Thiel Owners

Silvanik - thanks for the report. There is definitely real stuff going on regarding floor coupling. Our initial insight (before spikes were a thing), regarded the recoil effect, how the cabinet swayed caused mostly by the woofer recoil. That motion is large in reference to tweeter wavelengths and causes time smear which is audible in a time-coherent system. But the actual coupling only became noticeable when we moved from the farmhouse to the real factory with concrete floors. The presentation got much drier and lean in the mid-bass. The farmhouse floor was resonating very nicely - I much preferred the musical presentation on the wood joist floor.

Whatever you're doing, keep it up and let us know any further developments.

@jafant I just had 16 ga speaker wire when my system was mid-fi (B&W, NAD, Rotel, Tecnics). Moving up to the high end, I found a great deal on used Cardas Neutral Reference. Ayre really likes Cardas, so that greatly influenced my decision. Now running Golden Reference (also previously owned). I’ve heard many other brands at dealers and RMAF but only Cardas in my own system. If Cardas is too rich for your wallet, maybe consider AQ?

@silvanik, I would urge you to reconsider using lead in your home. Even small amounts of lead dust exposure has been reported to cause significant neurological developmental delays in growing children.

tomtheil

"I much preferred the musical presentation on the wood joist floor. "

I have found the same when I've tried various footers under my Thiels.I end up prefering the sound just sitting on the wood floor (actually on the carpet sitting on the wood floor).   I don't even use spikes.

My new thiel woofer from eBay came in. They have the positive terminal labeled and the negative terminal blank. Takes all the guess work out. However, it seems one screw broke off inside the baffle so yeah. I don’t think that’s coming out. Anyways new woofer in and the old woofer out. Now to donate that woofer to rob. The voice coil glue is seperated from the cone.