Thiel Owners

 I might also compare foil and wire coils.

Hi beetlemania,

In my experience, wire coils sound slightly more lively and forward vs. foil coils.  Foil coils sound a bit warmer and slightly over-damped on the bass.

Everything considered, I may actually prefer wire coils.  But I think ultimately it will be implementation and system dependent.  Certain system may sound best with wire coils, but others may sound best with foil coils.

tomthiel
Thank You for addressing the wire query.  Happy Listening!

gasman117

Good to see you again. Agreed, Revel is most certainly no Thiel loudspeaker. I like Bryston with the CS 2.4 not having heard a Mark Levinson with any Thiel model.

I am in the process to setting up an audition of the newer Bryston 4B3 power amp and will post here once accomplished.  If you are digging the Bryston sound there is the B-135 integrated. Same for Mark Levinson No. 585 integrated amp.  I have read that either product sounds excellent on Thiel Audio speakers.

Happy Listening!

@andy2 the initial build will replace coax board wire coils with foil. Woofer board coils will stay wire for now. Tom will make further consideration as he gains knowledge with his 2.2 and 3.6.

My approach is to identify and model exactly what each coil is doing and optimize toward the ideal behavior. That is different than choosing which sound I might prefer. Coils are quite technical in how their electromagnetic fields and therefore transient behavior develops. A primary source of distortion comes from wire squirm which smears the signal. Thiel used a dipped and baked coil round wire. Foil further reduces mechanical squirm as well as develops tighter field effects. They are better inductors with fewer side-effects. They also cost more. They also remove an (artificial) roundness and excitement caused by the euphonic effects noted above.

Due to practical conciderations, I am investigating replacing series feed inductors at 18 gauge and larger with foil. Smaller gauge foil equivalents are not readily available and Jim used 22 gauge coils in shunts specifically for the fine-tunable inductive resistance they provided. (Bigger is not always better.) Those resonance circuits do not carry current and are explicitly tuned to driver and overall circuit parameters. Besides, they are world-class high purity copper in custom dimensions and oven-baked. Hard to improve.