Thiel Owners

@tomthiel , I do this with some apprehension, but as you say "Since this is all water long under the bridge,..." When Thiel Audio was still in business, but suspicions of Jim’s health concerns were begining to be rumoured, a reliable source (who out of respect will remain anonymous) at Thiel swore me to secrecy to share that Jim was indeed considering an all-out Thiel with a price point much beyond Thiel’s previous offerings that would feature an omni-directional design.

unsound - thanks for this input. It makes sense, including the context of return to a foundational idea before the company's launch - but with a life time of experience. Jim built every design on all the accumulated knowledge gained along the way. That product might have been truly awesome.

I routinely hear that the CS5 was Thiel's only cost-no-object offering. It was a niche-stretch at the time, but not cost-no-object. In fact Jim and Kathy chopped thousands of dollars at retail off the sell price due primarily to insufficient confidence of a price jump from under $2500 for the top of our line CS3.5 to what wanted to be a $15K CS5. They kept it under $10K by the loss of some product content plus damagingly thin margins, especially for a factory stretching its technical capacity. Jim emphatically stated that he would never design a speaker better than the CS5.

Anyhow, I'm pleased that he broke through that ceiling. And wish the world had it.

Thanks again.

Tom

Has anyone ever seen a pair of CS1.5 that have white cones in the mid-woofers?

I tried to post photos but unable from my computer.  The mid-woofers look like they belong. They have rubber surrounds but white cones instead of dark cones, and they have the little black pointed dust caps that others have.  The speakers sound wonderful.

I suspect Rob Gillum has rebuilt them as CS1.5’s spider cages are prone to separating from the woofers over time.