Thiel Owners

It's no accident that the 1.5 hung out on Stereophile's Class A (limited bass) ranking for 5 or so years. I used it for the past 7 years at our small village live performance venue to startlingly good results and reviews. I used it with a Thiel SS1 and Thiel's Passive OX set for the 1.6 (very similar bass parameters.) I paired it with a Prima Luna, which is a nice sonic match. Plus the 1.5 is in my upgrade sites. It's quite a little honey.

Happy Friday! All

jonandfamily

I am looking forward in reading about your experience with Rob at CSS.

Happy Listening!

@TomThiel

The soft dome tweeter rebuilds are shipping back to me now. I asked Rob about his impressions and measurements and this is the limited reply:

"I think you will find that the soft dome is compatible. I have sold around 30 of these units and have had no complaints. The soft dome does not measure as well as the aluminum dome, but close."

I will give an update after installing in my CS3.6s. In the meantime, I have been quite surprised after properly placing and positioning my CS1.2s into the main system. Most of the music information above 52Hz is all there with very respectable imaging.

jonandfamily - we look forward to your report. Here's some additional back-story about that soft dome.

We developed that UltraTweeter for the CS5 in 1988. It had all of Jim's advanced techniques, and exceeded our expectations. The CS5 had woven lower Kevlar drivers, and if an appropriate soft upper midrange driver had been found, we would not have gone to aluminum. However, the MB Quart 2" aluminum dome did the job better than anything else, and we didn't have time to develop our own driver for that use. Market pressure. The aluminum tweeter had more predictable response particulars and the metal domes dissipated heat better. That's where we went.

When trickling that tweeter down to the CS2.2 we reconsidered the fiber dome to mate with the pulp midrange. Jim went with the CS5 tweeter and gradually migrated to all aluminum diaphragms rather than all Kevlar / fiber / etc.

So, I consider that soft dome tweeter as native - it was co-developed with the hard dome and should be very good, with possibly some advantages. The only one I've ever heard was in comparative evaluation during 2.2 development around 1989. I'll be getting a pair for comparative measurements and listening tests.

As a general caution, heat dissipation is a big deal. The soft dome don't be a heat dissipator like the aluminum dome is. Don't over-drive it.

Keep us posted.