Thiel Owners

Andy - my experiments show that a felt edge at the driver surround is not good. It causes its own reflection / diffraction effect. Good results have come from beveling the felt edge and by covering everything up to the surround with Ultrasuede for an uninterrupted surface. Other designers have cut star or odd shapes for the drivers to peek through. But I don't like that either.  I may have spoken too soon. I am in the middle of this stew and perhaps you might sit tight and learn from my progress as things get clearer.

Oops, that reply should have been to sdecker.

sdecker - let's not conclude that the baffle pocket is a sonic problem. In fact, the 20 gauge steel grille plate with its fabric fills that pocket to be flush with the edge curves. The inner edges are not parallel or concentric with the driver, and therefore probably produce little, if any reflections / diffraction.

My work is not to fix anything that was broken in the original design, but to look for ways to add more subtle solutions. One such solution is in the SoftLaunch of the baffle supported wave. I have not dealt with how to incorporate the grille into that scheme, but rather how to optimize the driver / baffle / surface interface. On the earlier speakers the curves are continuous with the front flat baffle and the grille frame is outboard. That's my present sandbox. On the 1.6, I had imagined a solution like the 2.3, which I have not yet seen, but such a solution would also work for the 5, 6 and 7. It's all a puzzle.

Hi Tom,

The other part of the equation with respect to the CS2.3 vs. CS2.4 is evaluating with our listening test.  Personally, I don't know if the difference as reported is due to the baffle "edge".  The difference could may as well be the xovers, bass driver and so on ...

Fellow Thiel-ers.  RE: 3.5's and amplifiers.  Just a post for whatever it means to you.  I've replaced a series of SS amps with a pristine used VTL ST-85 (paired with a Counterpoint SA-1000 preamp and a Counterpoint SA-2 headamp.  Magic!

This amp is much better than the Audio Research D90b I used to use with these speakers (before the SS's.)  The 85 is optimized for 5 ohms, exactly what the 3.5 needs (impedance 4 ohms to 6 ohms over most of its range.)  The amp is rated and delivers 85wpc at that impedance, and has an absolutely flat power response down to 20hz according to the QC chart that came with mine.  Bass of course is not equal to the SS's, being less controlling and tight.  But oh my, the naturalness and 3D of these pieces even with less than optimum speaker environment is superb.  And the power is sufficient to have normal listening levels in the next room when I am working at my computer.

BTW, the VTL also sounds superb with my 2 2's which are even more transparent, but I was expecting that.  It is with the supposedly power hungry and "veiled" 3.5's that the surprise happened.   As I sa id, make of it what you will.