Thiel Owners

I used to have 3.5s and drove them with a Classe CA-200 amplifier that is 200@8 and 400@4. I don’t think it was enough power. Keep your eye on the EQ box. Mine would periodically go out of whack and put the amp into protection mode. Each time it got temperamental, it had to go back for adjustments. I think I had to send it back three or four times. Then I had a mid driver go, so both of them went back for a rebuild. The drivers are not an off-the-shelf part and they’re no longer available, and with Thiel gone now, I’m not sure if they’re rebuildable anymore. I’m just sharing my experience and not trying to scare you at all. You may have good luck with yours.


Due to all the issues and with Thiel (the company) going to crap, I decided that the only option was to send them on their way. It was the best move I ever made as I have at least four times (maybe more) better sound now with all the same electronics. My new used speakers were about 4 times the cost of the used 3.5s, though, but they were still relatively inexpensive and totally worth freeing myself of the 3.5s.

My 3.5s have already had the mids replaced with Scanspeak 12W/8525G00, probably as close to original as I can get without calling Rob and paying up for NOS pieces.  I'm hoping the 250 wpc @ 4 ohms will be sufficient to drive the 3.5s, don't know why it wouldn't at my listening levels.  I'll see how the eq works out when I get my Peachtree.  Rob could probably rebuild it if it needs it, we will see.  Who knows, my Thiels may just be another step in my hifi journey, but right now I'm pretty pleased with them.

bluetone - and all you 3.5ers - the driver quandary is significant; the lack of suitable replacement drivers is why I have shied away from addressing the 3.5, which is otherwise perhaps the central iconic product that Thiel Audio produced. My caution when substituting drivers is this: Thiel products correct and control for resonances and anomalies for 2+ (sometimes 3!) octaves below and above their crossover frequencies in order to produce proper slopes to blend with their mating driver slopes for first order phase, time and amplitude results.

Thiel drivers are extraordinarily specific to their end use and their crossover is extraordinarily specific to the exact peculiarities of its original drivers. On the contrary, a higher order crossover can cope with a generic driver as long as its basic parameters of impedance, sensitivity and so forth are similar to the original driver - because the out of band regions are steeply attenuated and therefore not very important to net performance. 

It is possible that someone could find a replacement 3.5 (etc) driver, possibly better than the original, and then re-engineer the crossover around the particulars of the new driver, and produce a wonderful solution. In my imagination, such a solution would appear. But in real life, I caution anyone messing with these speakers to be very aware of how much the considerable and particular driver variables matter to the resulting performance.

Bluetone, have you overlaid the response graph of the ScanSpeak8525  on the custom Vifa 3.5? Please share the similarities and differences of those two drivers. Does anyone else have guidance for a replacement midrange for the 3.5?

Thanks,Tom