Thiel Owners

1500 pair of 2.7s !  

My speakers are #'s 329 & 330  ,  the prof's pair are around that # 
and so far I haven't read of any serial #'s any higher from 
Thiel owners responding on this thread .

 

Tom, your post suggests all SE versions are FST. On the ‘net, I found a pic of an SE crossover that looks Lex-ish (but with the Clarity SAs) and a video of Gary Dayton showing an SE crossover that looks neither Lex or FST. I suppose there are one or two prototype SEs with Lex boards?

I wonder if the quality of the FSTs slipped over the years. Perhaps they started as “Lex equivalent” but downgraded parts quality with time? I imagine all FSTs are on printed circuit boards but perhaps they initially used MKP caps and had better quality coils. The seller of my SEs claimed they were built in 2012, which is credible given the late serial numbers. That is 3 years after JT passed and the year Thiel Audio was sold. Maybe the downgrade in parts quality is restricted to late pairs?
Regardless, the CS2.4 has superb drivers and a quality cabinet. In my experience, a crossover upgrade yields a speaker that is near SOTA other than bass extension and definition. That’s the best you can ask for anywhere near this price level.

Prof - my notes indicate there were about 1000 pair of 3.7s and 1500 pair of 2.7s sold. I'll comment further when I find time.

Wow, somehow that strikes me as surprisingly lower than I expected for the 3.7, and higher for the 2.7.

Prof - there were many forces at work that limited sales of later Thiel speakers. The story is not easy to stitch together due to loyalties and other factors. My first direct contact in more than 15 years was in September 2012 when the CS2.7 was being finalized. I heard it compared with the CS3.7 in the Thiel listening room. That demonstration and work session was stunning with all elements of the playback chain optimized over a period of 25+ years. Both products were completely Lexington-made, reference prototype quality examples. 

But sales of the 3.7 and other products were very low. The factory was like a ghost town with perhaps 5 people total, mostly working on machines. No speakers were being made. By contrast, when I left in 1995 we had 50 people running a very vertically integrated R&D, production, marketing, sales, service and dealer education program with sales over $6M, 8 new products in the pipeline and sustained 30% annual growth. But things had become very sad by 2012. Many factors play, but not insignificant was that Kathy had taken sales to Crutchfield and then Amazon and alienated the traditional dealer base. Higher priced models were discontinued to simplify the business in hopes of survival for a new buyer. The new buyer emerged at the end of 2012 and the first attempt was to salvage and continue Jim's designs. Steve DeFuria, an early dealer and long-term industry insider was hired as sales manager and managed to re-recruit several strong traditional dealers, accounting for the fairly strong sales of the 2.7 and 1.7 relative to their predecessors. But the new design team changed horses, leaving behind Jim's approach; the reviewers and dealers didn't buy in, and the brand lost its re-emergent industry support. New Thiel poured $10M into their effort to re-brand Thiel as avant-garde lifestyle stuff for affluent young women. It failed.

An example of New Thiel's approach was to position the CS1.7 as a Coherent Source. It was actually a 4th order crossover like myriad other contemporary products. Old Thiel had a first order 1.7 nearly ready for market for early 2013, right after the 2.7 (which is first order) made entirely in Lexington with old-school Thiel components and methods. Part of the reason the 2.7 punches above its class is that the 2.7 has Lex boards and the 3.7 (after about #1100 in 2007) has FST boards. So there are lots of hidden elements in the mix at the end of Jim's life in 2008 and continuing until the demise of Old Thiel in 2013.

Guys - your input is valid and welcome. I don't claim to have answers, only observations.
Prof - I agree that the numbers seem odd. I go on what I sniff out, including Rob Gillum's input. The 2.7 uptick is due to re-emergent marketing under Steve DeFuria.
Beetle - I think you're on it. I know that early FST boards used ERSE coils, caps and resistors, which were made in China, but to very high standards including a best-of-form Japanese PP film, proper coil wire and winding, etc. Later FST including your SE boards have none of that. So quality was being compromized as time went on.
Robert - That 1500 count was from New Thiel reported to Rob. It may not be true or correct.
Jazzman - thank you for all the references. The review cycle goes like this: first production goes to dealers. Review samples come next which is often a few hundred pieces into the run. Thiel carefully tested and ensured those review samples were best of form. (Let's hold that ethical discussion till later.) It was rare for a product to be re-reviewed after a long time into its cycle and when that did happen, the reviewer would have been given home-brewed units with applicable updates. Of course it would be of great interest to directly compare a late FST product to a Lexington tweaked one - but I don't have that luxury. I have developed an opinion that the Lex versions with higher-grade parts and methods are better products.