All - I think this lovely Autumn Friday in New Hampshire is a good time to share some recent developments. Several months ago, there were posts here about the Thiel midrange being shouty and harsh, and I pushed back to have set up scores of shows where that simply wasn't the case. I then began some soul-searching and tried to thank the poster off-line, but he had taken down his post. I want to thank him for a very productive period of my life. I apologize for not keeping your names straight, but time required to review the thread is more than I have. Here goes.
A tremendous amount of effort by Thiel aficionados goes into finding music, hardware, cables and room conditions to make their Thiels sing. We all do it. Thiel did it. Notice the Krell, Levinson, Pass and other amps that work, sometimes costing a large multiple of the speakers' price. I have musician friends who invest their lives in making their CD the best they can make it. And often on my reference system, built around CS2.2s, it can sound shouty and harsh, with midrange glare most evident when the music gets loud and complex. Same goes for rock, jazz and symphonies. We tend to blame the record producer because stellar CDs do sound good. Beetle (I think) asked here about that and I agreed with his assertion that Jim only valued good playback on excellent CDs, with no excuses for poorly engineered material.
Fair enough as far as it goes, but there is a lot of room between the few best examples and most of the remainder. In the past few months, I have listened to hundreds of (non audiophile) CDs, and don't like what I hear on most of them. I shifted the hypothetical responsibility away from the record producer and onto myself, and over a few weeks' time, I believe I am approaching a core paradigm shift. Whereas Jim's paradigm, shared by the whole Thiel team might be summarized: 'Complete Fidelity to the speaker's Input Signal', mine is developing more like: 'Translation of the artists' Dream'. I know that is fraught with philosophical burdens, but it also serves to take responsibility for a bigger slice of the pie. For instance, the new paradigm would have prohibited the low Thiel impedances because the Artists' Dream is to reach a populace which includes sub $$$$ amps. And so forth and so on.
A self-limiting assumption is that making the music more accessible will de facto reduce its accuracy. That will not be tolerated. I am proposing keeping present performance as a performance base line. After months of inner work, I have identified a sphere of great promise. And I appreciate those of you who are co-developing and testing with me, just as I appreciate Beetle and Holco and others off list who have co-developed crossover solutions. What we tried in Beetle's 2.4s achieves very high-quality results, but the cost would be in three figures. And my verification here showed that something still seemed un-addressed. "It" became more evident with the (new to me) 3.6s from the hotrod garage. Despite their greater power, deeper bass and higher resolution than the 2.2s, there is also more upper midrange congestion, harshness, glare; more so on complex and loud music. My trusty stethoscope helped me find some sort of hash on the baffle flats that sounds a lot like the in-room "problem". Further dots were connected with the Vandersteen baffle discussion here, as well as my experiences with Dunlavy and Hales over the years. I am in the 4th iteration of baffle treatment which produces more, not less, inner detail and image size-height, while reducing that "glare" to where the large majority of music becomes enticing and enjoyable, rather than requiring excuses. I have trouble staying out of the studio to do my required work on other projects!
I am now assembling some kits for some of you to try, and feed back what you learn. I simply lack the upper frequency hearing, and face a shortage of appropriate listeners in my small village. Thanks guys. Present work addresses multiple cabinet aspects. I was part of 2.2 and 3.6 cabinet development, and proud of it. So it surprises me that so much work was left undone, due primarily to riding the wild bronco of manufacturing development and growth. The largest surprise to me is that for a fraction of the cost of crossover upgrades, we can make a qualitative improvement in the sonic presentation, in the musical assessibility. I know that's hard for insiders to believe and it puts a huge burden of proof on me; I'm not asking you to believe anything. But, I am looking forward to user critique more than I ever have in the past.
