Thiel Owners

I've never been certain how the 2.4 steel frame grille plate affects the diffraction 'problem' as it tightly surrounds the coax with 3 cuts at about 20 degrees, 0 (vertical), and 30 deg.  But the steel still presents as an edge, a discontinuity, for the coax wavefront.  It is just closer to the coax than the baffle edge when the grilles are off.  If you removed the grille cloth off the steel frame, it would more-clearly visibly *appear* to be problematic wrt 90 degree discontinuities closely around the coax.

I'm happy to entertain the soundstaging differences are from something unrelated to the baffle differences, which appear to be such an obvious contributor.  I've had my 2.3 coaxes in my 2.4s for extended periods waiting for replacement 2.4 coaxes, but beyond an interesting change of frequency balance, couldn't discern any soundstaging differences...

@sdecker 

My analog section is decent: Kenwood 500 (direct drive) mounted with BenzMicro ACE, tonearm wiring replaced with Cardas feeding an Ayre P-5 . . . But I almost never use it. Until this week, I hadn’t used it at all since probably last winter. 24-bit files sound superb through my DAC, all the textures of vinyl combined with the dead silent digital background. Best of both worlds. 
I am planning to try Tom Thiel’s solution but probably not until after my “new” DAC settles in. Thanks for your observations about the baffle morphology on the 2.3 v 2.4. Very interesting! I’m motivated to experiment.

JA - if and as a small company might be created to keep Classic Thiel speakers updated, all models are in the mix. What emerges as upgrade solutions will apply to all models because the design goals and methodologies of all models share their DNA so closely. My beginning point is early models for many reasons, but eventually I hope we can also shed light on newer models.