Thiel 2.3 vs 2.4

Cinematic,
Right on ! At least one person hears with their own ears and not the ears of a reviewer who has a vested interest in the rating.John Atkinsons wife ,if memory serves me, used to be involved in Stereophile product ads.I'm not saying he's not a straight up guy but proceed with caution.Gryphons Flemming Rasmusen recently admitted he lost millions because he refused to GIVE a antileon amp to a reviewer after the review and(he believes)got a so so review as a result. No one should believe ANYTHING without hearing for themselves. As a collegue once told me " doubt everything , trust no one. " This is just my opinion,feel free to doubt it as well.

I agree with Cinematic_systems on this one. There is a noticeable dip in the mid-range on the 2.3s. Even the salesperson came in near the end of my listening session, asked to put in Stevie Ray Vaughn "Tin Pan Alley" listened for a couple minutes and said "I never did like the dip in these speakers" and left the room. I had already made a decision not to buy, so his comments didn't affect me. To me the dip makes the bass sound exaggerated and lagging a little behind, with the treble sounding more shrill or forward. 1 good thing I'll say is that they do present a large soundstage. The 1st 30 min. I thought I'd buy them for sure, I hadn't heard a speaker sounds so dynamic. 15 min. later I realized I was just hearing more highs & lows than normal because of the dip in the middle.

On the same setup a year later I found the 2.4s to be an improvment, going on memory of the 2.3s, not side-by-side listening of course. I also agree the 1.6s have a huge distortion problem that you won't read about in any of the mags. Just my opinion.
Good luck.

I have always preferred the sound of Thiels with tube gear, albeit powerful tube gear. I'm not surprised that Thiel 2.3 with Meridian could produce sound that would fail to sell.

As for the cost of a Thiel speaker, bear in mind that once you have Thiels, even minute changes in gear are extremely audible. Owning Thiels is a slipperly slope, in that suddenly you will want better cables, better cd player, etc - because you can easily hear the differences.

So the price of owning Thiels is not merely the initial outlay, IMHO, but the subsequent tendency to make increasingly expensive audiophile purchases to feed the Thiels.

Artmaltman,

I respect your opinion and agree with everything you say except Your assessment of the Meridian. The Meridian equipment not only has tone controls but it will wipe the floor with any tube pre/CD player you can come up with near its price range. The Meridian wasn't the problem let me reassure you, infact the 2.3 sounded their best on that system by far.

Just so you know. Let me add, that I did everything I knew to sell Thiels....everything. best cables best spot in the room, tilted them towed them, measured them,,,etc. A good sounding Thiel would make me a hero, my life would have been simplified exponentially.

No the reason the thiels are the way they is two fold,

1. Thiel is still maturing as a speaker manufacturer the leap in the 2.4's quality has more to do with the drivers than any changes in design philosophy, on the surface the 2.3's and 2.4's are very similar as mcTeague stated.

2. Dynamically almost all the Thiel speakers have an issue because the drivers are pushed to do too much over to wide a range, so they always have this characteristic at which the seem to just snap and get bright. Using tubes with slower rise times of course will add a layer of resistence towards this tendency.

This tendency to be super "revealing" is an instablility in the speaker and that is enhanced by a purposeful accentuation of the High frequencies.

People in audio have been conditioned to believe that a components ability to "reveal" changes in the system as a high quality mark, but like anything else too much of a good thing can turn bad.

See how that logic makes you react, think about it. Excellence should not be so fragile, it is not a fine line. This is a tactic to keep you chasing your tail, Dynaudios and ATC's sound great on a $300 NAD receiver and $25,000 Mark Levinson equipment. Yes you can tell the difference, but neither system makes you run for cover because the speakers are great with a margin.

I have not heard the Meridian piece in question so please don't take my comments as disparaging of the Meridian. I was referring in general to my experience that solid state amps don't fare as well with Thiels as powerful tube amps do. Also I was assuming that the Meridian was the amp, not cd/preamp.
Art