Thiel TT1 vs CS 3.7

[dallasjustice]

Thiel was sold off after the owner died. So the question is whether the new Thiels are better or worse speakers. The new speaker designer was a guy who used to work with Paul Barton and is very familiar with all of the loudspeaker research and science born from the NRC lab. His name is Mark Mason. Ironically Mr. Mason no longer works at Thiel. But we now have objective data from stereophile to help us decide whether Mr. Mason actual designed a better or worse loudspeaker. It is widely accepted that smooth frequency response and even/extended lateral off axis are THE most important factors in whether a listener will prefer a loudspeaker versus another speaker.

Here's a video from Louis Rossman, a hyperventilating audiophile offering a screed about what pieces of shit the new Thiel owners are and how terrible their new designs are.

Well here ya go Louis. Here's the Thiel CS 3.7 followed by the new TT1 reviewed stereophile released a couple of days ago. The TT1 blows the old Thiels away. The TT1 looks like one of the best speaker values on the market.

 

[Blumlein 88]

You might have read where Thiel said he favored box/cone speakers because though they had problems that all the problems were in principle something that could be solved compared to panels which had lots of inherent advantages, but no reasonable solution for the problems. He said this at a small presentation he gave at a local dealer once. Friend of mine, who likes ESLs as do I straight away said, "what, there is no simple solution for having multiple drivers that all have to be and can never be fully be integrated into one sound source the way a full range panel can manage". He didn't say much other than his insistence on 1st order crossovers allowed excellent alignment in time and phase. Of course his simple 1st order crossovers placed severe constraints on his designs. And the simple crossover had many dozens of components. In time he even went the coaxial driver route. If anyone could have benefited from going active so he could do line level crossovers it was Thiel. But he was in business and there wasn't much market for that.

 

[dallasjustice]

You might have read where Thiel said he favored box/cone speakers because though they had problems that all the problems were in principle something that could be solved compared to panels which had lots of inherent advantages, but no reasonable solution for the problems. He said this at a small presentation he gave at a local dealer once. Friend of mine, who likes ESLs as do I straight away said, "what, there is no simple solution for having multiple drivers that all have to be and can never be fully be integrated into one sound source the way a full range panel can manage". He didn't say much other than his insistence on 1st order crossovers allowed excellent alignment in time and phase. Of course his simple 1st order crossovers placed severe constraints on his designs. And the simple crossover had many dozens of components. In time he even went the coaxial driver route. If anyone could have benefited from going active so he could do line level crossovers it was Thiel. But he was in business and there wasn't much market for that.

Whether speaker time alignment matters much is very debatable. The power response performance isn't debatable.

 

[RayDunzl]

"Power Response is the sum of the total radiated acoustic output of a loudspeaker as measured in a sphere around the speaker at several incremental intervals on- and off-axis in the far (reverberant) field."

That's not debateable?

 

[Sal1950]

Here's a video from Louis Rossman, a hyperventilating audiophile offering a screed about what pieces of shit the new Thiel owners are and how terrible their new designs are.

He needs to cut back on his meth use, gonna have some kind of cardio event at that rate. LOL

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

Is it widely accepted that even/extended off-axis response is important? There are so many speakers and room treatment methods designed to limit off-axis response that I wonder how widely accepted it is. I accept its importance, but that approach is only good in a small sweet spot, and I don't listen that way.

Tim