Thiel Owners

Oh, by the way, that first pair of Thiel speakers I ever heard, at Havens & Hardesty, was the O3a, predecessor to the CS3, CS3.5, CS3.6, etc. I wonder what year that was, probably early 1980s.

Thiel was as-yet off the audiophile map at that time, having just received a review in either TAS or Stereophile, which of course was extremely complimentary, particularly about the O3a's amazing imaging, including from way outside the speakers' locations. Also about "depth", imaging from way beyond the back wall. Imaging and depth were all the rage at that time, not emphasized so much now-a-days.

Interesting Warren, thanks.

I had contact with Kathy and she was a thorough, graceful professional.

arvincastro

Though I prefer Conrad Johnson tube gear to ARC, I’ve certainly heard what ARC can do in various systems and appreciated it.

A pal of mine recently got rid of some nice ARC amps he’d been using for years. Wanted something beefier and more reliable and went with a big Bryston amp. He’s happy, but to my ears his system lost magic, and has taken on a more steely tone. I’m less happy listening to his system now.

I did some auditioning of various speakers yesterday, powered by Bryston amps (and I used to own a Bryston amp) and it only re-enforced my commitment to my tube amps. Everything hooked up to the Brystons was afflicted by a hardened, tight (and to my ears icey) tone.  I know that is not what people enjoying those amps in their systems will hear, but it's what I will tend to hear.   Which is why I have always gone back to tube amps.  I just don’t think I’ll ever be someone who can get along with solid state amps for my system.

Sandy - thank you for your remembrances. The 03a was the real beginning of it all. It upgraded the 03, which was Thiel's shortest run in history: one year. The 03 was our first product to address time / phase with first order slopes. We struggled nearly two years to minimize all the problems which coherence made glaringly obvious, but which melted into obscurity with higher-order crossovers. We launched the 03 in early 1978 to an encouraging audience at the Winter CES in Chicago. But back home, we were still working around the clock to identify and solve "problems".

A root problem turned out to be diffraction, which wasn't much on the radar in 1978. We nested the drivers in heavy wool felt, and brought them closer together, virtually transforming the speaker, without changing the drivers or the crossover. By the end of the year we had the 'a' iteration which we introduced at January CES 1979. The illustrious Harry Pearson, editor of Absolute Sound and to many minds the founder of "high-end", gave the 03a a glowing review, citing its many unique strengths and only its ultimate power handling capability and his unease about the equalizer as his mild reservations. He finished with something like "Thiel's 03a is a tour de force; I expect to hear more from this emerging designer." That is a paraphrase from memory.

I suspect you're right about the early 80s at Havens and Hardesty because the CS3 was introduced January 1983. Here's a quiz for the group. Has anyone ever heard of the 03b?

Correction: the CS3 was introduced at the Chicago Summer CES in June 1983, which is part of the 03b story.