Thiels have been my primary speakers for nearly twenty years now, first CS2.3 then CS2.4 in 2006. A dispute with a new condo neighbor hypersensitive to sound caused me to buy a pair of the new KEF LS50 Meta stand-mounted speakers for substantially less bass transmission between condos. Single coax driver, but 2nd order crossover and rear-firing port in a tiny 12 x 8 x 11" 17 lb box on stands.
I compared them with my 2.4 when I first broke them in, noted the expected differences, pros and cons, and then parked my Thiels for over a month and listened only to the KEFs. I pulled out the 2.4s a few days ago to remind myself what I've been missing. I'll save the space of comparing the two, but to mention that the immediate and overwhelming sound of my Thiels was 'relaxed' and 'relaxing' musical presentation, to the point of the cliched 'time slowed down' listening to them, a fully 'natural' 'authentic' listening experience. This far overwhelmed all the objective detail differences versus the KEFs I've become skilled at identifying for the past 50 years.
I'll only add my music's bass extension and volumes were moderate enough not to tax the KEFs, the leading-edge speed, and sustain micro-dynamics and detail, were at least as good with the 2.4s, so those weren't factors in 'relaxed' being 'slow' or 'veiled.' It transcended all those individual characteristics.
After all these years, is THIS what full time/phase coherency sounds like once I've been missing it?? That's the ONLY thing I could account for such a dramatic and indescribable difference. I don't think I would have noted this character so blatantly if I had been swapping speakers every few days.
I know a number of forum members have Thiels with other similarly good non-time-aligned speakers. After a long absence, has anyone else had an experience similar to what I describe?
