Thiel Owners

@tomthiel, thank you. I’ve always wondered about the phase angle, measurements for which weren’t published back when these were released. I’m in complete agreement, I’ve always thought the area of dynamic range / ultimate loudness was where the 3.5’s could use the most improvement. Fortunately for me, it’s one of my lowest priorities. Still, it would be nice to be more completely relaxed when knowing volume peaks are pending. I am a bit surprised that Jim wasn’t prepared for the dynamic range of CD’s, they had been out for about a 1/2 dozen years by the time the 3.5’s were released.

tomthiel

The Thile/Meyers disc is excellent in diagnosing any system.

Happy Listening!

It's not that Jim didn't know about CDs dynamic peaks, it's more like he was trying to cope to keep the equalized bass viable. That woofer was the first driver with his magnetic shorting rings for a more stable magnetic field and it had a huge overhung coil to handle the required excursion. The overhung motor requirement was the largest cause of the end of eq. He figured out the drastic distortion of reduction of underhung motors and powering long gaps was virtually impossible because rare-earth magnets weren't yet in the mix. Long excursions and underhung motors contradict each other.

Phase angle was not a thing in reviews at that time. In fact Jim goaded JA / Stereophile into measuring phase at all. JA and Larry A came to our factory in 1988 to spend a day in Jim's lab learning why he thought it mattered, how he measured it and so forth - and they gradually entered the arena of phase and time.

A promising solution to the dynamic limit would be to match a powered subwoofer with probably a second order crossover at 80Hz to limit the woofer excursion while getting true integrated bass to 20Hz.

JA - and it is real music from really talented musicians.

As has been discussed here many moons ago, I think that crossing over at the 40 Hz setting would be more advantageous.