Thiel Owners

@tomthiel loved the story about Nelson Pass. I googled it and came up with this post from the master himself on another board. I’ll highlight a snippet from his post here: "It was the perfect high end audio product: Exotic, inefficient, expensive, unavailable, and toxic."

Here’s the full post from Nelson:

The "ion cloud loudspeaker" used photocopy
machine ionizing nichrome wire strung in a flat
array a bit like a window screen, but with more
space between the wires, and charged to a variable
DC potential of about 10 KV.

This screen developed a layer of ionized air, and was
enclosed between two stators, much like an electrostatic
speaker, except that instead of a charged plastic diaphragm,
you had a charged semi-flat layer of gas, and you could
push-pull it with high AC voltages on the stators.

It worked fairly well, and gave new meaning to the word
"transparency".

It also had several flaws, one of which did result in a
trip to the local emergency room with breathing problems
similar to those sometimes experienced by arc welders and
caused by extended exposure to ozone.

The Wall Street Journal printed my comment:

"It was the perfect high end audio product: Exotic, inefficient,
expensive, unavailable, and toxic."

jafant:

Thanks for the warm welcome! Just last month, I became the happy owner of the PS Audio M700 amps and Gain Cell DAC/Preamp, and the Stellar gear have definitely opened up the sound of my system. They have also forced me to wade into the messy (and expensive) world of cable choices, and I'll be posting my thoughts on that issue on the PSA forum very soon. In cables, as well as in other audio components, I tend to look for gear that sounds the "best for the money" rather than the "best that unlimited money can buy."

At this point, I rarely use my turntable and focus instead on CD's and streaming digital audio via Sonos (using the DAC in my Stellar preamp). I haven't explored higher resolution formats much at all.

My musical tastes were shaped by the blues-rock (eg, Cream, Led Zep, Hendrix, Rolling Stones, etc.) and folk-rock and singer-songwriters of the 1960's and 1970's, including Joni Mitchell, James Taylor, Neil Young, Jackson Browne, Shawn Colvin, and others. I also listen to some classic blues and Motown.   

pwhinson:

What a perfect quote from Nelson Pass to characterize the essence of high-end audio!

thanks Unsounds for all the good info.   You are a lot more technical than me as a lot of that is over my head,  but I certainly appreciate your continuing contributions to this discussion.  Until i got the 3.7's,  i only owned four generations of the two series,  and i do not think they were as difficult to drive as speakers such as the cs5 or 7.2.   Years ago a friend had  a three series with an equalizer, but i forgot the model.  that one i think was tougher. 

sdl4:  welcome to our little world of Thiel lovers.   It is fun for sure.   I understand about the increased dollars,  but if you ever get a chance to hear a pair of 2.4's take it for sure.