Tomic - Thiel's early approach was to strive for a product line where the primary delineater was bass extension. Bigger products with deeper bass for bigger rooms. It seems that Jim wandered away from that approach in that the later 2s and 3s go nearly as deep as the 6s and 7s. My experience is that sealed bass with its 2nd order roll-off tends to pressurize rooms more than vented bass with its 4th order roll-off. So, perhaps the game changed. The market certainly did with homage being paid to Home Theater.
As a historical note, my original farmhouse, 5 miles up Georgetown Road from the factory had a more normal listening room, which we used as a cross check in product development. The Victorian farmhouse's room was 10' high x (about) 18' wide x 18' deep with a bay window-wall behind the speakers. Plaster on wood lath walls and ceiling, Hardwood floor. Transom openings above doors to 3 walls. Lovely sounding room. The 0 series was totally developed there, plus the CS2 and the CS3 and 3.5. By the mid 80s we had added a modest room in the Nandino Blvd factory, but used both rooms simultaneously. The CS5 development in 1988ish used the new, big factory listening room. We continued to have a playback system at Georgetown Road, along with band instruments set-up for live vs recorded music and jams with traveling musicians.
Just as with electronics, Jim considered the room to be the users' problem and playground. He balanced for 'average' rooms without consideration for standing waves, etc. Some dealers cracked the code and sold lots of speakers. Many users never figured out how to optimize, and generally blamed the speakers.
