Thiel Owners

@tomthiel, after (and please excuse me if I'm beating a dead horse on this) the lack of a truly balanced eq, the 3.5's grills seemed like one of the biggest shortcomings. Do love the baffles. I very much look forward to your grill upgrades for the 3.5's!

@oblgny, you don't have to conduct your business here in order to be included in the forums. I for one would miss you.

Unsound - I concur with the merit of balanced EQ, and balanced operation in general. I am not the guy to develop that solution; I hope that someday we might find that resource. But the issue of over-driving with "modern" high-impact music and effects still persists. Getting THAT much output from a 10" woofer and 5" midrange with first order slopes is a really tall order.
I'm prototyping a grille that looks stock (for history), but is made of 1/4" round bar outboard and proper roundings inboard. Should be pretty transparent. Also, a properly rounded inboard frame with no outboard element - no fabric, just finish the baffle curves like the CS2.2. Come to think of it, the 3.5 development prototype had just such a half-frame.

@tomthiel, Is there an eta and/or price projection on the 3.5 grill upgrade?

Unsound - I'm not even close to time-lining. I am spitballing lots of areas to establish meaningful measurement techniques, audibility and suitability selection. I can say that the grille is a surprise and is suitable for work - worth pursuing, and that I have 2 first-approach solutions to try. Also, the chosen solution must and therefore will be cost effective. It will re-use the top and bottom wood struts, and the two round steel cross struts. The side frames will be replaced with either Baltic Birch frames with more complex, angled routed openings and steel reinforcement to allow contouring of the inboard (baffle-side) member. Or the side frames could be replaced with steel round-bar frames. New, more transparent fabric in either case.

If you or someone you know is handy with such things, I could tutor you through the considerations and you could DIY a solution or two for our mutual edification. Otherwise, I suspect sometime in 2020 with a justifiable and reasonable price.