Thiel Owners

Jay - I left Thiel Audio in 1995, so I don't have current brand information. But, my comments may provide some perspective.

Jim's method was to work on the speaker, rather than finding a magic synergy of the whole system. In shopping cables, he devised some pulse testing with an oscilloscope to see reactance behavior. He also measured inductance, impedance and so forth. He wanted cables that acted "properly". The speaker measuring position in the lab was about 30' from the source bench. He ran long balanced interconnects to the power amp right under the speaker tower - probably about 5' cables.

Early brand was StraightWire, since we knew they used 6-9s copper and made cables properly. Thiel continued using their twisted pair hookup wire until the end. Jim tested and rejected the various terminated cable systems, wanting to keep that user complication out of the equation. In the development of the 3.7 (and possibly before) he used Goertz flat wire. I don't know whether he used their capacitive termination.

I might add that we listened to lots of cables and rejected most as some form of euphonic brew. I also know we rejected some good cables as seeming over-priced referenced to our view of high-value. I can also say that we knew quite a bit about dielectric behavior and alloy / process, so we applied that knowledge to rule out contenders. We also chose cables that did not misbehave (often mechanically) when delivering high current, since our speakers drew such loads.

I'm sorry I can't be more helpful. My time was a long time ago.

I do have a relevant story. In the late 70s, we did the wire gauge, low resistance approach. By 1983 we were using my home-brew 0-gauge copper welding cables, and thought they performed well compared to Monster Cable. Remember "wire" was not really much of entity then.
At the 1983 CES we introduced the CS3. The "night before", we manufacturers would make the rounds and this year "the group" collected in Thiel's suite to compare notes. We always had high-end European recordists who used our speakers as reference monitors and enjoyed us playing their studio tapes. Long story shortened, Ray Kimber brought  prototype speaker cables at $1000 / pair foot. We compared them to Monster and our home-brews. Everyone had an OMG moment. That changed our minds radically about what was possible. They had silicone treatment applied to each conductor as the braid was formed. They worked astoundingly well and incorporated Kimber into our lab at that time.

All for now.

We used those cables through the show and took some jabs about the $8,000 cables with the $2000 speakers. But with the master tapes, it was clear that the other cables were introducing degradation, and we wanted to wow the show. That show is obviously etched in my memory.

I failed to address power cords earlier. I don't know what happened after 1995, but in my time we simply avoided any development or serious evaluation work in daylight hours. Our factory was in an industrial park and the AC was noisy and reactive. We used a Tice PowerBlock in the listening room. I am not aware that we used any special power cords. Jim's solution was timing. In the evening, the wind usually died down for outdoor and roof-top (free field) measurements and the AC power cleaned up radically. Our listening room had dedicated power from the poles and its lighting used remote / low noise balasts. Jim worked all night in the lab, slept in the morning, worked in the "office" in the afternoon and we did our critical evaluation in the electrically isolated music room between 6 and 10:PM. That work-around persisted and worked well.

I agree with Tom that a good pair of speakers should
sound good regardless of cables. Even with low cost
cable like Monster should sound good if the speakers
are properly designed. If a set of cable make the
speakers sound bright, then the speakers probably
already on the edge of bright sounding.

Likewise a good set of cables should sound good regardless
of speakers. If the cables make the speakers sound
overly warm then the cables probably already warm sounding
on its own.

I just got a pair of Acoustic Zen Hologram II cables
and I couldn't believe the difference in sound. The
previous cables were QED Silver Revelation which was
not that bad, but the Acoustic Zen is an order of
magnitude better. It's not just better, it's like
whoa better. The QED is about $150 a pair. The
Acoustic Zen is $1200 a pair so it's almost 10 times
more expensive. Is it ten times better? I actually
think so, but I think at that price point, it's
getting close to diminishing return, at least with
respect to my system resolution. I suppose with
much higher end system, a much more expensive cables
will have a more linear improvement with respect to
price.

brayeagle
I am looking forward to the audition as well.  It is going to be interesting to learn the advancement of the cubed series.  Happy Listening!

yyzsantabarbara

Good to see you. Thank You for the comments. I would not mind getting a demo on the ML No. 585 integrated. It has received high marks all around.  The early reports on the Bryston 4B3 is that it has a warmer presentation than previous series.  This might account for the presentation, sound that you heard during your demo.

Happy Listening!