Thiel Owners

Tmsrdg

Paul Jacobs was an amazing teacher at Brooklyn College as well. After the first few classes I made sure to sit in the first row on the left so i could watch his hands glide across the keyboard and also really focus on the music. Knowing really nothing about music and only listening to rock I wanted to expand my horizons after hearing ELP'sversion of Fanfare for the Common Man and the classical influences of the Beatles. He concentrated on 6 composers of different genres. Bach's Cello Concertos, a late Haydn symphony, Debussey's La Mer, Stravinsky's Rite of Spring, Schoenberg and Bela Bartok. His anecdotes also offered great insights into the process of creating music and the lives of these composers, especially Stravinsky He really was a genius to be able to instill a lifelong love of classical music and teach someone with no prior musical education so much. His untimely death was a great loss. 

Jafant

To quote Radar O'Reilly of MASH, "Ahh, Bach". I can add "Ahh, Clapton", but little else here other than questions. However, I am still reading and following this wonderful and informative thread nearly daily. I can't not, too much to learn here.

rwmeditz
Thank You for the kind words. Enjoy the reading of this thread.
Happy Listening!

Happy Friday! All

tomthiel

Thank you very much for your synopsis of the 2.x models: their differences among themselves, benefits compared to the 3.x, your preferences and history with them, and why so many people like them.

Most of the followers of this thread don’t realize that I have known Tom from the days of the O3a, more than 30 years, from CES in both Las Vegas and Chicago. The Thiel room was one of my favorite every time, and Tom one of my favorite people to chat with. I have kept occasional contact with him ever since then, just to talk about the speakers. When he told me about his preference for the 2.x models, I could not resist collecting a CS2.0 and CS2.2 for myself, even though I still have never set them up to hear them. I have just been too enthralled with my O3a, CS3.5 and CS3.7, thinking I would miss them TOO MUCH if I moved them out to try the smaller ones.

Well, about 7 years ago, I became the exclusive dealer for Audio Note (UK) in the Los Angeles area. One of the Thiels had to go into storage to make room for a demo pair of AN/E speakers ($12,000/pair), and now I love them too. But then finally, when I moved back the CS3.5 into my primary listening room, my friends and I were amazed. What we all remembered as about the best sound we had ever heard (my Thiel CS3.5 system) was STILL among the VERY best we’ve ever heard. It is truly amazing that after all these years of my ownership, 20+ year old speakers demonstrate that the unique goals and successes of Jim Thiel still provide state-of-the-art sound, in these very specific aspects: imaging specificity, sound stage size, depth, resolution of subtle details, and presentation of very fine timbre and texture that approach the sound of truly live instruments and voices. The 30+ year old O3a, provide these magical characteristics as well. Since the CS3.5 proved themselves again, I have not moved AN speakers back into that room since. I bought a pair of CS3.7 speakers to put there, the CS3.5 are back in storage, and AN speakers populate the other rooms in my homes and retail audio salon. The Thiel O3a have never moved, by the way, and still sound awesome in my parents’ living room, where I have listened to them from the time they were current models. Yeah, that was when I was a college student, still living there.

Now, because of this thread, and all the love I have read about for the 2.x speakers, I have my CS2.0 pair (piano black) in the hallway, just about ready to insert them into one of my listening rooms, for the first time. My CS2.2 pair are DEFINITELY going to get the full Tom Thiel update treatment, and I will not be surprised if they take a permanent place in my life, along with the CS 3.7 in my living room that are not going anywhere either.