Thiel Owners

Well, as of late yesterday, my big ol’ Thiel 3.7s are now gone. Shipped away to some other happy fellow.

I’d advertised for local pick up, got the usual bunch of replies from honestly interested to flaky. One fellow said he wanted them for sure, was arranging to get a truck so he could pick up them up at my house...then vanished. Such is selling gear.

Eventually I was contacted by someone with a very good buyer/seller reputation wanted them, who did everything right, and it was a deal. They had to be shipped across the country though, which I was ok with as long as he arranged all the shipping, which he did. As I’d advised him to, he hired a company that would pick them up with a truck and they would be strapped to a palette upright for shipping. All I had to do was have them boxed and ready for some strapping fellows and their truck to show up.


And that was good, because pick up was arranged for yesterday afternoon and I had just come down with a flu that knocked me completely off my feet, bedridden. No condition to be moving giant speakers out of my house into trucks or anything.

So I get a knock on the door, and there’s this tiny little guy standing there, must have been 5’ 6" tall, with a teeny mini-van outside. I’m like "are you here to pick up the shipment?" He said yes. I said: "just you?" Yup. "Are you kidding me? Wasn’t it clear what type of packages you were picking up? These are big, delicate, expensive speakers. It’s not a one guy job."

He said "oh, I didn’t know. Anyway, I’ll take them."

I could barely move (so fatigued with flu) but only had to watch for one minute as this guy started trying to struggle his way out with one of the speaker boxes, starting to thump it around, when, aw dammit!...I had to help him lift the boxes out the house, down the porch steps to the street into his van. (At one point he almost tipped one of the boxes off his dolly, caught it last second before disaster!). That really sucked, I gotta say.


Apparently this fella was picking up the speakers to get them to the shipping place where they will be strapped to a palette. An audio pal said about this: hey, the buyer has paid for the speakers already, they are his, not your problem anymore."  But there’s no way I wanted anyone to buy these beautiful speakers (and I white-gloved them so they were in as-new condition), and be disappointed by shipping damage.


Hopefully things went better from that point on regarding shipping.

I admit to being somewhat wistful now even seeing a photo of the 3.7s, knowing I don’t have access to that sound now. But given the size of those flagship speakers not being fit for my room (aesthetically) it was like dating briefly with a woman out of your league. Great while it lasts, but was never really to be. :)

what a great story.   hope you feel better.  if you are ever in Greensboro NC come by and i will play mine for you

Good to read - profperhaps the new owner will join us here?  Happy Listening!

Unsound - 2 ohm loads suck and amps give up. Thanks.

Jay - The CS2 2 and 2.3 represent a major tide change. The 2 2 uses all discrete Thiel-designed x Vifa manufactured drivers. They are conventional as single-band (woofer, mid, tweeter), although unconventional via Thiel underhung motors, copper motor shunts and so forth. The woofer is the first dual cone (straight-deep x curved-shallow). PP woofer and midrange x Aluminum (CS5) tweeter. The 2 2 was also the first passive radiator which became the new order. That basketless foam core diaphragm sported dual rubber surrounds (front and back of baffle) to maintain linearity without the cost of supporting framework. That geometry convinced Jim to migrate from the (very inexpensive) port to a passive radiator. In many ways the 2 2 represented a coming of age foundational product with seminal technologies.
The CS2.3 is a breakthrough to the coaxial-coincident upper driver. A central problem of first order slopes is driver lobing which makes listener position quite critical in the vertical dimension. (All those Stereophile graphs at 48" to eventually 80" misrepresent the integrated waveform at any correct (more than 8') position at the proper height (34" to 38".) You get the idea; lots of constraints. A coincident upper driver makes those upper integration problems go away, and the mid to woofer transition has long enough wavelengths to minimize actual mis-performance. The 2.3 coax incorporated the breakthrough viscous suspension which eliminated the electrical upper crossover, which could have been further refined over time to become a permanent solution. (Jim dreamed of a triax for true point-source propagation.)
However, as first-generation, the 2.3 coax was not mature. The product had the weakest sales of the series 2 generations with a life-span of less than 5 years against 9 for the 2 2 and 8 for the 2.4. The 2.3 was a watershed / breakthrough product introducing technologies that were improved by its successor . . . the CS2.4 became an audiophile darling. 

On a personal note, I was part of 2 2 development; the 2.3 was finalized after my time and its particulars are what I have gathered second-hand.