Thiel Owners

mobilesax -- I've heard Merlin VSMs at a few audio shows and at one store, but not in my own room vs whatever speakers I've owned at the time.  I've had the utmost respect for his creating a solid design and then constantly refining it year after year to as fine as it could possibly be.  That a pair of vintage Thiels of unknown condition one step away from the dumpster could so impress you says a lot about both the Merlins and Thiels, and certainly your electronics are 'adequate'!  

More to the point, if you do score a pair of 2.4s, a thorough listening contrast would be appreciated, if only by me, because those two speakers were on my short list a 15 years ago.  I didn't get the Merlins, so I'm still not entirely sure what I'm missing, though I can't complain about my 2.4s.

mobilesax

Welcome!  Good to read that you saved a pair of Thiel loudspeakers from a dumpster?  Go ahead and seek out a pair of CS 2.4 loudspeakers- you and your Son will not be disappointed. Keep me posted and have fun!

Happy Listening!

I find this question re "opposite of Thiel" to be a good one. It demonstrates how individual the pursuit is. Each designer / company brings their own values, perspectives, resources and vision to the task. And both the task and its historic and cultural contexts are sufficiently large and complex to allow huge variability of outcomes. Thiel was a tiny player, which may have helped it remain true to its calling, which was to produce and support Jim's vision of a thoroughly accurate transducer, equally honoring all musically relevant aspects - augmented by the contributions of the other founders.

I didn't notice Bose on the list. Even if nothing is truly an opposite, I think it fair to remember that Bose was greatly responsible for the emergence of high end, especially brick and mortar demonstration stores. Most of the operators I knew in the day cited Bose as their focus for entering the arena, with phrases like "there must be better than Bose" , "Bose doesn't cut it", "Hard to believe people think they want Bose" etc. The upstart young designers resented that the large majority of Bose's budget went to advertising and marketing rather than product development and other oddities of Bose's dominance.

A personal piece of history: Bose made Thiel cease and desist from using the number 2.2 for our second generation model 2, which we renamed the CS2 2, without the decimal point, garnering more publicity and support than any emerging company could ask for. I found it amusing in the 2000s after moving near Boston and knowing some guys who worked for Bose, that they used the Thiel CS3.5 as their laboratory reference standard for product development benchmarking. Now, isn't irony sweet?

Ladies and gentleman, Mr. Tom Thiel once again dropping the knowledge...Thanks for sharing, Tom!

I have to say I laughed out loud when I read Bose used Thiel as their audio benchmark.  Would anyone venture a guess as to how well 2000s-era Bose speakers emulated the 'Thiel sound'??
I'd be curious to know what they use today for their large(r) speaker benchmark.  I'm sure someone would have to know a Bose insider to find that out...