@prof I too am sorry for your setback and wish you a thorough recovery.
I would add Technical Audio Devices (TAD) Reference Series as another product line whose design shares many of the same goals with Thiel but with a cost-no-object market strategy. These are crazy expensive speakers even at used prices. TAD’s concentric Coherent Source Transducers and slanted baffles should be familiar to Thiel enthusiasts. A TAS review http://www.theabsolutesound.com/articles/tad-reference-one-loudspeaker-tas-218-1/ describes the crossovers as "asymmetrical [with] non-classic shapes", possibly similar to Thiel crossovers which are acoustically (not electrically) first-order.
I heard a pair of Reference One floor standers http://www.technicalaudiodevices.com/reference/ at an early (first?) Axpona sourced with a master copy reel-to-reel tape of John Lennon solo. It was spooky real. I was running Thiel 2.2s at the time, and had not yet upgraded to 3.7s, treated my room, added subs and a Thiel SI-1 crossover, or upgraded most of the rest of my system. At the time, the TAD system was far and away the most convincing music reproduction I’d ever heard. It was long ago and a different room, so I can’t reliably compare it to my current system. But I can say the gap is much smaller now.
On Thiel dealers: My sales rep in one of two high-end dealers near me was a doctoral student studying voice in our Music department in the mid 1990s. He was quite knowledgeable about audio and sold me on a Classé / Thiel system. I’ve stuck with those two brands ever since with no regrets.
I would add Technical Audio Devices (TAD) Reference Series as another product line whose design shares many of the same goals with Thiel but with a cost-no-object market strategy. These are crazy expensive speakers even at used prices. TAD’s concentric Coherent Source Transducers and slanted baffles should be familiar to Thiel enthusiasts. A TAS review http://www.theabsolutesound.com/articles/tad-reference-one-loudspeaker-tas-218-1/ describes the crossovers as "asymmetrical [with] non-classic shapes", possibly similar to Thiel crossovers which are acoustically (not electrically) first-order.
I heard a pair of Reference One floor standers http://www.technicalaudiodevices.com/reference/ at an early (first?) Axpona sourced with a master copy reel-to-reel tape of John Lennon solo. It was spooky real. I was running Thiel 2.2s at the time, and had not yet upgraded to 3.7s, treated my room, added subs and a Thiel SI-1 crossover, or upgraded most of the rest of my system. At the time, the TAD system was far and away the most convincing music reproduction I’d ever heard. It was long ago and a different room, so I can’t reliably compare it to my current system. But I can say the gap is much smaller now.
On Thiel dealers: My sales rep in one of two high-end dealers near me was a doctoral student studying voice in our Music department in the mid 1990s. He was quite knowledgeable about audio and sold me on a Classé / Thiel system. I’ve stuck with those two brands ever since with no regrets.