Thiel Owners

Hi tomthiel,

I traded out my tubed preamp for my Axiom passive preamp and - voila! - no speaker hiss!

Thanks for the advice!

Dsper

I agree with the ported bass - it's definitely a compromise.  Well you can't have it all I guess.  Wanting clean bass is not cheap :-)

Pretty much all speaker designs are a balance of trade-offs. If there was a perfect formula then all speakers would implement that design. Sealed bass enclosures are generally considered to sound the most accurate and that is certainly what I hear. But sealed boxes are limited in extension and ability to play loudly. IMO, Jim Thiel’s passive radiators are a bit short of SOTA sealed boxes in terms of quality (think CS5, for example) but nevertheless are a highly satisfying solution, especially at their price point.

   "Acoustic Suspension" is a distinct variation on "Sealed" and I’m still not certain why that went so entirely out of favor for ported designs nearly universally decades ago. Make the cabinet a little bigger, power through a couple dB less efficiency, use a bigger woofer (or two), and get cleaner bass that rolls off at 12dB/octave instead of a ported 24dB/octave for far greater real-world extension without any phase shifting.
   With modern cabinet and cone materials and motors, I can't imagine a larger-diameter AS woofer with less excursion wouldn't play as loud with less distortion than a smaller ported woofer trying to move that much air though excessive excursions.     
   I had two of the best examples of AS prior to Thiels, but there were so many apples vs oranges the lower and percussive bass response was merely ’different.’

does anyone have a single thiel  CS 3.6 they want to part with, i need one to complete the pair. please get intouch with me.