verbalization, the best way to express my thoughts are like you say.....realism and believability.

Obviously, there are too many variables to make a blanket assumption including the fact that I probably never gave them time for a full break-in and maybe didn't have adequate power, but the bottom line is that I didn't have the patience or money to rebuild my entire system around the Revels. My original deal was so good that I was able to easily sell them without a loss. The process did make me more content with my Thiels. All I want to do now is to try out other Jim Thiel speakers to see if my 3.6s are my favorite.