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Taming bright Thiels

I have been attempting for months to find a way to tame the brightness on my 2.2's. Ended up with a crudely simple short-term solution after much tube and cable rolling and equipment fussing (System is Theta separates, ARC LS2b preamp, Rowland 1 amp, Harmonic Tech cables).
I experimented with taping thin material suspended in front of the midrange driver to produce roughly a couple decibels acoustical attenuation in the 1Khertz to 3khertz region from each channel. (I experimented with 1- and 2- ply tissue, cotton cloth, etc.)
What a magical difference. My wife immediately asked for a listening evening, something she hadn't done in over a year.
So I wrote to Thiel (many times) and asked if a low-value resistor wired in series with the midrange driver would have the same effect with less likelihood of side effects.
While they responded to every query promptly, they absolutely would not give any information on any possible modification of the speaker to attenuate its overly bright character.

Anyone attempted such a modification? Results? Caveats?
hug
garfish
1,840 posts
 
It sounds like you've found a short term practical solution. It may seem a bit harsh, but I have to agree with Phill23, ie I would not want a speaker that has a sound character that is unsuited to my personal preferences in listening.

The rest of your gear/wires does not appear to be prone to brightness. I specifically avoided the Thiel 22/23 when speaker shopping because of their reputation for brightness, and ended up with Vandersteen 2Ce/3As at the time(s). Good Luck. Craig
onhwy61's avatar
onhwy61
5,252 posts
 
Tissue paper placed in front of the speaker is a time tested pro studio trick for dealing with "hot" drivers. If it works, why try anything else?
etbaby
138 posts
 
Auido Ideas Guide (the Canadian publication) produces a product (damping ring) that improves the dispersion pattern of the thiel tweeter and damps the reflected sound off of the tweeter plate. This $10 option works very well and it will solve your problem.
petewhitley
163 posts
 
There is a cable choke called the Image Clarifiers that plugs into the end of you speaker cable on the amp side that works very well at taming high but not losing any resolution and increasing soundstage. They work VERY well.

http://www.empiricalaudio.com/
hee
22 posts
 
IMHO, the LS2 is horrible, bright and edgy. I would look for a Rowand preamp instead of "improving" the sound by altering the epeakers' freq response.
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