Thiel Owners

hi Batman,   good to hear from you.   glad my  response got you into this group.   i have learned so much from reading all this and it is great to discuss our wonderful speakers with fellow Thiel lovers.   I use the BHK electronics from PS Audio and could not be happier.  They are a great product at a very fair price.  

hi Arnie,   i checked my settings on my REL  S5 and they are high compared to yours but i am always "fiddling" with them.  I think you might want to raise your crossover setting as that does seem low to me.  
i have mine at about 9:30 for the crossover and about 1:00 for the level.  I had set them originally for the 2.7's and probably need to adjust down a bit.  

Hi ronkent, thanks! I’m still tweaking the RELs settings myself but find that when I go too high on the crossover I start to “step-on” the 3.7s low frequencies, and that’s the last thing I want to do. That S5 is a beautiful looking sub, enjoy!

BTW, how are your 3.7s sounding? I purchased mine “used” but they really started to open up after a few months of enthusiastic play! The previous owner complained about them being “bass shy and lacking dynamics”.. I don’t think he actually gave them a chance to break-in. These speakers really do need a good amount of play to reach their full potential.

hi Arnie,   i suspect i need to bring my settings down but i would encourage you to raise yours.  i had some correspondence with John Hunter of REL and he gave me a rough idea of what he thought i should set the crossover at.  read below starting with my letter to him first

John Hunter (REL Acoustics)

Jan 10, 10:16 PM MST

Sounds as though you are in the right ballpark. Might have the crossover a tad high and the volume a tad low. To get the crossover just right, bring it down about 2 clicks-- if it is too low it will sound cold and hard immediately.

Increase the volume about 1-2 clicks and see if it doesn't get richer, fuller and more consistently fleshed out.

 

Kent

Jan 9, 12:28 PM MST

I have set the crossover at 12 o'clock (no idea what that actually translates to), and the volume around 11 o'clock.

Kent Tager

batmanfan,

I've made numerous comparisons of my 2.7s vs my 3.7s in this thread and I'm presuming you've read them already (as you said you've read through the thread).

Of course I empathize with the audiophile nag in the back of the mind "could I have gotten something better?"   I'd originally been deliberating between buying a pair of used 2.7s in beautiful ebony, vs the 3.7s in other finishes (very nice finishes, but none in my preferred ebony finish were available).

The 2.7s would be an obviously better fit for my room size/aesthetics wise.  But I thought if I bought them I may well end up thinking "these sound so great that I wonder how much better the 3.7s would have been."

I chose 3.7s over 2.7s so that I wouldn't have that niggling doubt that I didn't go for the best I could get.   The 3.7s turned out to be awesome and sonically fantastic in my room.  But the funny thing is, especially due to the 3.7s physical size in my room, I started wondering "maybe I should have gone for those 2.7s after all."

It's a curse ;-)

So when the 2.7s in ebony showed up on audiogon I couldn't resist to try them out.

And it turns out, it seems: yes, the 2.7s are the one that best fits my needs.  

As for selling my 3.7s, I have decided I'd like to sell them soon, but still haven't decided which route I'll take - trade in, selling them only for local pick up, or opening it up to selling them to someone on Audiogon.

hi Arnie,   the person you got them from had the same problem i had with mine when i first got them.    i thought,  my goodness these are not near as good as my 2.7's. they were just as he described and i was not sure i would keep them.   now after about 6 weeks or so of very intensive time being played,  they sound like a whole nother speaker.  every time we are gone from the house,  i put the Reference Recordings burn in cd on repeat (cut 9) and let it rip.  sometimes i will leave a Michael Jackson cd on repeat as well as it is loud.  so anyway,  they are fantastic and cds that sounded okay through them 6 weeks ago, now sound like they have been remastered.