Thiel Owners

tomthiel
Thank You for sharing your cable building project as well. Keep us posted on other brands used for comparison. Hope you are well this day and ready for Spring.

Happy Listening!

Hello all! 

I have finally been able to make it home and put in a dedicated listening session, experimenting with tilting my speakers as @tomthiel had suggested and also varying ear height with regards to my listening position.

First off, this experiment started due to the fact I had been experiencing graininess/brightness issues recently.  At first, I thought it was due to switching to MIT Terminator 2 RCA interconnects from my line-stage to the Thiel Bass Equalizer and again from there to my amps.  Then, I thought it could be the onboard DAC in my Bluesound Vault 2, which has been described by some to be on the lean/bright side.  Finally, could it be the addition of the second D240 MKII amp? Now that I'm running a bridged mono configuration, is it the 3.5's showing off their revealing nature even more?  Only when Tom saw the pics of my listening area did he suggest to tilt the speakers back to try and compensate for a listening height that may be too high.

Tracks used for critical listening included:
-  "The Game of Love" by Santana 
-  "Steam" by Peter Gabriel 
-  "Crush" by Dave Mathews Band
-  "Soul Bossa Nova" by Quincy Jones and his Orchestra
-  "Desafinado" by Stan Getz and Joao Gilberto
-  "Midnight Blue" by Kenny Burrell
-  "Don't Know Why" by Norah Jones
-  "Son of a Preacher Man" by Dusty Springfield
All these tracks are in Hi-Res FLAC (Vault library) or MQA (streaming) formats coming from my Bluesound Vault 2 using the onboard DAC.

After listening to the tracks in my default position, I began by tilting each speaker back about 3" using sand bags.  I found that they became quite unstable if I tried to tilt them much further than that.  In listening to the tracks now, there was a noticeable change in sound:  there was a smoother presentation overall, with less glare at the very top.  I wouldn't say it was rolled off or missing, just not as pronounced as before.  However, the more i listened, the more I realized I was missing some of the instrument separation that I had before, not in a bad way, but just different.  The tilted position also made the speakers "disappear" a bit more, but was I losing some of the "presence" of the musical performance?

So, I decided to experiment further:  instead of tilting the speakers, I got a different, lower chair and measured my ear height based off of Tom's recommendations. Now, with my ears about 32" from the floor, I was definitely below the tweeter level.  In this position, I felt instantly familiar with the overall presentation from my speakers...maybe not as smooth as with the tilted position, but the highs were better controlled than I had heard in my original position.  Most importantly, I felt more presence, more involvement here...that I could "see" where instruments, sounds and vocals were coming from. 

What did I learn?  First, Tom knows what he's talking about when it comes to our speakers.  Second, because of my space constraints, I have a suboptimal setup (toed-in, speaker to listener height/distance) that really affects the way the speakers perform.  Lastly, Thiels reputation for being ruthlessly revealing is well warranted...and may not be "solvable" because in trying to tame some brightness, I felt like I lost some presence and detail.  Perhaps I'm not one who enjoys a speaker that "disappears"...maybe what I really enjoy is a reproduction that makes me feel like I hear every instruments' and sections' and singers' position across a stage/studio when I close my eyes.  The Thiels are MORE than capable of doing this.

I am more than satisfied with this chair and the new, lower listening position.  I feel that I've gotten the brightness under enough control, while maintaining the details and presence I didn't realize I loved until I lost some of it.  Maybe I'm not making any sense...but, I am enjoying listening to this system and the music!

Thanks for all your suggestions and for reading...Hope you're all doing well!

Arvin

Arvin - thanks for your detailed report. I would like to add some thoughts because setup is so crucial for performance. It's no secret that Thiels, especially the pre-coax models are tricky devils to optimize. I'll describe Jim's design assumptions, since working toward those ideals, within your own constraints, will result in the closest approach to objective correctness. Anyone's preferences may vary. All considered, I like a more far-field perspective; some like to be on the performance stage, and the room size dictates so much.

The design distance is 10' from speaker to ear (mic) at about 20° off axis - speaker straight ahead yields that angle. That setup takes a pretty big room and/or some sort of absorption at the side wall reflection point. Ear height is assumed at 3' (normal couch / easy chair). The farther afield, the more leniency develops for all geometry. Distance to backing wall is user selectable. I like about 4', which gains greater bass articulation at the expense of less bass amplitude.

Over the  years, I have seen the most grief caused by too-high ear position. 3' is the target, which gets more critical as distance decreases. Closer than about 8' and the relationships really suffer. Note that ear height adjustment works better than speaker tilting, since tilting changes the way the floor bounce works. I suggest getting ear height as close as possible, then tinting so that the tweeter (3' up) fires at your ear, and toeing in to control wall bounce while keeping the speakers firing at 10° to 20° off axis - they will cross behind your head.

All speakers deal with the room puzzle, but Thiel adds the challenges of lobing to the equation.

I would like to amend a statement I made from " size matters "
to sizes matters .
When Mr. Thiel asked me about the AWG of the cables I was using 
vs.the cables that I made I was suprised that a smaller AWG sounded better , so I looked back at my history of cable upgrades .
I started with BJ cables of 10 AWG then went to Cardas Quadlink cables 
that were 12 AWG and liked them more , upgrading to Cardas Neutral Reference cables that are 8.5 AWG and again liking them more than the Quadlink .
In making cables using Cardas 9.5 AWG chassis wire  and liking them even more than the upgrade from 12 AWG to 8.5 AWG 
I got to thinking WHY ?

The only conclusion I could come up with is the design of the Cardas 
Golden Ratio , as the individual cable increases in AWG the outer 
strands become larger .
When I looked at the construction of the Cardas speaker cables 
the maximum AWG they used for the Reference line was 11.5 ,
using multipules for increased total AWG ,
until Clear Beyond their top of the line which uses multipules of 9.5 .
Since Mr. Thiel used Morrow cable I looked them up and they use a simular approach that many cables makers use , more of the same .
Morrow like Belden or Monster uses small single strands using many to make their AWG so a 10 AWG has more of the same single strand gauge 
wires than the 12 AWG cable .

I'm not saying that one is better than the other 
but to my ears I believe that there is something to it .

While this may seem like a bunch of self inflated BS ,
I am preparing myself  for the start of the internal speaker wiring upgrade.
Mr. Thiel recommended that I could increase the AWG 
of the wire from the speaker post to the crossover board and at the same time I should keep the wires to the speakers the same AWG 
or the same resistence .
I remember beetlemania used Cardas chassis wire and was very pleased with the results .

@sdl4
You mentioned that you like the idea of Cardas cables
but need 7 meters and that Parsec cables would cost $ 1,575 ,
for $700 you could try making your own and I believe have a much better sounding set of cables .

I also use the Norah Jones album Come Away With Me side 1
as my first reference music after any change ,
especially when tube rolling in my phono preamp .  

  

Robert - there are many variables in wire including gauge, purity, surface smoothness, dialectrics, layout, etc. To some degree, enough size is enough and the other design parameters become more important. Cardas knows a lot. Regarding internal wire: my point was that XO to driver resistance change will have more effect on tonality than pre XO runs. In fact, the differences will be pretty negligible and the other considerations may tip the balance in favor of "better" wire.

Norah Jones rocks. Little slice of history. The late Bob Lundvall found and signed Norah to his Blue Note label. I was working with his son Kurt who has his own audiophile recording and mastering business. Bob asked Kurt to critique the master of Come Away with Me, for which one of his references was my Thiel CS2.2s. I imagine that Kurt's evaluation notes probably had some influence on the final master. I love the recording.