Thiel Owners

@jafant That Ayre uses Cardas wire so extensively is a clue that they source their copper from domestic sources, certainly not China. Charles Hansen was a huge fan of Cardas. And he posted at audioasylum regarding his experiences visiting speaker and electronic manufacturers in China. I think that informed his resolve to source as much as possible from domestic suppliers.

To my ears, the Cardas hookup wire was a really nice improvement over the OEM wire in my 2.4 upgrade. 

theaudiotweak

a brass door panel and new box are both great ideas but to expensive to explore ,

but you now have me thinking about trying to use MuMetal on the door and/or fuse panel .

When replacing a magnetic metal with a non-magnetic material, it's important to understand the function of the part. Often a chassis acts as a Faraday Cage where the entire envelope is engineered as a whole. Sometimes there are electrical value compensations for metals in proximity to circuitry.

I'm reminded of beetlemania's 2.4SE XOs, which turned out to be (late) made in China. The coils were different values to compensate for the electrical traces on the back side of the board. When we remanufactured his XOs on masonite, we returned to original coil inductance values to keep performance on spec.

Also, non-magnetic metals support electrical fields, which can be germane.

Just saying: everything is not always obvious.

I have mu metal panels I have received  to overcome the magnetic field of each speaker inductor from each other. Since this purchase I have seen reference to a woven shield that appears to be more effective and is easily pliable to  form around more complex shapes. Makes me wonder if wooden tops or an entire chassis would present a better sound from any given audio component. The magnetic field could escape instead of being re aimed back at critical components. Tom

Tom - that reflection is real. Shielded cable has a ’sound’ due to inward reflection of propagation field effects. Unshielded sounds better when it can be used in benign circumstances.

I’m reminded of Thiel’s early electronics. The 01 and 03 generations all had equalizers built in electromagnetically ’open’ enclosures. The sides were wood, the front was acrylic and the back was aluminum. The EQ required careful placement, away from transformers, etc.

I’m a big fan of distance rather than shielding. Outboarding the XO provides enough distance from the driver fields, and the opportunity to spread out the xo components. Thiel’s home theater products incorporated bucking magnets on the drivers (at least the woofers). In addition to containing stray fields regarding video interference, they focus the field in the gap and clean up the electromagnetic soup inside the speaker. Win-win.