Thiel Owners

Indeed wire is a squirrelly stew. Considerable knowledge exists, much of it in the realm of very high tech-space research-at the fringe of measurement. High end audio "found" wire as a new frontier in the 1970s and some very good work has been done since. There also seems to be considerable borrowing of second-hand knowledge, repackaged with huge mark-ups attached - commonly called snake oil. But most oil has no snake in it and much wire technology is indeed real and crucial for ultimate performance. To the material dynamics of bare wire, add reactance of coatings and influence of geometry, and you see that complexity increases exponentially. We know much less than we don't know.

Exploration of these frontiers adds to the richness of our journey.

Presently I am comparing coil configurations as fed from the circumference or the core. The oscillation of the electromagnetic fields behaves differently in each layout. Opposing opinions exist among intelligent and qualified observers. Most say "it doesn't matter", which I interpret as "I don't wanna go there." Who knows where this road goes?

geoffkaitYes, I am the facilitator here. I built this thread as a Thiel loudspeaker fan for other fans and owners. If you have done nothing wrong- no worries.Happy Listening!

Well stated - tomthielit is an engaging audio journey. I look forward in your findings from research, prior knowledge and experimentation. Exploration is key. Hope you are well and gearing up for Summer.Happy Listening!

I look forward to more input from Tom as well!

Cabling is the least “sexy” part of our systems and, only until quite recently, I never gave power cords, interconnects, and speaker cables a helluva lotta thought. When I more or less finished with assembling the various pieces of hardware I’ve owned the next step, logically, had to be cables.  After all, I had an amp, a preamp, a dac, a disc player, a turntable, a streamer/server. What else could I spend money on?

Up until this particular moment I had been satisfied with the stock cables and whatnot that came with most of the aforementioned stuff.  Plug it in, listen. Simple. I bought my speaker cables at Radio Shack or Best Buy or whatever.  

My first dive into  spending more money/improving “things” was with a power conditioner - a Furitech something or other.  Okay, good.  

Then I read something somewhere, maybe here, about power cords.  Hmmm.  Okay.  I’ll go there.  

Got all the cords for everything that didn’t have one built-in. Wow, the cords certainly LOOKED and felt far more substantial than the stock cords.  Good. 

Then I went to interconnects.  Again, the simple color coordinated ones from stock or aftermarket were simply no good anymore - my equipment deserved better.  So I got a whole buncha interconnects.  Again, good. 

Mind you, I’m a pretty cheap bastard when it comes to parting with my money on things that are pretty much completely out of sight 99% of the time, so I went with the “cheapseats” versions of the brands I had read about.  Synergistic Research, Furutech, Goertz, Anti-Cables, Cardas, and a few others I’ve forgotten.  

Did going from stock cords and interconnects and speaker wire from Radio Shack improve things?  Well, yes - but to what measurable degree is debatable.  Was it worth the expenditure?  Well, again yes. Compared to my amps and preamps the cost to explore the possibilities was negligible. When I noticed an improvement I upgraded within the particular brand, when I didn’t I purchased other brands.  S’periments!

When I couldn’t detect a difference or an improvement did I feel that I squandered my money?
Nah. People here with far more technical experience than I will ever have convinced me that being curious about improving things is worth the minor expenditures I’ve employed.  

The dialogues for/against more expensive cables/fuses etc will never be satisfied.  Can you taste the difference between an $8 bottle of wine and an $80?  The answer is, sometimes. If you can taste the difference is it just different, or is one better than the other?  

Why am I submitting this in this forum?  Because until I heard Thiel I was satisfied.  After/since my first pair of 2.3’s it’s all been...tremendously fun.  I bought my first pair of 3.5’s from a guy in Massachusetts for $800, driving 3 hours to meet him in a parking lot. 

$400 apiece for speakers that sounded THAT good?
How could I not?   Alluva sudden I became aware that making whatever improvements I could made sense. Thiels made me an audiot - and I don’t regret it.