Thiel Owners

@thielrules  I'm not sure many of us could differentiate a 'coherent source' Thiel from a 'conventional' speaker with standard A/B testing (blind or not) over the course of an evening.  As I related a few months ago, I bought Thiels (2.3 then 2.4) as they checked so many boxes for both design and immediate sonics.  Their coherence was mostly an academic advantage to this engineer.  It was only after a few months of listening only to a good non-coherent speaker in place of 20 years of Thiels in my familiar acoustics and electronics that reinserting the CS2.4 into my system created a profound psycho-acoustic improvement.

@tomthiel  OK, I'll accept that, that the ported bass results in a fixed 1-cycle lag from the radiator, hence phase coherence remains intact throughout the speaker's entire bandwidth.  And time coherence is only impacted in the lowest frequencies where the passive radiator is most active, below 100Hz in my 2.4 instance.  And yes that's a helluva lot better than most other speakers that go through all sorts of phase and timing shifts at each crossover point, as Stereopile plots show, dismissed as 'optimal crossover design' as 'each driver smoothly hands off to the next.'

Tom, we are not in disagreement. The pre-ringing is only a concern if I use linear filters to reduce the phase differences in the xo range. With digital minimum filters this is no concern but the phase differences are harder to control. I don't get it why dsp does not get more support. It is the easiest way to approach objective transparency and at the same time dial in any frequency or xo characteristic that you may subjectively desire. Instead of experimenting with different cables, amps, or any other hardware, you simply change some settings and switch back and forth to hear the differences. 

thielrules - I understand the trade-off between linear and minimum plusses and minuses. Regarding the DSP solution, that's a realm that is morphing in real time. Even at the very high end, digitization still brings its own set of potential problems.  Digital circuitry is noisy and requires careful isolation from analog. Assuming you can manage all that and get stellar results, there is the matter of different skill sets. Of course in Thiel Audio's day, the realm didn't exist, or was still in its infancy and adolescence. Jim developed his tricks and his niche firmly in the analog sphere, and nurtured and grew those skills over his whole career. I am committed to consolidating that legacy for its stability into the future.

I am pleased that you are applying digital solutions to the design, but such an undertaking beyond DIY, would take a concerted effort to make it so.

Obviously music is initially analogue.

Wouldn’t it be best to attempt to reproduce it that way?

Digital offers control over time and frequency, but generally speaking, speakers are analogue instruments as well. Unless you go all digital, I would get out of the digital domain as quickly as you can. 

Sure you could tweak digital to your hearts content, but wouldn’t it just be better to assemble the best all-analogue system you can that makes your favorite music sound the way you want? 
My personal goal, and I’m very close, is to be able to play any style of music, from any era, on any available medium/format (so far reel to reel tape is the best I’ve found) and to have everything sound the way you expect it to sound or better. 
I’ve been down the tone control, parametric EQ, digital EQ, DSP road and all you end up doing is tweak and tweak and tweak. Invest in a good DAC (Schiit DACs are great and affordable) and a decent turntable, and enjoy finding synergies in the many designs of speakers, cables, and amplifiers that are affordable and available on the used market.

A quiet room. Tubes in your preamp. Powerful solid state amplification and speakers YOU LOVE in the RIGHT PLACE in that room. Everything else is gravy. 

@brettmcee  Really good post above.  I've done and accomplished over a lifetime of hardware and music nearly everything you praise (except reel-to-reel and Schitt, perhaps at my loss).  I'm no longer a digiphobe now that *good* digital can be very good, but use it for what is best and get into the analog domain quickly (knowing most vinyl from the past 20-30 years was recorded digitally, often with awful gear by today's standards).  Achieving system synergy with the variety of combinations or hardware, room acoustics, and your ears, is the end game.