Thiel Owners

I did that for years running my PS Audio DSD DAC directly into the amp.then got the BHK preamp. do not ask me why,  but it improved things greatly.   Paul McGowan's philosophy  is that there is no preamp like no preamp,   unless you have a really great one.

Happy Labor Day! All

Kenazfilan - the Bose 901 was a huge marketplace success at the time we were developing our initial ideas and prototypes. Audiophiles and specialty stores nearly universally rejected them as gimmicks, but there were some valid ideas in there. The crossoverless multiple driver does preserve phase relationships, which are only partially obscured by the small differences in distance to the reflecting walls. The short distance between the speaker and wall minimizes the distance difference between the reflected wavefront and front-firing direct radiator. The equalizer does not introduce phase shift and the sealed bass rolls off at 12dB / octave, which is quite benign. I concur with your speculation that the design might sound like hash with higher order crossovers introducing baked in phase shifts. 
I would love to see impulse response and other "normal" tests on the 901.It might fare fairly well at low levels in a highly damped room. But, those CTS drivers were driven far beyond their linear excursion and the dust-cap "tweeter" was very ragged, and the room perimeter drive is inherently problematic and so forth and so on. I am amazed at their success. Bose spent more on advertising than on product. And it worked for them.

 The 901 was, I believe, the only speaker that Jim dissected to see how other designs coped with the intrinsic constraints and trade-offs of the art. It definitely served as encouragement that we could do better.

tomthiel

Might you be able to provide any history of the cs .5.   This speaker, which I like to think of as the baby Thiel was my entry into the world of Thiel.   I had a pair in my main rig from 1996 to 2011 before graduating to a pair of 2.4s.   My cs .5s are now in bubble wrap in my crawl space, to be turned over to my son when he is ready for them.

i sold the Bose 901 between 1979 and 1981.  we also had Dahlquist, Maggies, and Infinity among others.  they were horrible sounding in all respects.  we used to say that the more you spent on bose,  the worst they sounded.  we actually liked their little 301 for what it was.  when a guy came into our store with a Molly Hatchet or AC/DC album under their arm,  we would immediately show them the 901 as we knew they were pretty much indestructible.  If he came in with classical then it was either Maggies or DQ-10's.  they were wretched speakers in my   opinion