Thiel Owners

Thank you Warren, ronkent, jafant, brayeagle, prof and especially Warren and Tom for your thoughts. The insights here on this site coming from the forum members is incredible, and I always learn more than I ever think possible. I knew stability was one improvement from the feet but just reading about how that translates to sonic changes helps me understand the subtleties beyond what I believe my ears can discern.

Regarding the bottom of the 2.7s, they are indeed flat but my tile floor is not, so the right speaker is a little wobbly but the left speaker is fine. I put on the feet (atop isolation pucks) which has improved stability but because the sides of the speaker curve inward to the back, the rear feet are close together so the stability of the speaker is a concern of mine, especially since I live in earthquake-prone California! In fact, I was doing some dusting when I lost my balance and nearly knocked one of them over--which triggered a chain of thoughts about the sonic impact from changes to speaker stability and elevation. At this point, I think I might try to obtain a pair of outriggers to see how it impacts what I hear. If anything, it would improve the physical stability of the speakers--and that alone would be worth it to me.

By the way, I really enjoyed reading all the articles that members have forwarded here about the demise of Thiel Audio. Very interesting!

tomthiel

I am very excited you added that "sway effects" (your words) influence imaging of the higher frequencies. This makes so much sense that, in the words of a Thiel -- the ultimate name for speaker phase and time coherence and their effect on "image specificity" -- the speaker swaying from "equal-and-opposite motion from woofer motion" (my words), would have primarily this effect. Most speakers don't have a Thiel's capability for this level of imaging, whether they are swaying or not. So for most speakers, a flabby bass is the most obvious effect of not providing stable spikes to stabilize them.

I AM having fun, just reading and writing about Thiels, almost as much fun as listening to them!

--Warren (aka Sandy)

Sandy - I'm having fun sharing this stuff with you all. You're on it - most speakers scramble time / phase, sometimes by many hundreds of degrees. The ear-brain does a commendable job of reconstructing those wave-forms into intelligible music or sound. But in Thiel, Vandy, etc. which keep the time/phase intact, those sway effects are certainly audible. I notice that I listen at lower level (-2dB) with the spikes in place, probably because the transient detail is satisfying without needing extra volume.

FYI: I am working on a whole package of mechanical stuff in the 2.2s. When all added together, I expect the mechanical upgrades to make an appreciable improvement.

Just as I got my reconfigured system where I wanted it, I made a mistake and blew one of my two 3.5's with good tweeters (two others already have blown or scraping tweeters and have been out of the system.)  So I am finally going to have to locate replacement tweeters.  My search has narrowed to two:

*  Scanspeak Classic D2905 9700 tweeter (1" cloth dome, 104mm 4-hole, 89.5 db, 400hz -3db low end, 6 ohm.  This is the closest match so far as I can speculate based on the discussions here.

*  David Louis Audio private-labeled Chinese imported tweeter (1" fabric dome, 104mm 4-hole, 92db, 800hz -3db low end, 6 ohm) which he compares to the ScanSpeak 9500 (better) and 9900.(almost as good).  He claims these tweeters are made by the same factory that originally produced the ScanSpeak Thiel tweeter.

Has anybody here had experience with either of these two tweeters as replacements in Thiel 3.5's?  Tom? Beatlemania?  And if so, how do they sound/measure?  Any special installation issues?  Any help you can give would be appreciated.