Thiel Owners

I contacted Rob a few weeks ago through his website.  He responded quickly, using that email address.  It's quite possible that by emailing him directly your email may have been caught in his spam filter.

A while back Tom suggested trying to using brass fasteners .

I found the size  for my 2.7 speakers to be 8/32 by 1/2 inch for the coaxial and by 1 inch for the woofer and radiator .  The pan head srews fit perfectly in the woofer and radiator but were a little to large in diameter ( .6mm ) to fit into the coaxial .

After spending a lot of time looking for a 8/32 with a smaller head and being unsuccessful I had to grind down the head of the panhead screw .

For about $12 It was worth the effort .

And there was a positive sonic benefit correct? The sonics will also benefit with the removal of any steel screw to a  brass replacement. Any fastener holding or near the crossover or binding posts should be brass. Non ferrous materials sound better. Brass is the metal of music and I think sounds best.Tom D.

My redevelopment exploration over the past few years has identified this metallic source of interference. My experiments point to disruption of electromagnetic fields to create eddy currents that react against the orderly flow of energy.

In the 1978 development of the 03 (first coherent source) we discovered and substantiated such effects in steel driver baskets - independent of stiffness, ringing, etc. The electromagnetic eddy currents hang in time and cause subtle phase/time domain distortions. Solution: non-magnetic baskets. However, even non-magnetic conductors introduce electrical reactance when close enough to each other. Solution is non-conductive structures, both electric and magnetic. I don’t have test apparatus to prove such findings, but I understand them to be operative.

A new woofer I am working on will have a non-metallic basket. And my screws / bolts are reinforced nylon or Delrin. The improvement over brass/stainless steel is real, as is the improvement of brass /ss over conductive steel.

Such improvements are small, but additive - stack up several such small, subtle improvements, and the music sounds cleaner. I don’t know whether it matters that Dr. Toole might want more proof. I do know that we take extensive precautions against various bias traps.

You can play with hardware store supplies.

Thank You Tom T. &  Tom D.

The fasteners/screws/bolts that held the speakers and radiator were made with ferrous metal those used on the speaker binding plate were not . I wonder why after your finding in 1978 that ferrous metal screws were still used ? 

I hadn't thought of using nylon or delrin so looking into it I found that McMaster-Carr carries the reinforced nylon screws with the same size socket heads as the originals .  part # 91221A445 1/2 inch for pk of 10 $8.64 and part # 91221A460  1 inch for pk of 10 $8.73 , so for about $45 you can have an easy upgrade !

The music sounds cleaner , I thought about how to discribe the improvement smoother or more definition but cleaner sounds good .  It really showed when playing Dvorak " From the New World "  symphony # 5 .