Thiel Owners

@pwhinson Thank you for that generous offer. It just further illustrates my point about how wonderful this community is.

I would absolutely like to take you up on your offer! However, one thing I did not mention in my previous post is that my wife is extremely pregnant with our third child and she is about 2 weeks away from her due date. My audio journey is on hold for the next 12-14 weeks or so. I will shoot you a message when I start my travels back up again. Thank you!

@thosb they did not have the PS Audio speaker prototypes and I definitely asked. It sounds like they are keeping those a secret until Axpona. I did get to see the Arnie Nudell prototype speakers(I think they were prototype speakers) that they were using as their reference speakers when designing the PS Audio speakers. 

pwhinson

When I was seeking a possible replacement for my Thiel 3.7s (only due to the size/depth of the 3.7s causing me a little ergonomic problem in my room) I auditioned the Magico A3 at length.   I wrote about my impressions in another thread, but in a nutshell I found them highly transparent and detailed, not bright but a tad bit fatiquing over time.  I found the bass to be not as precise and controlled as the Thiels, and even though powered by a decent solid state amp, I found them dynamically a bit limp compared to my Thiels.  I also preferred the timbral quality of voices and instruments through the  Thiels.

For me the Magico A3 were very impressive on a number of audiophile score-card characteristics, but they ultimately failed to really engage me.

I have very limited experience with any other Magicos. I heard larger Magicos for a couple of test tracks a while back and they were very impressive, but didn't have time to gauge the "emotional involvement" factor - they were way beyond my price bracket in any case.

For me the Magico A3 were very impressive on a number of audiophile score-card characteristics, but they ultimately failed to really engage me.

I was wondering if this has to do with Thiel usage of first order design.  I mean if you're already bought in Thiel first order philosophy, any other speakers with higher order filters will fail you in term of "emotional engagement".  

Personally I already made my own conclusion based on my own designs that first order results in the most musical reproduction of music, so I am sort of in the same camp as well.

andy2,

In my personal experience, my emotional engagement with a speaker is not based on whether it's first order or not.   I have several speakers using high order topologies that I find very emotionally engaging.  (In fact, I was partially driven back in to high end audio by how smitten I was with my old pair of Thiel 02s, which are not time/phase coherent).

I was listening to my Waveform Mach MC monitors over the last week.  Waveform, when in business, made a pretty explicit rejection of the case for time/phase coherence claiming even frequency response/even power/dispersion and other characteristics were more important for accuracy and believability.   Just as I find the Thiels make a good case for the Thiel approach, I find the Waveforms make a good case for that approach.  The Waveforms sound to my ears warm, open, extremely natural in instrumental timbre, and particularly uncolored and "alive" sounding.   I almost bought a pair of the larger Mach Solos that were for sale recently and I'm kicking myself that I didn't as they are super rare and gone now.  (I would not sell my Thiels to buy them, though).

I would go back and forth between the Waveform and the Thiels.  The Waveforms are imaging monsters, and the Thiels are great too.  In some ways I found the Waveforms a bit more neutral than my 2.7s, and a bit more revealing of exact differences between instruments, and more revealing of dynamics to a degree.  So they really communicated a "live" sense of musicians playing instruments, with amazing imaging.

On the other hand:  The Thiel 2.7s - certainly having an advantage of being more full range and not just monitors like the Mach Mcs - had that special Thiel thing of organizing the sound even more precisely so instruments and voices have a depth, dimension, solidity and body that the Waveforms did not have.  There were more subtle advantages the Thiels gave in the richness - so a flute would have more body and airy texture vs a clarinet, where on the Waveforms both those instruments had a more similar "hardened" quality.

But my point is, I found that the two design philosophies were fairly neck-in-neck in terms of pleasing and impressive results.  Which is why I love having different speakers.