Thiel 3.7 vs Wilson Sasha

I think that it is silly to think that you can really understand the differences in speakers if the demo uses different electronics or rooms. How do you attribute the differenct characteristics heard to the speaker, but not to the upstream signal or the room interactions?

My last serious demo was when I bought my Wilson Sophias. I had already owned the Thiel CS 1.6s (a very highly regarded speaker) as my fronts for a couple of years. I made a special trip to the dealer (over 200 miles away) to do some auditioning. I listened to another pair of Thiel's (but I can not remember which particular model) as I was considering staying with that house sound.

We started by auditioning the Thiel's with using the same amplfier that I owned at that time so that we could be as close to my system as possible. I then demoed the Wilson Sohpias whith those electronics. We then switched to some other higher powered amps so that I could make sure that I was hearing all the potential out of both pairs of speakers. The pre-amp and source was never changed. The process took several hours but I was able to make very accurate conclusions on how these speakers sounded in their dedicated auditioning room and how they would sound in my home.

During that audition there was a clear winner and I knew that I was certainly hearing the differences in the speakers. Even my wife (who has never been a fan of how the Wilsons look, even to this day, 6 years later) could hear the diffences. Simply put, the Wilsons just sounded more like real music.

Musictime,

All of our choices are more personal at this stage in the game than anything. I demoed the Sophia 3 and Thiel 3.7 in the same room same system yesterday for about two hours.... I pretty much feel the same way as the original poster but my review would be even less kind to the Wilsons.

Maybe I will start a new thread and go into the detail. I am pretty worn-out from traveling (work related) at the moment though.

James63,

Thanks for your post. When you do have some time, I would be interested in hearing the deatails of your demo day. I do agree that there is alot of personal taste at this level of audio reproduction. I wonder how much the difference in opinion on these speakers is due synergery (or lack of) of the upstream components.

Musictime,

I wrote you up a review of my demo but it ended up being three pages long and I could not post it as a new thread....

I e-mail it to you instead. If anyone else wants to read my BS about the Sophia 3 vs 3.7, just send me an e-mail, and I will forward it your way.

James63,

I received your review of the demo day. I hope you are able to somehow post it (maybe split it up into a post then reply), because its well written with good insight.

I think it would peak some interesting debate.