UPDATE:
I received my pair of Thiel 3.7s last weekend. I'm going to give my initial impressions.
First, to re-cap, my situation posed (at least purportedly) challenges to a speaker like the 3.7. I have a smallish 15' by 13' room. I'm using low powered amps relative to what is typically recommended (I'm using Conrad Johnson Premier 12 140W/side amps, wheres most people say the Thiels "need" high wattage/current SS amps). I can't put the Thiels very far away from me due to room/sofa/set up restrictions, and it's typically touted that the Thiels need significant distance to become coherent. Further, I have very sensitive ears and here I had chosen a brand with a reputation for "ruthlessly revealing" and often "bright" sounding.
On paper, it doesn't bode well.
But how have things turned out in practice?
Great!
I've only had about 4 days of listening and dialing them in, and I clearly have more experimentation ahead of me.
But so far I'm getting what I hoped from the Thiels.
The first thing is, to my relief, the Thiels have NOT proven to be "bright" or aggressive. Just the opposite!
They are not detailed as in "added brightness emphasizing details," rather they are "naturally" detailed by having such low distortion, so little added "hash" to the sound, such a low "noise floor" that I can simply hear instruments as naturally organically detailed, not hyped. Far from fatiguing, I've found the Thiels invite longer fatigue-free listening than almost any speaker I've had. (Once I sit down, it can be 5 hours at a time listening...yes I'm not sleeping enough...)
I have a well damped room, so that would help. Also, being driven by the CJs no doubt aids this sense of relaxed detail. Which is as I wish it.
Do they work with the CJ 140W amps? Yes. That is, I'm not getting bass incontinence - the bass region is taut, controlled, and tonally dense in just that "Thiel way" that I love. The bass region is so defined, it allows large instruments, e.g. stand up bass, to be fully holographically placed in the soundstage. All the taught bass information coming from the instrument, not diffusing into the speakers. This is probably the tightest, most tonal and integrated bass I've heard in my room, be it monitor or floor standing speaker.
It's not perfect. I hear bass nodes here and there, room interaction, but it's rare and the same thing happens with any other speakers. (And it's frankly much more in control than what I tend to hear at other audiophile pal's set ups, even in their bigger rooms).
I've done lots of SS vs my tube amp comparisons with hard to drive speakers in the past, so I know the differences. I can recognize that the Thiels are capable of even greater bass control, lower bass and "slam/impact," and greater overall dynamics than what I'm getting, if feed a lot more watts/current. However, I'm still getting the general positive characteristics - density, coherency, tactile, control, dynamic aliveness - that I find often favors Thiel vs some other brands, and which suits my taste.
Positioning? They sounded good at around 8 feet away, just over 2 feet from the back wall, about 6.9 feet apart, as a starting position. However, I am enamored of a more nearfield listening experience. I'm used to having my speakers close, with a very wide spread, to the point where I'm immersed in the sound, not just watching it from across the room. Each day I've edged the 3.7s closer, and as with other speakers in my room, the rewards have been a smoother sounding frequency response, less room hash, more richly differentiated timbral qualities, more detail, spaciousness...basically more "entering the recording space and hearing more of what's in the recording."
At this point the Thiels are about 7 feet from me and it is really glorious. They are holding up well in terms of coherence, and the soundstaging is deep and precise. I'm going to try spreading them further apart to widen the impressiveness.
For me, beautiful, accurate/convincing timbral quality is job one for any speaker that I'm going to spend time listening to.
To that end, I've played with my sources - using my original locally built tube pre-amp (quite a neutral/frequency-extended sounding pre-amp), my newly acquired CJ Premier 16LS2 preamp (gorgeous tone and clarity, smoothness) and running my Benchmark DAC directly into the CJs. This combined with slight alterations of speaker positioning, slight toe-in or not etc, has allowed me to experience a variety of tonal qualities, depending on what I want. Right now I have the Thiels dialed in to provide a very focused image quality and an incredibly realistic tonal presentation.
Trumptes sound gorgeously "warm and brassy," voices convincing, wood sounds like wood. One test I do is play recordings of things like drums, bongos, hand claps etc and compare them to myself clapping/drumming on myself/objects in the room. When a system departs from reality - the case with most systems - there is a distinct disconnect between the tonal reality and presence of my sounds vs the reproduced sounds. But with the Thiels as I've got them sounding now, this discontinuity is close to gone. A bongo slapped in the soundfield between the speakers has a tonal/dynamic presence just like my own hand claps and slapping of my thigh. I've always found this "reality factor" a predictor of my longer term satisfaction with a system, and the Thiels are particularly amazing here.
Also, I played a recording of me playing my acoustic guitar (recorded in the same room) through the Thiels and they pretty much nailed the sound of the guitar.
It was like I just holographically appeared in the room corner behind the speakers, playing guitar, with no hint the speakers themselves were making any "sound."
The 3.7s have a reputation of super detail, extracting the last ounce of information from the source. Have I been bowled over by this aspect of the Thiels? Yes and no. Yes in terms of how *naturally* they uncover subtle details. But no as in I'm not necessarily hearing things like more fingers on strings, or the teeny sounds we often associate with hearing more detail. They are there, but the thing is I listen to a variety of speakers at home, and those include the MBL 121 Radialstrahler omnis. I have still rarely, if ever, heard a speaker that reproduces fine detail so effortlessly and naturally as the MBLs. They tend to make other speakers, good on their own, sound crude and mechanical in comparison. The Thiels get a closer to MBL-like sense of detail, though I still think the MBLs get that last bit of natural realism - e.g. just how fine, delicate and organic the sound is of human fingers plucking strings, on classical guitar, etc. I LOVE the sound of drum cymbals through the Thiels, so open and tonally believable. Though the MBLs do even better there.
The Thiels are giving me that other thing I was craving, and that I'd always loved about Thiels: that sense of believable image density. Not just image focus per se, but the way the Thiels organize all the sound that seems to go diffused or astray in other systems, to where they should be. It's not just that I can tell exactly what is making a sound and where in the mix. It's the impression of solidity and density to the instruments in front of me: a wood block sounds so solid you could tap it yourself. A sax has more of that vibrating column of air and brass, tactile quality. My Hales speakers get much of the tonal beauty right in instruments, but they lack this quality of presence and texture added by the Thiels. And it's more engaging.
Finally, my main impression of the Thiels really recapitulates the impression given in almost all the reviews
of the 3.7: the sense of reality and aliveness they present.
Talking about detail, soundstaging, timbral quality, dynamic etc on their own doesn't do the Thiels justice. Because that's not what they are about, as it were. The design goal, from phase/time coherency onward, is about "coherency." And that is what I hear: the Thiels seem to launch all attributes of an instrument at once, from the same space, like a live instrument would, giving the impression of "real instruments being played by real musicians" rather than as set of sonic attributes. On the Thiels, more than any other speaker I've had, I'm continually made aware of the *performance* of the musician, the dynamic ebb and flow of each one's efforts.
My foot is always tapping along to what the musicians are doing. This is just what I was looking for, so it's wonderful to experience.
Not that I think it's the perfect speaker, or even perfect in my room. I can see why some have issues with the bass region. The 3.7s are so controlled and restrained that you really find out when there is less bass in many recordings than you thought. They have a tendency to thus sound "smaller" and less substantial, more often, and with more recordings, than lots of other full range floor standing speakers. But when there is significant bass in the recording, you also hear it. Personally, especially in my smaller room, I enjoy the restraint shown by the Thiels.
Though, yes, sometimes I would like even more size and lushness to the sound, e.g. some classical recordings.
Also, in real life acoustic sounds are huge and lush relative to their reproduced counterparts. The Thiels have always been somewhat subtractive in this respect. I can accept this due to how much I appreciate all the other qualities that the Thiels are *especially* good at portraying, and which are engaging. So it's always a compromise. There are certainly systems that provide more realistic lushness and body to sounds. Though I usually have other quibbles when I hear them as well. (e.g. probably the most full sounding mids I ever had in my room were either the Quad ESL 63s with Gradient Subwoofers or the Von Schweikert VR 4 Gen 2 speakers. HUGE body to midrange sounds. But...neither to my ears sounded quite as timbrally convincing as the Thiels, and neither offered the solidity of sound of the Thiels).
I also might have some issues making these speakers work for me, insofar as I have to transport them in and out of the room for listening sessions.
But from what I've heard so far, I'm very impressed.
I received my pair of Thiel 3.7s last weekend. I'm going to give my initial impressions.
First, to re-cap, my situation posed (at least purportedly) challenges to a speaker like the 3.7. I have a smallish 15' by 13' room. I'm using low powered amps relative to what is typically recommended (I'm using Conrad Johnson Premier 12 140W/side amps, wheres most people say the Thiels "need" high wattage/current SS amps). I can't put the Thiels very far away from me due to room/sofa/set up restrictions, and it's typically touted that the Thiels need significant distance to become coherent. Further, I have very sensitive ears and here I had chosen a brand with a reputation for "ruthlessly revealing" and often "bright" sounding.
On paper, it doesn't bode well.
But how have things turned out in practice?
Great!
I've only had about 4 days of listening and dialing them in, and I clearly have more experimentation ahead of me.
But so far I'm getting what I hoped from the Thiels.
The first thing is, to my relief, the Thiels have NOT proven to be "bright" or aggressive. Just the opposite!
They are not detailed as in "added brightness emphasizing details," rather they are "naturally" detailed by having such low distortion, so little added "hash" to the sound, such a low "noise floor" that I can simply hear instruments as naturally organically detailed, not hyped. Far from fatiguing, I've found the Thiels invite longer fatigue-free listening than almost any speaker I've had. (Once I sit down, it can be 5 hours at a time listening...yes I'm not sleeping enough...)
I have a well damped room, so that would help. Also, being driven by the CJs no doubt aids this sense of relaxed detail. Which is as I wish it.
Do they work with the CJ 140W amps? Yes. That is, I'm not getting bass incontinence - the bass region is taut, controlled, and tonally dense in just that "Thiel way" that I love. The bass region is so defined, it allows large instruments, e.g. stand up bass, to be fully holographically placed in the soundstage. All the taught bass information coming from the instrument, not diffusing into the speakers. This is probably the tightest, most tonal and integrated bass I've heard in my room, be it monitor or floor standing speaker.
It's not perfect. I hear bass nodes here and there, room interaction, but it's rare and the same thing happens with any other speakers. (And it's frankly much more in control than what I tend to hear at other audiophile pal's set ups, even in their bigger rooms).
I've done lots of SS vs my tube amp comparisons with hard to drive speakers in the past, so I know the differences. I can recognize that the Thiels are capable of even greater bass control, lower bass and "slam/impact," and greater overall dynamics than what I'm getting, if feed a lot more watts/current. However, I'm still getting the general positive characteristics - density, coherency, tactile, control, dynamic aliveness - that I find often favors Thiel vs some other brands, and which suits my taste.
Positioning? They sounded good at around 8 feet away, just over 2 feet from the back wall, about 6.9 feet apart, as a starting position. However, I am enamored of a more nearfield listening experience. I'm used to having my speakers close, with a very wide spread, to the point where I'm immersed in the sound, not just watching it from across the room. Each day I've edged the 3.7s closer, and as with other speakers in my room, the rewards have been a smoother sounding frequency response, less room hash, more richly differentiated timbral qualities, more detail, spaciousness...basically more "entering the recording space and hearing more of what's in the recording."
At this point the Thiels are about 7 feet from me and it is really glorious. They are holding up well in terms of coherence, and the soundstaging is deep and precise. I'm going to try spreading them further apart to widen the impressiveness.
For me, beautiful, accurate/convincing timbral quality is job one for any speaker that I'm going to spend time listening to.
To that end, I've played with my sources - using my original locally built tube pre-amp (quite a neutral/frequency-extended sounding pre-amp), my newly acquired CJ Premier 16LS2 preamp (gorgeous tone and clarity, smoothness) and running my Benchmark DAC directly into the CJs. This combined with slight alterations of speaker positioning, slight toe-in or not etc, has allowed me to experience a variety of tonal qualities, depending on what I want. Right now I have the Thiels dialed in to provide a very focused image quality and an incredibly realistic tonal presentation.
Trumptes sound gorgeously "warm and brassy," voices convincing, wood sounds like wood. One test I do is play recordings of things like drums, bongos, hand claps etc and compare them to myself clapping/drumming on myself/objects in the room. When a system departs from reality - the case with most systems - there is a distinct disconnect between the tonal reality and presence of my sounds vs the reproduced sounds. But with the Thiels as I've got them sounding now, this discontinuity is close to gone. A bongo slapped in the soundfield between the speakers has a tonal/dynamic presence just like my own hand claps and slapping of my thigh. I've always found this "reality factor" a predictor of my longer term satisfaction with a system, and the Thiels are particularly amazing here.
Also, I played a recording of me playing my acoustic guitar (recorded in the same room) through the Thiels and they pretty much nailed the sound of the guitar.
It was like I just holographically appeared in the room corner behind the speakers, playing guitar, with no hint the speakers themselves were making any "sound."
The 3.7s have a reputation of super detail, extracting the last ounce of information from the source. Have I been bowled over by this aspect of the Thiels? Yes and no. Yes in terms of how *naturally* they uncover subtle details. But no as in I'm not necessarily hearing things like more fingers on strings, or the teeny sounds we often associate with hearing more detail. They are there, but the thing is I listen to a variety of speakers at home, and those include the MBL 121 Radialstrahler omnis. I have still rarely, if ever, heard a speaker that reproduces fine detail so effortlessly and naturally as the MBLs. They tend to make other speakers, good on their own, sound crude and mechanical in comparison. The Thiels get a closer to MBL-like sense of detail, though I still think the MBLs get that last bit of natural realism - e.g. just how fine, delicate and organic the sound is of human fingers plucking strings, on classical guitar, etc. I LOVE the sound of drum cymbals through the Thiels, so open and tonally believable. Though the MBLs do even better there.
The Thiels are giving me that other thing I was craving, and that I'd always loved about Thiels: that sense of believable image density. Not just image focus per se, but the way the Thiels organize all the sound that seems to go diffused or astray in other systems, to where they should be. It's not just that I can tell exactly what is making a sound and where in the mix. It's the impression of solidity and density to the instruments in front of me: a wood block sounds so solid you could tap it yourself. A sax has more of that vibrating column of air and brass, tactile quality. My Hales speakers get much of the tonal beauty right in instruments, but they lack this quality of presence and texture added by the Thiels. And it's more engaging.
Finally, my main impression of the Thiels really recapitulates the impression given in almost all the reviews
of the 3.7: the sense of reality and aliveness they present.
Talking about detail, soundstaging, timbral quality, dynamic etc on their own doesn't do the Thiels justice. Because that's not what they are about, as it were. The design goal, from phase/time coherency onward, is about "coherency." And that is what I hear: the Thiels seem to launch all attributes of an instrument at once, from the same space, like a live instrument would, giving the impression of "real instruments being played by real musicians" rather than as set of sonic attributes. On the Thiels, more than any other speaker I've had, I'm continually made aware of the *performance* of the musician, the dynamic ebb and flow of each one's efforts.
My foot is always tapping along to what the musicians are doing. This is just what I was looking for, so it's wonderful to experience.
Not that I think it's the perfect speaker, or even perfect in my room. I can see why some have issues with the bass region. The 3.7s are so controlled and restrained that you really find out when there is less bass in many recordings than you thought. They have a tendency to thus sound "smaller" and less substantial, more often, and with more recordings, than lots of other full range floor standing speakers. But when there is significant bass in the recording, you also hear it. Personally, especially in my smaller room, I enjoy the restraint shown by the Thiels.
Though, yes, sometimes I would like even more size and lushness to the sound, e.g. some classical recordings.
Also, in real life acoustic sounds are huge and lush relative to their reproduced counterparts. The Thiels have always been somewhat subtractive in this respect. I can accept this due to how much I appreciate all the other qualities that the Thiels are *especially* good at portraying, and which are engaging. So it's always a compromise. There are certainly systems that provide more realistic lushness and body to sounds. Though I usually have other quibbles when I hear them as well. (e.g. probably the most full sounding mids I ever had in my room were either the Quad ESL 63s with Gradient Subwoofers or the Von Schweikert VR 4 Gen 2 speakers. HUGE body to midrange sounds. But...neither to my ears sounded quite as timbrally convincing as the Thiels, and neither offered the solidity of sound of the Thiels).
I also might have some issues making these speakers work for me, insofar as I have to transport them in and out of the room for listening sessions.
But from what I've heard so far, I'm very impressed.