Thiel Owners

Jeff - my memory was unclear about the ported 03. Please confirm NO equalizer.

BTW, it's great to know these speakers have given you joy for so long. They were made in our first garage shop on the little farm outside Lexington, about the time we were building the new 16' x 28' addition onto the original dirt-floor 15' x 22' garage. Memory Lane Lives. 

tomthiel wrote:

"Jeff - my memory was unclear about the ported 03. Please confirm NO equalizer."

My ported 03s came with the Thiel equalizer. Early on I made the determination that I liked the sound/setup better without the equalizer in the pipeline. I no longer have the EQ box, I should have hung on to it. 

For those interested, the original 03 EQ was similar to the 01 as a fixed point boost at 30Hz, enabling the speaker's -3dB point at around 27Hz while maintaining 90dB sensitivity at 8 ohms (6 ohms minimum). Those early EQs had less sophisticated circuitry and implementation, with electrolytic caps in the signal path and so forth - creating a transistory veil on the music. Each generation got better with the CS3.5 becoming direct-coupled.

Jeff - you're not alone in preferring the direct path and sacrificing the deep bass for more transparency. You might consider the CS3.5 in your replacement search. The EQ is getting upgraded well above stock and the speaker is in line for significant driver and crossover upgrades.

jeff_pvd

Thank You for the follow up and citing Serial Numbers (S/N) on your speakers.

Those are nice, low, numbers. Good to read that a Rotel receiver can drive the 03.

Happy Listening!

magnet7

Good to see here again. Thank You for the 3.5 upgrade, update.

I know that Tom is working very hard to deliver a viable upgrade path 3.5 loudspeaker. Stay tuned.

Happy Listening!