Thiel Owners

Happy Friday! All

Greetings all, I thought I would take a moment to reintroduce myself to this thread and share my Thiel journey.  I bought my 3.5s about a year ago, my third pair of Thiels, starting with the 1.2 then 1.5.  Literally a week after I 'upgraded' to the 1.5's, a pair of 3.5's popped up locally and I had to do it.  The original mids had been replaced at some point with Scanspeak mids, but thru this forum I found an original pair (as well as tweets, woofers and crossover's).  Rob rebuilt the mids (he told me that was the last pair he could rebuild due to lack of original components), then they were off to Tom Thiel to aid in his quest for finding / confirming a suitable mid replacement for the 3.5s.  I'm still rocking the aftermarket Scanspeaks until Tom is finished, and very curious as to any mods he finds for the 3.5s.  
I'm mostly a vintage guy, by choice and budget.  Originally I was powering the 3.5s with a Kenwood KA-9800 integrated, approx. 125 wpc/4 ohms.  I knew that wasn't enough power to drive the 3.5s sufficiently, I just told myself that at the volume I listen it didn't matter much.  Then I had two vintage amps pop up locally, a Yamaha M85 (@325 wpc/4 ohms) and a Denon POA1500 (@225 wpc/4 ohms).  Now I've concluded I should have been flogged with 8 ga. speaker wire for muffling the 3.5s with a relatively low-powered amp.  The Denon and Yamaha (especially  the Yammy) really opened up the 3.5s at all volume levels.  So currently I'm running the Yamaha (or Denon) amplifier, Denon PRA 1000 preamp, Thiel 3.5's with eq, Revel Concerta subwoofer, Bluesound Vault and a Kenwood KD-5100 turntable.  I have the Revel dialed in so that you wouldn't know it was there, just makes the 3.5s sound like they drop down below their capabilities.  I'm pretty happy with the sound, my room is odd-shaped 22 x 15 with an angled wall that houses my setup, speakers being 7 feet apart, 1 ft off the wall.  Really curious to see what the original mids will bring to the party once I get them back.
On a side note, really interesting to hear Tom Thiel's involvement with Peavey, I've been building guitars for a few years now, check out my website. http://www.bluetoneguitars.com/

I just took apart the ViewPoints that FedEx destroyed.  One works aside from the shattered back plate.  On the other one the back silver part of the woofer is loose and the woofer cone itself is stuck.  I tried to get it loose but no luck so far.  Both coils broke off of the crossover circuit board and are floating around, though still connected.  The tweeter still works.  It's a real bummer, I've been wanting a pair of these or PowerPoints for ages.  

I think I'm going to be able to fix these.  When the magnet broke loose it caught the voice coil in the gap which is why the woofer was dead.  I finally got the voice coil loose and it doesn't look damaged.  I realigned it and it seems to be working fine.  I just need to glue it back together and reconnect the tweeter and I think I'm good.  Fingers crossed.

Bluestone, I'm curious about your experiences with different mid range drivers and also with these vintage amplifiers. Keep sharing. Thanks