Thiel Owners

@tomethiel, I'm sure you'll do a fine job. I think have more of an issue with the concept description than the actual work. After your experience with Dunlavy, what do you think of using soft surfaces instead of hard surfaces on the baffles?

Unsound - I think you took issue with my paradigm restatement (but I could be wrong.) I see a paradigm as a lens through which to view the territory under exploration. The values and results might not be challenged or changed. What changes is the perspective, the point of view. I came to realize that 80% of my CDs were not suitable for sharing or showing off or enjoying. I am adopting a new paradigm which takes responsibility for that situation.
Regarding Dunlavy, I had issues with John's approach (my exposure was late 90s). I didn't fall in love with his products. And soft baffles were just part of his rather inclusive approach. His cabinets had sharp corners and I could hear them more than Thiels'. Of parallel meaning to me is the early Vandersteen baffle-less cabinets, which reminded me of my own early work of hearing and minimizing diffraction effects. I liked the rounded edge solutions we developed at Thiel and those solutions were later refined with larger radius easing. But that seems to have been the end of the story, and it shouldn't have been, and wouldn't have been if I had stayed at Thiel.

My "Realizing the Artists' Dream" paradigm encouraged me to pursue why and by what methods the V and D products attracted so many avid adopters. Both brands were enormously successful compared to Thiel's limited appeal. Last summer, my explorations got serious when reading cabinet wall vibrations with a stethoscope and found significant chatter on the CS3.6s baffles. The baffles weren't moving detectably at 3" well braced thickness. The noise was on the surface. That noise sounded a lot like the "hardness" attributed to Thiel products at high volume and musical complexity; and the 3.6 was far worse than the 2.2, which was worse than the PowerPoint1.2. I gradually came to terms with accepting responsibility for whatever I might find - easier since I was personally involved with 2.2 and 3.6 cabinet development.
I am now several iterations deep into soft, layered overlays on Thiel's curved baffles. The results are different than my assumptions predicted, and very encouraging. My work is also informed via previous work with laminar and turbulent flow management. So, I am thinking and experimenting a lot with "soft" baffles.

Presently I seek out any and all CDs, regardless of pedigree, to learn what they might teach. And I am constantly surprised that nearly all of them pull me into their Artists' Dream, their musicality and charm. I cross-check every cut with Cans and stock 2.2s and 1.6s, stock and modified.

Regarding Andy's point of cost. Indeed products are limited by their budgets. Part of the appeal of this exploration is that an effective solution will cost less than premium components and wire; plus the improvements are in parallel to those electronic improvements. Not either-or, but both-and.

True enough, wider baffles isolate the waveform launch at the speaker, as opposed to the room. His included assumption is that the curved baffle is effectively diffusing meaningful surface anomalies and that an infinite baffle is ideal. I might agree with the later, but I am challenging the assumption of a perfect-curved baffle.

Also note that I judge models with similar side and top environments to sound more natural than those with small-dimension horizontals and large dimension verticals, both between drivers and above the tweeter. 

One of our forum members is outfitting his CS3.5s with my current surface treatment for comparison to the stock control unit.

Unsound - in developing the CS5, I evaluated a tapered cabinet, large enough for the woofers at the bottom and as narrow as possible at the top. We never mocked up or tested it. The 3-dimensional cabinet geometry would have added considerable cost and production engineering time-to-market delays. CS5 product development was on the fast track. I hadn't heard of Jim's "wider baffle" statement.

I lobbied for a CS5.2 with that tapered 3-D geometry, plus a frontally-contoured baffle to put all the drivers in their proper physical alignment. Half of that extensive crossover (dozens of parts?) is for time delay for the upper and lower midrange drivers. That requirement would vanish and the signal path would be enormously shortened, allowing ultra-quality components. And so forth and so on.

As a company we chose to concentrate on our core lower-price market, leading to home theater products and subwoofers and a lot of scrambling. A different Thiel Audio would have resulted from pursuing a 5.2 and other upscale products.