Thiel Owners

arniespin,

Before I had any Meadowlark speakers in my home I was well acquainted with the popular Shearwaters. I ended up with the Blue Heron speakers for a while, and also owned the stand mounted Meadowlarks Swallow.

What I loved about the Meadowlark sound, especially the bigger Herons, is that they pulled off that very rare combination: rich and lush and warm, but without being dark and sleepy in tonality. They were very open sounding and disappeared like few other speakers. They had, to my ear, a sort of "woody" tonality that really benefited acoustic instruments and voices, vs the more steely or electronic tone of many speakers. The Herons were smoother sounding than the more forward Shearwaters (which were such a fun, exciting speaker, while still not fatiguing).

Though I really enjoyed the Herons lushness and soundstaging, I did find they bloomed a bit much in the bass for me, and although their coloration was very consonant with acoustic instruments, I ultimately found myself a bit too aware of their voice. I think it was actually either the Hales Transcendence 5s or the Thiel CS6s that replaced them.

I'm still a bit sad that I sold the smaller Swallow speakers.  They had little bass to speak of but my god did they sound open, quick and "invisible" with a gorgeous warm tone.  I had too many speakers though and my wife had put her foot down.  It was a token "sell."  :-)

Topic

What Song, Album or Genre do you use to set up your speakers ?

I had moved my speakers back just one inch and had to re-angle them.
I tried to have them with as little angle as possible to get the widest soundstage possible, after several toe-ins I thought I had it until 
Classical Sunday , it just didn't come together , I had to angle it in 
1/2 more to get the Orchestra sounding like you are sitting 
ten rows back center.

In a conversation with Prof I learned that he has his speakers 
8 feet apart and listing position 6.5 to 7 feet away with little toe-in.
I have 8 feet apart and 8 feet from listing position ,
I had guessed a toe-in of 10 degrees but after measurements and mathematics it turned out to be 16.5 degrees toe-in .
Using the front of the speaker being the only straight side .

I guess that the difference is in the music that you listen to
as to setting the speakers position.
I listen to 70% rock 60's & early 70's , 10% folk 60's & 70's .
10% jazz 50's & 60"s and 10% classical 50's , 60's & 70's .
 
Something for all Thiel owners to talk about.

Rob

P.S.  I had mentioned 2 songs that exhibit strong bass
        I would like to add an album  
        Jefferson Airplane   Crown Of Creation

My 3.6's are roughly eight feet apart and 18" from the back wall.  I've yet to find that any toe-in delivers any better sonics, so they ain't toed-in. 

oblgny
How far is your listen position ?

The back of my speakers are 21 inches from the front wall,
with the center of the base being 31.5 inches from the side walls,
toe-iin focuses my center stage , it might also be the side wall reflections that have a lot to do with it.

What Song, Album or Genre do you use to set up your speakers ?

Well I truly love all types of music so I'll go through quite a variety, from electronica, disco, rock, funk, jazz, classical, folk, world...you name it.  If I'm auditioning a speaker I put it through all those genres.

But for setting up my speakers I have some go-to tracks I've been using since the 90's simply because I know them so well and they have to sound right or I'm not going to like the speaker.  One album I use is Everything But The Girl Atomic Heart, the first track.  It has acoustic guitar (that has to sound right - clear, golden, sparkly - stand up bass -has to sound woody, deep but not flubby - vocals, percussion.   It's also not a perfect recording, with just a slight bit of sibilant emphasis and even a slight bit of distortion.  It really helps me know how a speaker handles that kind of thing - is it going to tear my head off and make it electronic and unlistenable?  Will it disguise the flaws?  Best is when I can hear the flaws, but it's not aggressive and the essential beauty of the recording comes through.  That's what the Thiels do.  I know where everything should be in the soundstage as well.

BTW, although I go on about how great the Thiels are in this thread especially, I found out long ago that it's very unlikely I would stick with one speaker.  As we know there's no perfect speaker and I can get restless.  Even just hooking up my older Hales T1 monitors to my 2 channel system, as I did recently, reminded me of what those speakers do so magically, that even the Thiels don't quite do.  The Hales have a Harbeth-like magic with vocals and a way of producing a rainbow of instrumental timbre that even the Thiels don't match IMO.  If I had the space, I'd probably choose to own the old Hales T8 speakers over the Thiels, and almost bought a used pair before going with the Thiels.  But the Hales are even more massive and I'm trying to downsize.

I'm sure I'll end up with other speakers at some point in my aim to downsize, though in this case I doubt I'll actually get rid of both Thiels.  I'll have to keep one of them.