Thiel Owners

tomthiel,

'Just my little peek behind the curtain regarding how everything is hooked to everything, nothing is simple, and no good idea goes unpunished.'



It's a real privilege to have your input and insights here. Cabinets are no doubt fiendishly complicated things and your words do help to ground things back into reality somewhat.

Thankfully for most of us here, we're only on the listening side of the fence!

Tom

Again I have to say thank you , your knowledge , experience and insight
is valued and appreciated by all Thiel owners .

I remember you telling us that Toyota approached Thiel with the thought of using Thiel speakers in Toyota cars ,
your stories and life experiences are always interesting .

As for batting , I've given up with the idea of changing from fiberglass but still the reading and research was very interesting .
I almost bought some " long haired " sheeps wool after reading about it being the best and used by top British speaker makers ,
but overseas shipping prices prevented me from trying .

I'm back to the wiring because I think I made a mistake when I increased 
the gauge to 15.5 reducing the resistance to much ,
the mid tweeter sound is to forceful so I've ordered
17.5 to see if resistance is the problem .
I believe you warned me about that .

I read an old post by @jon_5912 about the holes between the woofer
and the coaxial chamber where the wires pass thru and the possible effect of them not being sealed , I've not sealed mine do to continued work but I'm going to do that this morning to see if the sound is affected. 
Luckily no damage like jon experienced .

Try , Listen , Learn
or is it
Learn , Try , Listen 

Rob

Rob,,
Sealing between the chambers is important for impulse integrity. If open, the woofer air pressure yanks the midrange around - not good. You can temporarily seal well enough with Mortite or bowl putty.

When I came to New Hampshire in 1996, we had local long-hair wool production in the village. I looked into it for speakers as a venture prospect. I also read the British, etc. opinions which are widespread and respected. But I was never convinced given my own experience. I anecdotally attribute the "British Bloat" partially to the tendency of wool to decouple below about 100 Hz. Changing batting isn't on my radar, but who knows? We never know.

Wire gauge is part of the resistance equation. All design measurements and listening is done with the selected gauge. But there is another element in play. Skin effect / signal penetration depth is frequency dependent. 18 gauge is optimum for tweeter frequencies. Larger gauges are suitable for lower frequencies. Your change from 18 to 15.5 will add a harsh coarseness caused by propagation eddy currents. What I am doing with Straightwire is replacing the 18/2 with 18/4 in a star quad twist. We keep the optimum skin depth while halving the resistance and multiplying common mode noise rejection - these cables are in an electromagnetic soup from the drivers and crossovers. I am assuming that final level tweaking will be required due to resistance changes. I am applying the same star quad regime along with progressively larger gauges to the other drivers, all with promising results.

Carry on and keep us posted.

tomthiel

Second, Thank You for being our consummate body of knowledge and wisdom here. Hope you are well today and having fun in your hot rod garage/studio.

Happy Listening!

Tom

Plugging the pass thru holes for the speaker wires solved the mystery
of why when I turned up the volume the mid and upper range frequencies became overpowering .
The magic has  returned .
I was focusing and blaiming the sound unbalance on the increase in wire gauge , my electronics backround blinded me I guess .
Using your recommendation I'm still going to reduce the tweeter 
wire gauge to 17.5 for a  listen , 
I can always go back to 15.5 .
While it can be frustrating and not always fun ,
the end results have been worth it .

I can honestly say that working on an amp in much more 
straight forward than on a speaker .

Rob