Thiel Owners

@tomthiel, thank you for the valuable link.
Um, what I was really inquiring about was your thoughts on my 09-17-2018 post.

unsound - Oh. Let's try again.
I have no experience with Roon, although I am using 24x192 digital downloads through my Metric Halo D-A to lovely effect. The model 3 up to the 3.5 was designed for equalization, which does some things well, but runs out of air-moving capacity sooner than the passive radiators. Regarding room placement, we must be careful. Room correction modifies the output into the entire room to optimize at the sole listening spot, which messes with the power response and ambient energy of the room. I can often sound somehow wrong.

Regarding placement near the back wall, yes it boosts the bass and requires less woofer output. But the downside is that wall placement couples strongly to some room modes creating associated sonic problems. Also, a potentially destructive reflection pattern occurs. The ear-brain tries to resolve-combine any sound sooner than about 5 milliseconds from the original sound, resulting in time smear. After 5mS±, the reflection is heard as a reflection and cognitively integrates as such, causing little to no distress. In round numbers, about 3' from the wall gives ample time for the back-bounce to trail the direct sound for good listening. All in all, I am not a fan of placing speakers close to a wall.

As an aside, the PowerPoint gets the wall reinforcement advantage with no bounce via its 45 degree launch plane from the ceiling (etc.) It works.

If I were trying to use 3.5s in a large room or loud levels or bass-heavy material, I would try for a subwoofer, crossed over without the equalizer, with appropriate matching 2nd order slopes and physical placement-alignment. That would really give it new life. BTW, the 3.5 was the last product to have 1% double bypass caps around the 1mF tin foil / styrene film caps and 6-9s super coils. If the 3.5 sand cast resistors were replaced with Mills MRA-12s, the result would be very sweet indeed.

Happy Friday- All.

So day one with the Parasound JC5 with my CS3.7’s using the my new Oppo 205.  
Absolutely opened up the bass and without using my SS2.2.  I dont impress easily.  I’m amazed.
Previously have used a Mac 452 as well as the 601’s and the JC1’s.  The JC5’s blows them away.  
Maybe the Oppo 205 which is new  as of last week, is making the difference.  But the PS Direct stream is no slouch.
 I almost don’t need the SS2.2 with the P05x, that has the 3.7 and 2.4 as rears calibrated in them.  
Just bought a pair of Pioneer /TAD S-3ex . Pretty cool, huge bass.
My living room looks like a showroom!!

Interesting comments Tom concerning the use of subs with 3.5s without the equalizer in circuit. That’s exactly how I run mine now - dual subs actually - and I’m thrilled with the result. This allows me to do real justice to more powerful recordings without worrying about the stress on the vulnerable mid-range drivers.

I takes a bit of fine tuning to get everything balanced, but well worth it.

I’m actually resting my 3.5s at the moment and am running my Quad 57s. What these help to confirm is how good that 3.5 mid-range is. It’s certainly not disgraced by the Quads.