I am not arguing about the technical merits of time-phase coherent. I am only arguing about Thiel business model as if it is financially viable. I would not criticize PSB or B&W as they are able to find a way to be viable even if using a different design strategy. To me it seems like Thiel had put themselves a bit into a corner with such a singular mindset - that is first order time-phase coherent or all else which may be correct technically, but financially, it did not have a way out.
Or perhaps Thiel had been successful *because* of the "singular mindset". Thiel speakers were (and are) unique, well-executed, and great sounding. And when Jim Thiel passed without any other engineer among the small business’ staff, subsequently bought by people with no experience in the industry (who steered the company completely away from Jim Thiel’s design principles), it was predictable that Thiel Audio would fail. We’re talking about *Thiel* Audio.
B&W is part of a much larger company. Can you name any of their engineers? I know Laurence Dickie designed the Nautilus but I can’t name any current engineer at B&W. Will Vivid stand after Dickie passes? What do you think will happen when Richard Vandersteen passes? Jeff Joseph? It looks like Wilson Audio is making a go of it with Dave Wilson’s son as the main engineer. ARC successfully transitioned from Bill Johnson and Ayre is making it work with Ariel Brown. But it’s not great for a small audio company to lose its founder and primary designer.
I suppose Mark Mason could have been more successfully plugged into Thiel Audio if Jim Thiel had designed me-too speakers. But, then, would Thiel Audio ever have been successful at all? Would we be on this thread talking about our Thiel speakers? Loving them? Modifying them to get even better performance?
