Thiel Owners

Unsound - right on! In fact, the model 2's reason for being was conceived as just that - create a huge bang for buck product utilizing technologies and parts whose development costs were amortized at the higher-end.

In the beginning . . . Jim was a very linear, no-nonsense engineer. He projected a 2-way, a 3- way, eventually 4-way, etc. The 3-way was the model 3 (a-ha!), so how to imagine another 3-way? We found merit in the smaller-driver, less bass, less balls idea and committed to allowing, even encouraging trickle-down. The CS2.2 utilized the tweeter developed for our statement CS5.  And so forth. Things got murkier as we developed more products for multiple markets. But indeed the model 2 is in its soul Thiel's cost-performance champion.

If I may be so bold as to add to TomThiel's commentary on baffle size. Years ago I asked Jim Thiel why he didn't use a more tapered pyramid shaped cabinet to avoid baffle deflection. At that time he explained that only market considerations kept him from using more preferable to him even wider baffles. He added that the wider baffle area would provide more consistent sound for the end user, as a narrower baffle would then put more emphasis on the listening room, which would in turn make the sound output that much more unpredictable.

With respect to unsound post regarding to baffle size, not to say which one is the most "correct", but there seems to be different design philosophies.  Sonus Faber makes a few very wide baffle speakers.  Thiel is somewhat in between with the curved baffle.  Vandersteen basically eliminates the baffle altogether for most of its designs.

In my opinion, the wide baffle has its advantage but it also has its disadvantage.  The wide baffle shifts the diffraction freq. lower, but then the problem is the low freq. image would suffer - that is the low freq. image would become "phasey" and shifting around and not stable.

I don't think you can eliminate diffraction completely.  It's a matter of how to control diffraction for a given speaker design.  

Just to show how the front baffle can affect the soundstage image, I found that (and most others) a small standmount monitor seems to be the best in term of "disappearing" since they have very small "sound foot print" with respect to the baffle size.  Most large speakers cannot do this as well as small standmount since its baffle geometry is much larger and inevitably will get in the way of the sound front.  

Anyway, baffle size, shape, and geometry will bring up different opinions and I guess different designers will have their own preferences.  

^I have sometimes wondered if the imaging advantage of small cabinets might not be in part due to the often limited bass response of these speakers?

That is a valid argument, but I found it is consistent in different type of instruments regardless of bass response.  But anyway, as I mentioned in my previous post, this topic can bring up different opinions that people will end up having their own belief.