Thiel Owners

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.

tomthiel
Thank You for the CS 2.2 update. Those owners are going to be quite pleased once the mechanical package is ready for roll-out.
Happy Listening!

harrylavo
Hang in there until one of our 3.5 experts chimes in to address your Tweeter query.  Good to see you again.

Happy Listening!

Arvincastro
I had the exact same impressions of hearing the high res remastered, but non- MQA, Beatles Sgt. Pepper as you did - it offered so much new terrain. The remastered White album even more so, with the Esher sessions and outtakes really allowing me to understand and feel the music and creative process nearly as well as Sgt. Pepper. I'm hoping Giles Martin continues his magic and remasters Magical Mystery Tour, Abbey Road, Let It Be, Revolver and Rubber Soul. 

I have only listened to the 2 remastered Beatles albums through my 2.2s and in the 3.5s without the equalizer. I have the EQ in one of the 2 tape inputs of my integrated amp but I'm leery of connecting my DAP into the other tape input with the EQ in place. Can I safely do that? Before the 3.5s that's how I connected the DAP,  but even using the line out the volume was so low I really had to crank the integrated up. If I can't use the second tape input I'll just disconnect the EQ when I want to listen to music on the DAP.

Regarding the midranges, how careful do I have to be with the volume, especially with the EQ? I certainly don't want to blow them, and although I rarely listen with peaks over 80 db, never over 85 yet, the bass on some operas, Mahler Symphonies, Stravinsky's Rite of Spring (my eternal gratitude to former NYP pianist Paul Jacobs for this, my college intro to western music professor) and Japanese taiko drums can be thunderous. It doesn't help that the integrated only has 80 wpc into 4 ohms. I hope to be able to address that in the not too, too distant future. The guidance as to what to consider offered here has been, and continues to be, very helpful. Thank you all.