Thiel Owners

Hi everyone.  I just made a change to my listening room.  I removed the carpet and installed 3/4" hardwood flooring.  The upgrade exceeded my expectations.  The Thiel CS6's have never sounded better.  The new floor not only made the bass tighter and clearer but it also makes the speakers sound faster.  I'm am rethinking the idea of new speakers now. Check out my system page for more details and pictures.  
I gave up on the contractors and installed the wood floor myself.  I lost 10 lbs in 2 days putting down 500 sqft of flooring.  I was tired, sore, stiff and angry that I had to do it myself.  That all melted away as soon as I played the first song.

tomthiel

Thank You for the update.   Happy Listening!

tonywinga

Right On! There is something to be said for doing your own Home repairs. Good to see you here again.
I never would have guessed that hardwood floors would accent Thiel loudspeakers.

Happy Listening!

Tony - I am not surprised you heard improvements with your wood floor. That is consistent with my long-term experience with hi fi and live sound. One problem with carpet is its frequency-variability; different frequency bands are absorbed or not in non-linear ways. For the record, I have gotten best carpet results, including at Thiel's Music Room in Lexington, with wool carpet over commercial hair-pad underlayment. That's when carpet is necessary, such as when covering concrete where wood is not an option. In live performance, ensembles and/or the piano is often placed on carpet to quiet the reflections for the player(s). It does that, but not linearly with frequency; plus the effect in the audience is often an unpleasant harmonic unpredictability.

In my personal experience, it doesn't get any better than a wood floor. The record-making process tends to assume a wood floor for playback, as does the underlying theoretical physics. Jim's designs all employ a 2dB shelf below 200Hz in the anechoic response to account for the presence of a floor - converting the full-sphere anechoic response to the half-sphere in-room response. Some brands ignore this design element. Some users call Jim's designs "lean", etc. That "leanness" is exacerbated by carpet, sucking out some areas of response.

Congratulations on your wood floor. Music heals some aches and pains.

I agree for carpet material natural wool over a recycled jute pad works the best over either concrete wood or tile. You can also use this as an accent area rug and slide around so it has more or less impact on sound quality. Tom