Todd - others may have additional SQ comparisons - my contribution addresses other marketplace factors. The design prospectus for Thiel and Vandersteen could be interchanged; they have conceptually the same design goals, launched at the same time into different arenas, avant-garde Southern California and conservative Midwest.
Vandersteen in Southern California was blessed with a robust and sophisticated market with dealers, equipment makers and clientele capable of sorting out the best musical outcomes from the components at hand. So Van took the approach of dual inputs and user adjustability which allowed the audiophile to fine-tune the speakers to their musical taste, room and amplification. The audiophile dealers loved this flexibility and cooperated with Van to get great market penetration. Add to that the enclosure design differences. Van's cabinets were nearly free compared to Thiel cabinets. With the cabinet savings, Van engaged in driver matching and pair crossover tuning. Each Van pair was nearly identical and musical as the next.
Thiel adopted the easy to love cabinetry and high Wife Acceptance Factor as part of its DNA. It was considerably more expensive than Van's approach and it garnered its own followers, but prevented overnight upscaling of manufacture; our cabinet-making required capital and training that simply weren't required by Van. So, Thiel's dealers were a different profile - more mainstream, businesslike and less audiophile - tweek. Thiel's attempt at dual inputs was not successful because inappropriate experimentation by less audiophile users sometimes yielded poor sonic results which were blamed on the speaker. Jim and Kathy couldn't be bothered with such uncontrollable variables and simplified to single inputs, which increased the demands on the driving amp and left the tweakier crowd disappointed. Thiel tested every component to a standard rather than a mate, so a particular pair might be less well matched than a Van, even though it fell within a tight spec window.
In the marketplace there were many dealers who wanted to represent both Thiel and Vandersteen, and Thiel welcomed that situation. Vandersteen prohibited that product combination which may have been the largest component of the either - or marketplace division.
Although the two brands reach for the same goals in very similar ways, each has its own voice. History says that Vandersteen achieved a far larger audiophile following, but Thiel garnered over 60 design and engineering awards around the world over the years, evidencing a higher level of critical acclaim. When someone asks me what brands to consider I always say Vandersteen.
