Thiel Owners

My 3.7s are 41 and 42 I think.  The SNs look to have been put on with a sharpie and are almost completely worn off.  I'm guessing they were the original demo models from audio consultants here in Chicago.  I assume they were part of the first production run.  

thielrules - you would be in a legitimate position to ask Rob for your serial numbers . . . to answer our 3.7 question. And while you're at it, perhaps the 2.7 count.

jon - 41 and 42 is early, type 1. If you have not had work done, there were 2 XO updates of the 3.7. If you don't know their status, I could talk you through what to look for, or Rob might know from memory.

History anyone?
Some might be interested in Thiel's batch size / manufacturing run strategy. First of all, speaker-making is fairly simple if you aren't making cabinets, especially cabinets as complex, technical and precise as Thiel's. So cabinetmaking manufacturing dictates batch size. In the beginning everything was manual with custom tools and fixtures. At the beginning our cabinet batch size was 40 with custom veneer species quantities from orders and hunchimations. Batch limit was for throughput and limited by shop size, which was my 28'x 30' garage with 5 people in it! What a zoo. Pretty soon finishing was moved to the farmhouse back porch and final assembly to what had been the girls' bedroom. Shipping was either out the bedroom window or off the front porch which we had modified for a drive-up truck dock. We were shipping containers to Europe out of that arrangement before 1980.

The addition of the Nandino Boulevard shop in 1981 allowed parallel production which was another zoo to manage. New shop batch size grew to 200. As we adopted CNC and other technologies around 1985, I set upon reducing batch size for a more intimate customer-demand process. By the time I left 10 years later, we had reduced our batch size to 1 pair. Of course, pairs were ganged when back-orders permitted, but our work unit was a matched pair. All processes including cabinet making, from custom veneer faces to crossovers and so forth were real-time demand propositions. For those who know manufacturing, this change is a huge one. These times were at the leading edge of Just In Time inventories and so forth, and we were a leader in the field. This process-flow concept rather than batch-run concept allows smaller batch or trickle inflow of raw materials and parts. It allowed our worker footprint to decrease from about 500 square feet to about 200 square feet with all that entails regarding storage access, supplier quality feedback and so forth.

From an end-user / customer perspective, products seem to just show up at the dealer. But from a manufacturer perspective, every process decision takes on live or die importance, especially when managing continual rapid growth. We doubled each year for the first 5 and then capped our rate at 30% / year for quality and sanity concerns. Quality always stayed high. Sanity, especially mine, suffered. Typical weeks were 80 to 100 hours with some months reaching 20 hours / day - 7 days per week. Growth isn't easy. 

tomthiel

Thank You for the follow up and continued history lessons on all things Thiel Audio.  Happy Listening!

Tom,

More great reading, thanks.

QUESTION:

As you may know I have the 2.7s.

I don't know how old my pair is, bought them over a year ago - apparently a dealer pair -  though I know the 2.7s were introduced in 2012.

Can you give me some insight as to how long I might expect these speakers to last, in good working condition?

I bought a spare coax, woofer and passive from Rob for just-in-case scenarios.  But in terms of just speaker wear and breakdown over time, how long should they hold up and what parts are most likely going to need attending first?

My little Thiel 02s circa early 80's still work great, so I suspect the 2.7s should stay the course.   Though perhaps their added complexity makes things different?

Prof - Speakers have very few issues which I'll summarize here.
The cabinet is basically permanent, as long as you avoid furniture polish with silicone, which breaks down the finish. Also avoid sunlight as practical.
The drivers can last a long time - many decades. Thiel surrounds are natural rubber, the best of form. But direct sunlight degrades it. Keep the grilles on. The moving cone / dome /coil is connected via braided leads. They eventually fatigue and break. I hope to get and Rob does have the various lead braids. The usual cause of unabused driver failure is broken leads, which can be replaced. Voice coil burnout is caused by distortion or accident, which necessitates rebuilding. Avoid burnout.

Crossover parts, used within power limits are virtually permanent EXCEPT electrolytic capacitors, which have a life generally considered 15 to 50 years. Your 02s are near end of life. Thiel always used best of form electrolytic caps, and we have never heard of a single failure to date, but the bomb is ticking. They are replaceable with care with original or equivalent or upgrade to ERSE PulseX propylene for permanent solution.

The 2.7 has a large cap bank feeding the midrange to roll its low end out higher than the same driver in the 3.7.  The 2.7 XOs were Lexington built, so highest quality caps were used. I would budget 40 years life from accumulated experience.

Side note is that much of my present upgrade development revolves around heat management, which will extend life greatly and reduce age-related value drift. Electrolytics become less effective with age which shifts XO crosspoints. If shifted downward, then additional power can heat the driver motor to failure. Your O2's port helps cooling.

Thiel's historical experience is that most Thiel customers who bought from first-rate dealers (use education) never had a single problem, short or long term. About 10% of the customers had near 99% of the problems. The great majority drove into distortion with under-powered amps. Our warranty covered, in fact, such abuse ONCE, with an explanation and warning. Next occurrence was not covered. Rob is educative and generous, but most failures are user created.