Thiel Owners

@andy2 - I thought that's the direction new Thiel should have gone.  Thiel had great drivers, great cabinets, but nobody who could do the crossover design.  If they had gone with computer based crossovers they could've had multiple crossover settings where one was phase correct and the other higher order to allow for increased dynamic range.  It may have been the best of both worlds and I think achievable.  Give some big Thiels a fourth order crossover and I bet they'd have incredible dynamic range due to the fantastic drivers built for far wider bandwidth than they'd need to handle.  I wonder if they discussed it before deciding to make the most unnecessary products ever conceived.

jon_5912,

I'll let Tom comment with regard to your post.

Personally, I think there's a market for both: time-phase coherent and non-time-phase coherent.  There are plus and minus in either approach.  

Tom seems to think time-phase coherent is the only way to go.  The new Thiel management seems to think otherwise.  I was not there, but it seems like the lack of a reconciliation of the two polar opposite idea was what had done them in.  If there was a middle of the road, maybe Thiel would still be around.  

@andy2 - I have both.  I have two (or so) stereos and one is Thiel.  The other has some active ATC 110s.  I love both but I think there's no way to say one is better because there are inherent tradeoffs.  The ATC system has dynamics that the Thiels can't come close to.  The Thiels have a different kind of realism with unamplified, acoustic music that the ATCs can't touch.  I like a variety of music and for any particular recording one system is almost always a clear winner.  

That's why I think either approach has its merits.  To say one is "better" than the other is missing the point.  As I also said in my previous posts (many posts ago), high-order speakers such as 24db/slope tend to have more "slam" vs. first order speaker, but on the other hand, first order speakers have a certain naturalness that not found in higher order speakers.  

The differences are subtle, but important.  

Thiel
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jkf5uscX7Mg

ATC
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_QsAlqTN_E