Thiel Owners

I have to say I was made so anxious reading the news about Thiel last night I actually had trouble sleeping until I found out whether Rob would still be servicing/providing drivers.

I’ve spent all too much time agonizing over which Thiels to keep, and I’ve spent a ton of money on subwoofers, crossovers, digital eqs etc to try to integrate them with the 2.7s. (I should be doing a good test of this sytem this weekend). Given all this, I want to feel secure that I’m building a system around speakers that will be with me a long time, and that can be fixed, in particular if a driver fails. The reports of the coax driver being fairly susceptible to this worried me more. I just didn’t want to live on the edge, having to treat the speakers with the fear of one bad move...and that’s it.

So having the spare drivers available really makes all the difference to my peace of mind.

It was the same with my Hales speakers that I use for my home theater.
Paul Hales wielded absolute magic with his design, the smoothest most organic sound I’d ever heard from metal drivers (and still right up there).
No speaker managed to make home theater listening so easy and smooth while crystal clear, that I could find. Yet by the time I wanted Hales for my system, they’d gone out of business (my timing is perfect!).

I managed to find one of the few remaining pair of T1 Transcendence monitors, and an incredibly rare (huge) top of their line Transcendence center channel made to match the transcendence line. It was just heaven to listen to. But...at any moment a driver could go and that would be it.

So I kept my eye out for another pair of T1s just in case and somehow ended up talking to Paul Hales himself, who sold me the last remaining pair that he’d been using in his office!

Since then I’ve tracked down two spares for the even more rare center channel (they made very few). One complete commercial one, and also the template version - raw MDF no finish - Hales used for to quality check voicing of the other transcendence center channels.

Yes..a bit obsessive about it ;-)

But, the result is having speakers I don’t ever intend to replace in my home theater, and being able to relax about the possibility of failures down the road.

I’ll certainly be stocking up on the Thiel drivers.

(BTW, the fella I'm most envious of is a guy I know who ended up with, what for Hales fans, is the mythical unicorn:  The Hales Alexandria.  It was a new go-for-broke design, the single pair they displayed at a CES, which disappeared because Hales went under shortly after that.  Reports were that the sound was magical.  I can't believe anyone managed to snag those!).

It's nice, if melancholy at the time, to notice the old Thiel Web Blog is still accessible.  Tons of entries from when "Thiel was Thiel."

http://thielaudio.blogspot.ca/

The announcement of Jim's passing, with plenty of warm and interesting comments:

http://thielaudio.blogspot.ca/2009/09/please-share-your-memories-of-jim-thiel.html#comment-form

@ish_mail

I now have the JL Audio CR-1 crossover.  I'm going to try and crossover my 2 JL 110E subs with my Thiel 2.7s this weekend.

I'll have to go through your posts again, but do you have any direct advice for me as a starting point?  Crossover frequency?  Crossover slope?  Etc?

Thanks!

@prof 

Congratulations on your new gear. I think you'll like the improvements. You called yourself a sub newb in an earlier post, but IMO, your previous comments suggest you understand the principles just fine. So dive in and have fun.

My impression is that steeper is better for crossover slope, so probably 24 dB per octave is best on the CR-1. On the other hand, it might not matter all that much since your Thiel mains and JLA subs should both have good linear frequency response in the overlap region, even at 12 dB per octave. Easy enough to try both if you like.

As before, I recommend the Sound Doctor's sub setup instructions here (or see hardcopy with your CD): http://www.soundoctor.com/testcd/Soundoctor_Test_CD_v2-7-2.pdf.

As for crossover frequency, here's a range of opinions. Sound Doctor says,

I suggest never going below 80, even if you think your speakers go down to 40, or below. Even in a room where the existing "mains" have a pair of 12" drivers (each) you will get far better results if you ... correctly cross them over at 80, (or higher) ...

The Thiel SI-1 instructions state,

Unless the main speakers are very small, it is usually preferable that this setting not be higher than 80.

There's no explanation for Thiel's recommendation of 80 or below; it might be specific to some feature of the SI-1 or Thiel SmartSubs (probably not specific to Thiel mains because the SI-1 is intended to work with any make of main speakers). Alternatively, it might have something to do with staying well below the frequency at which the period equals the sub's group delay (about 120 Hz for JLA f112s). Above this point, the minimum timing error doubles to 720 degrees. 

Finally, a team of audio pros working with JLA f112's and Thiel CS3.7s chose 100 Hz in this example, http://www.soundoctor.com/studio/.

I decided to follow the Thiel recommendation (because I'm working with all Thiel components except for the subs). I selected 80 Hz as my reference but also stored preset configurations at 60 and 70 Hz for comparison. I can switch between these from my listening position with the SI-1 remote, but to my ears, they are indistinguishable. They all integrate seamlessly, and I couldn't reliably detect differences between these settings –– either in the highs or the frequencies surrounding the crossover setting. Still trying to test this.

I suggest you also consider settings somewhat above 80, e.g., 90 or 100 Hz. In fact, I spoke with a support person at JLA who helped an audio dealer install JLA subs, a CR-1 set to 100 Hz, and a pair of Thiel 3.7s. The dealer said it was the best sounding system he ever heard in his space. I would think your 2.7s should not be all that different from the 3.7s. Maybe I'll try up to 100 Hz, too. Can't hurt.

I found the Sound Doctor's Method B (p 4) for adjusting phase and level to be easy and effective. Rather than depend on my hearing, I used a sound-pressure-meter app, SPLnFFT (available for iOS and Android), to easily identify the settings for maximum cancellation.

Good luck!

Attn CS2.4 owners:
I’ve been thrilled with the performance of my "new" Thiels. One parameter lacking, however, was image density. My front wall is ~19’ wide altho’ confounded by a 4x4’ wall jutting in for the rear door exit in one corner. It is ~18’ on the sides. The ceiling is vaulted, 8’ on the front wall and ~12’ on the rear wall. There are two large openings on the rear wall, one just above my head; I sit within 2’ of the rear wall. I think the openings really "save my bacon" from unsatisfying sound with this room.

I did have the speakers about 10’ away from my ears to the tweeters and played with speaker spacing 7-8’. ~7’ sounds best but image density was not satisfying. I just spent most of the past hour experimenting with distance to the listening position, now have the speakers ~9’ from my ears and spaced at 7’ (7’ to the front wall!). Zero toe in. Image density is notably improved.

Anyhow, curious to read what other have for their placement. Thanks.

EDIT: Looks like my spacing is similar to what Shane Buettner used in his review: http://www.vandersteen.com/media/files/APJ%20Files/APJ13_Proof.pdf