Thiel speaker service

Rob is fantastic!  He diagnosed a problem for me remotely, sent me the part, then helped me over the phone put it on. He was exceptionally fair with the price. Too bad Thiel went down like they did. 

I also had a great experience with Rob regarding rebuilding the woofer in my CS6. I dearly love these speakers and it was a huge relief to be able to repair them.

Regarding Thiel's demise, there are different ways to look at it. Jim Thiel was a genius and he doggedly pursued his vision for phase and time coherence in spite of technical challenges that most speaker designers feel are insurmountable. He did not have an understudy nor did he have a team of engineers doing most of the work. When he died the company pretty much died with him.  According to his brother, Tom, they tried to find someone to replace him but were unsuccessful. The new owners tried to steer the company in a new direction but couldn't make a go of it.

There's an anecdote that has Jim talking to a major high end speaker manufacturer at a trade show and he's reluctant to discuss an idea because he hasn't patented it yet. The other executive laughed and said something to the effect, "I don't know why you waste money on patents. Nobody is going to try to copy what you do. What you are doing is impossible."

High end audio speakers are an extremely complicated component with difficult tradeoffs. I would dare say that most successful high end speakers are the result of one person's vision. David Wilson was fortunate to have a son who was capable and interested in taking over the design process of their speakers. Jim Thiel was not so lucky.

hoghead1

Good to read that you had a favorable experience with Mr. Rob Gillum at CSS. Feel free to join us over on the Thiel Owners thread. We have a few CS 2.3 fans and owners on the Panel.

Happy Listening!

Can I echo the positive comments on Rob's service.

I have upgraded from 2.4 to 2.4SE using a kit from Rob and he recently rebuilt both my coax drivers for me.  Frightening posting them from the UK but they are safely back and I am sure sounding better than ever.

I am so relieved that Rob is still there flying the Thiel flag.  When I 'lost' my speakers due to a driver failure I had absolutely no idea where to go to get anywhere near the performance of my Thiels.

Am wanting to hear more about Thiel drivers failures. I know the 1st order x-overs allow signal content into the non-linear behavior zone(s) of some drivers.  I don't much about peak excursion limits of various cones Jim Thiel chose to employ.  Don't know much about Thiel co-ax driver designs, or what "totally messed up CS3.7" might entail.

 

My purpose in asking?  I've always wanted to own a pair (e.g., CS3.6, CS2.3...) and want to know more about what may lie ahead if a fatigue failure eventually occurs.