Kinsekd, you must have visited Thiel shortly before me. We were not lucky enough to get a listening session, but I wholeheartedly agree with you about the hospitable atmosphere and all the friendly folks who took time out of their day to explain things to us (well, I can't really say this one way or the other about the man in charge - JT did pop through a couple of times during the tour to speak with Shari, but I was a little disappointed we didn't get to chat briefly or even greet him, but then he's probably quite busy).
Anyway, about the commonplace 'brightness' charge historically leveled at Thiel speakers, I have always maintained that - at least for their products of the 90's and beyond that I own or have heard - most of that can safely be chalked up to set-up issues, such as listening at a closer distance than they were designed for, or using partnering gear not up to the task. Part of this is just the inevitable result of their flat, extended response and great resolution revealing what is really going on with disks and gear, and possibly also their inherently wide dispersion highlighting sidewall reflections to a greater degree than some speakers having less extended power response curves. But part of it has also been the demanding nature of certain of their models' impedance curves, which can place even quite decent amps and cables at somewhat of a disadvantage. Regarding that last point, Shari conceded that Jim Thiel has generally been coming around lately to placing more emphasis on kinder, gentler speaker loads, which should be good news for all prospective Thiel owners.
In fact, she suggested that in computer modeling for the upcoming 3.7, JT had been strongly considering giving up a couple of Hz worth of low-end extension in favor of making a higher-sensitivity, easier-to-drive design overall, a smart design trade-off in the real world if you ask me, especially in this age of subwoofers and integrated or tubed amplifiers. When I asked her if this new attention to reasonable speaker loads may have been primarily inspired by the HT world, where one multi-channel amp may be called upon to satisfactorily drive multiple speakers for both movies and music, she said that potential benefit had actually never occurred to her, though she wouldn't rule it out as a theoretical consideration - certainly Thiel has been successfully addressing that market. Whatever the reason, that Thiel has been using tubed amps (including the model I use) in their auditioning set-ups is also an encouraging thing to know. Shari agreed that a little ameliorating of the toughness of some of their speakers' electrical curves could help go a long way toward doing the same thing for their mostly undeserved reputation for inherent brightness as a brand.
