Thiel Owners

Bascom H. King (R.I.P.)

@tomthiel

Seems even (the late) Art Dudley noticed the cabinetry skill in Thiel speakers.

I was just reading his review of the Volti Audio Vittoria speakers in which Art stated:

The build quality of my review pair, finished in bosse cedar, equals that of the finest American loudspeaker cabinetry I’ve seen, DeVore Fidelity and Thiel Audio included.

Way back in the late 90’s the CS6 were the first "real" pair of Thiels I had in the house and I never tired of looking at the quality of the build and cabinetry. It was magnificent and put lots of other speakers to shame.

jafant,

The review pair of CS 2.4SE are 005/300-006/300

They only made 150 pairs so I have third pair to roll out.

Hey prof - thanks for the Art Dudley reference. Time marches on. Even though we kept arm's length from our reviewers, I remember them all fondly. Critical review was a crucially important part of Thiel's very existence. Art Dudley, Wes Phillips and many others helped shape the industry and the companies in it via their thoughtful, informed appreciation and criticism.

Thiel's cabinets were a monumental undertaking - one that could not be justified except that we wanted to produce functional objects worthy of our intended customers' livng rooms. (And I got to travel extensively establishing our veneer supply network.) No complaints.

" Blue Printed "

As a DIYer I can tell you that it is impossible for me to  "blue print " my crossover boards , but I can and have been able to " balance " them .  To truly blue print a board one must have a box full of each component in order to find  components that are the exact values as the schematics ,  this is what Jim did when he personally checked, measured and approved review samples .

But " balanced " is something that I believe that every Thiel speaker from Lexington is , that is that  a 2 ohm resistor might measure 2.1 ohms so finding  another one for the other board you'll be balanced same goes for a capacitors values , as long as all the values are within  a tolerance set by Thiels quality control .  

I'm bring this up because after removing the resistors and capacitors I measured them and discovered resistors that were more than 5% tolerance and electrolytic capacitors that up to 30% out of tolerance ! But since My speakers came from  Tennessee and had been put together or repaired there I won't say that this is typical but I was surprised to have measured such differences in the resistors that are used in all Thiel speakers and very disappointed in the electrolytic caps that I took out and then have the same issue with the new replacements !   I purchased a different manufacturer and received caps that were closer to being within tolerance at least they were the same values , So while none of the new components were exact schematic values they were almost exact match pairs thus balanced L & R crossovers .

DIYing is not something that is easy but in my case it turned out to be extremely rewarding  because now with upgraded components I know these sound better than stock as well as fixing the FrankenThiel lack of quality crossovers that " New Thiel Audio " sold me .