THIEL Weblog

Banana

2010-02-12T11:59:00.003-07:00

Alex, owner of a new pair of CS3.7s in Ebony and proud father of a 2 year old sent me this:

Gary:
Here's why I leave my grilles on. I have a two year old, see.
But even that does not guarantee immunity.
Here we see he touched the grilles with banana-hands. So now I have dried banana on the fabric.
I can find no "in case of contact with a banana..." in the owner's manual.
Any suggestions?
Alex

My darling daughter has offended the occasional component with banana or worse too. Alex, running a bit of water through it ought to do the trick just fine. At least he didn't try and clean it up with Mommy's bleach!

CES: That's a wrap

2010-01-11T12:05:00.004-07:00

I'm pleasantly waiting patiently in the gate for my flight from LV that doesn't leave for another hour and a half. I'm pleasantly surprised by the breeze that was the security line and Google's generously provided free wifi in the airport. Yea team!

Once again, THIEL showed in a large Venetian room with Bryston and Wireworld. New to our collective this year was Olive from whom we procured a new 4HD music server. We also introduced our new project with them called (creatively) Olive+THIEL (www.olivethiel.com). Both of our music rooms were sounding quite good. The big room featured a lovely walnut pair of our CS3.7s and a black pair of our SS2s each with a PXO5. These were driven by a pair of flagship Bryston 28BSST amps. Upstream were a BP26 pre and BDA-1 DAC which parsed the bits from the servers. Everything got hooked up using Wireworld's Platinum Eclipse. Torus kept the hotel AC mains under control.

I brought the speakers a little more forward this year than years past and it paid off bigtime. James Tanner from Bryston played DJ for most of the show and he brought cuts that had some unbelievably wide and deep sound staging and had images that came out of nowhere. I joked with Craig Bell (Bryston) that I thought the castanets in one cut sounded like they were coming from the Sands. We got really good tone this year too and detail was all there.

Our Olive+THIEL arrangement had a couple of beta-version hiccups, but otherwise sounded remarkably good - as good or better than you would expect. After all, at it's heart, it's a high end stereo based on SCS4s and a high-res media server. It just happens to be multi-room capable and unusually stylish.

Denise and Ken put together a totally beautiful celebration of the life and work of Jim. That was a major source of nerves and hard work over the last few weeks for us. It was a beautiful evening. Thanks so much to all who were in attendance and shared their stories with us, and especially those who spoke.

THIEL had a booked week of meetings with dealers, partners, engineers, and more, so the usual office crew didn't get to spend as much time out in the open as usual which was a drag, But, the meetings were outstanding and helped us set plans in motion that should keep us happily occupied and you dear readers sufficiently excited about what's to come.

Special thanks to Lana (aka bosslady) Rob Gillum, and Jeremy Kling for making the trip this year. Lana kept our heads screwed on and Rob and Jeremy sure made the rest of us think that setup and tear down were a breeze this year. Pics are coming soon so watch for updates! Happy listening!
-Gary

Please share your memories of Jim Thiel with us here

2009-09-18T09:45:00.005-06:00

Hi All,

I suppose most people have now heard that we lost our dear friend and leader yesterday. So many of you have been so kind and have shared your thoughts and memories with us by phone and e-mail. Will you please continue to do so as a comment below? We at THIEL will share our memories soon. Thanks so much.
-Gary

Value = $ / (Sound Quality Units)

2009-05-26T06:32:00.002-06:00

I get an e-mail about 2 or 3 times a month that goes like this:

Dear THIEL,
When I was a young chap, I bought a pair of [choose your classic THIEL], but on my wedding night, my lovely new bride helped put it and my Mark Levinson stuff in the closet she chose just for my stuff. She's so thoughtful! A closet just for me.

Anyway, now that my kids are in college, my wife felt it was an appropriate time to send me packing. She did give me everything that was in my special closet (now I know why it was there to begin with) which includes my THIELs!

Since only my cash earnings hidden from divorce court are resisting my ex-wife's call for alimony, I'm a bit strapped. My [THIEL model above] doesn't sound quite right after being drop kicked out the door, and I fear the worst. Do you think it's worth me trying to fix these old dogs or should I just buy new speakers?

Sincerely,
Singh Glatlast

The answer is almost ALWAYS that the speakers should be repaired. In terms of dollars spent per units of sound quality, it is practically impossible to expect that the same several hundred dollars spent on restoring CS2s for example could get even nearly equivalent sound when spent on new speakers. Seriously, it's really hard to make audiophile speakers for $600 per pair. Even if a few hundred bucks doesn't buy you glossy new cabinets for your old THIELs, it will probably get them sounding like new.

So, if the above sounds like you (sans satire), I strongly encourage you to get your old THIELs back up and running. with few exceptions, your system will sound far better because of it.

SCS4s can do that

2009-05-25T19:46:00.002-06:00

A while back I wrote a brief history of the SCS lineage. I'm particularly smitten with this lineup due in large part to it's excellent use of coaxial / coincident drivers. The time and phase coherent nature of our speaker brand, and the fact that these are 2-way systems using said coax drivers makes them special, maybe unique. Place them anywhere (high to low, left to right, whatever) and they remain time and phase coherent to you, dear listener.

There is a company wide love affair with the SCS4 though, that I dare say has no precedent among previous SCSs. We think about it all the time. It's an affliction. I caught Denise blushing walking out of the music room the other day. Kathy called them cute. I digress.

We think about them all the time because we use them for everything.
Examples:
◆ When zöet was a mere opportunity (long before even THIELnet), we decided we needed to launch with only 1 speaker, but it had to be something that could play many parts - SCS4

◆ Ken and I wanted to do EHX with zöet since it's kind of a big deal, but it wasn't ready. So, we did 7 SCS4s (with 7 SS1s, no less). Worked well I'd say - We won 3 awards for the performance.

◆ Since I am really into music recording, I've been begging Jim for a powered monitor. Modded SCS4s ought to do well enough for that. Though it's a back-burner project, it's working under the title CSP-1.

◆ There's a new mystery project in the works that's tapping the ubiquitous SCS4. Shhh...

In addition to the SCS4 being very very flexible for us, dear listeners and fans such as yourself are putting them to good use in the abode.

◆ I, for one, gave up floorstanders for so that my darling daughter could have a bit more square footage about which she could run ragged. SCS4s are filling in nicely until she learns to drive.

◆ Countless single SCS4s are living comfortably between floorstanders as center channels.

◆ Countless SCS4s shack up 3, 5, or even 7 at a time in surround - even dedicated music surround systems.

◆ More than any other SCS, except perhaps the original, SCS4s are mated in pairs for dedicated 2 channel listening.

◆ Though most installations I know of find them on shelves, we've had many requests for stands, and we use them on stands at THIEL.

I am most pleased by how well SCS4s remain flexible but still sound SO good. Most audiophile bookshelf speakers are only ever used like floorstanders. I know of no other that has inspired the creativity of use that the SCS4 has. I hope you enjoy yours as much as I do mine.

-Gary

You missed a helluva party

2009-03-25T07:28:00.003-07:00

If you weren't here that is. We had a blast!

Having a great dealer here in town is great for lots of reasons, but having Barney Miller's is just perfect. Between Barney Miller's and THIEL last night, we threw one great party. For more than 3 hours last night, we imbibed, listed to lots of music, talked about lots of gear, toured the plant, learned a thing or 2 from Jim, sold some speakers, caught up with folks we haven't seen in a while. Then Lana, Jeremy, Jeff, Ms. Chris, and I rocked the CS2.4SEs to 11 with some good grungy 90's before we closed down just before 10. If you weren't here, I'm really sorry we missed you.

A BIG BIG thank you to all of you who came and especially those of you who bought speakers! Barney, Tony, Tim, Doug, Aaron, Donny, Becky, I had a blast hanging out with you all. We should do it again sometime. Lana, Tammi, Denise, Ken, Jim, Dawn, Ron, Rob Dave, Teresa, You people are amazing. Thanks not only for spending 2 days with us setting up but for making it so much fun last night.

We rocked the PowerPoints on the ceiling, CS3.7s and CS2.4SEs on the floor. After the demo program, we took requests from the audience - Ray Charles and Take 6, Jacintha, Local band Bo Allen, and at some point after that the listening room descended into chaos, but in a good way.

Hope y'all had as much fun as we did! Thanks again to all!

-Gary
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=70574&id=18538673578

Open Letter To Amplifier Manufacturers

2009-03-25T07:05:00.003-07:00

Dear aforementioned,

I really only have one topic I would like to cover today and one thing to say about the topic. The topic is heatsinks, and OUCH!

Last night amongst a room full of eager guests I reached behind an amp to power it on. After fumbling for the switch for a moment - it's not an amp I have a complete tactile memory of yet - my hand felt wet. For a brief moment I thought someone had spilled their libations on our audio rack and it was dripping down onto my hand. Pulling back expecting to see the lovely Amber tone of and ale, I find instead the deep crimson of my own blood and plenty of it. Take a moment to note that absent from my remarks are mentions of feeling my hand getting cut bone deep.

Though your amplifiers are marvels of modern engineering and on the bleeding edge (ha ha) of industrial artistry, there are better places to showcase your remarkably precise machining capabilities than the sharp edges of a heat sink. Upon inspection of my wound this morning, I can safely say that it was not a rough edge that inspired me to write, but a sharp and true edge.

To those amplifier designers who have already heard cries and yelps from earlier victims and responded in kind, please know that I know who you are. The unwritten inverse of this blog is gleeful thanks for your compassion. To the rest of you, I say

OUCH!!

Sincerely,

Gary "nine-fingers" Dayton

Grounds for Divorce

2009-03-09T20:40:00.003-07:00

I've had quite a variety of top shelf gear at home courtesy of listening room loan, and most recently, I've had zöet at home so I can do some real-world testing and debugging. Dear Wife has enjoyed zöet very much due in large part to it's first-in-class ease of use.

But zöet went to THIEL last week so we could wrap up the multi-zone testing. So it's been quiet at home. And who wants a quiet home? How lame.

Dear Wife expressed some interest in having a stereo set back up in the living room, but I'm off to yet another trade show (EHX in FL if you wanna meet me for a beer), so I didn't have time to set the CS3.7s et. al. back up.

So, she got the scour-the-house-for-parts version of a stereo, and man, it sounds like shit. Well, it's not really that bad, it's just dreadfully boring. It's the Franzia of audio systems - won't make you wretch, but you won't want to pour another glass.

To add insult to injury, when I tried to hook up the Krell CD player, the amp went nuts. Must be some kind of funny grounding problem. The 12 watt op-amp based 1 input integrated amp gets its power from a switch-mode DC power supply that looks suspiciously like the one that came with my external hard drive. So, the only input possible is something with no earth ground reference (I have no idea why).

Imagine going from a zöet system fed by a multitude of high-end sources one day to the following: MP3 player as source into said integrated amp into $200 per pair name-withheld-to-protect-the-innocent bookshelf speakers.

Geez, she's gonna be pissed. I hope I'm on the plane before she actually gets to hear what it sounds like. Woof!

-Gary

Lori Lieberman Rocks THIEL

2009-02-19T07:47:00.004-07:00

Talk about a rare treat. How would you like it if one of your favorite songwriters just walked into your office one day and played a song? That's pretty much what happened here Tuesday. Tuesday was a good day.

Kathy and Joe Cali (Lori's husband and producer) go way back, and Joe has been a THIEL dealer for quite some time, so there's the connection. Lori is a pretty well known and universally praised musician that has tons of records out. All are very well recorded. Gun Metal Sky is the new one, and it's very very good. Even though it's a collection of songs, it's best listened to as an album from start to finish. You should buy it.

Joe and Lori were in town Monday so Lori could play NPR's Woodsongs in support of her new album. Tuesday, they dropped in because Dawn tempted her with our "good coffee". We chit-chatted for an hour or so about a variety of things. Having never met Lori, and only Joe on a few occasions, they were really fun to converse with and the whole visit felt like we were all a bunch of old friends.

So then Kathy gets this wild idea that she wants Lori to play a song for us in the listening room. She sends Dawn on a wild goose chase to Jim's house to find his Taylor acoustic (since, after all, even the finest song writers don't carry their axes with them all the time.) which she promptly returned with. In parallel, I scurried around trying to find a suitable mic and pre to record with. The best thing I could come up with was an AKG shotgun mic and an M-Audio FW Solo - the former we use for training video shoots, and the latter for our driver QA rig.

Lori said she'd play, and boy are we happy she did. She played her hit "Killing Me Softly" and we all just sat there with our jaws on the floor. Lori sounded absolutely lovely and is entirely delightful. We don't get to hear good live music around here often much less in our own room. Lori, thanks SO much from all of us, you made our day!

SCS: A small coherent history

2009-02-07T14:19:00.005-07:00

When the SCS was conceived back in the early 90s, it was a perfect platform for Jim to give the Coherent Source philosophy a coaxial/coincident driver. The idea for the speaker was one that would be reasonably inexpensive, very flexible in terms of placement and orientation, attractively finished, suitable for just about any type of home audio application - 2 channel stereo, any position in a home theatre. Key to the project though, was adherance to THIEL core values. The original SCS must have been a success (way before my time). I can only guess that most are still in use today judging by the number of grille orders I get.

The SCS2 supplanted it in 1997 after a 6 year run and saw the introduction of metal driver diaphragms that THIEL had fallen in love with in the few years prior. Also, dual symmetrical ports on either side of the woofer and styrene reinforced cones debuted. That model didn't last long, and I really have no idea why, but I suspect it has a lot to do with Jim's excitement over the development of the super-excellent tweeter that had just been put into the then-flagship CS7.2 and little brother CS6.

THIEL greeted 1998 with the brand spankin' new SCS3. Sho'nuff, the CS7.2 tweeter sat right in the middle of a newly designed mid/woofer. Years of plain-box SCS yore were cast aside by the SCS3 and it's gorgeously sculpted baffle. The curvaceous grille frame stretched nice and snug over the baffle and left little to the imagination but nothing hanging out. This was a big hit for THIEL and the longest living Small Coherent Source to date at barely a decade. It sounded VERY good, was decidedly very high resolution and right at home in very high end small stereo systems, but was most often sold one at a time for center channel use. SCS3s were easily the best sounding of the bunch. Their long production life showed it too.

I don't know what inspired Jim to go back to the drawing board a few years ago, and do an SCS4, but I sure am glad he did. We had absolutely no idea that the SCS series could sound so damn good. I mean wow. Have you heard them? Read the reviews, or just don't even bother, just buy some. I swear, they are incredible. The SCS3 coax gave way to a modified PowerPoint coax that uses a neodymium woofer magnet system and a modified CS3.7(!) tweeter sitting in the sweet spot. The cast aluminum baffle works wonders too. The nice rigid baffle lets the new coax really shine. Not only is the SCS4 by far the best sounding SCS ever, it's also the best value. Probably because it's good at so many things. It's rather inspirational really...

How The Other Half Lives (Part 1)

2009-01-26T07:19:00.004-07:00

The other half doesn't painstakingly measure speaker positions to within 1/10th of an inch from each wall and toe-in to within 1/4 of a degree. The other half has too much interest in domestic harmony to place large imposing speakers in living rooms smaller than some peoples' walk-in closets. The other half doesn't call his wife on the way home from work and ask her if she'll switch the phono stage on so the tubes will be nice and hot by the time he gets home. The other half doesn't wince at paying $1000 for a new mattress to replace the one he's had since college while not having so much as a 2nd thought about spending 3 times that on a set of speaker cables. The other half doesn't tolerate CS3.7s taking up valuable floor space in a townhouse livingroom. Hrm...I think the other half is actually around 98% of the population.

This weekend, I slipped unnoticeably away from my Audiophile caravan to join the masses. Rob came over Friday after work and helped me quietly pack my CS3.7s away. Out with them, the Krell KRC-HR, the Synergistic Research cables, and the Butler amp. I have been married precisely 1 year and 8 months, and the big stereo is a gonner. Not that marriage had anything to do with it.

zöet is coming along quite nicely, and after a fantastic showing at CES (not one crash), it's time to turn down the home stretch of debugging and beta testing. Since zöet is quite intentionally a lifestyle product that isn't meant to be thought about as much as simply enjoyed, the best trial is to run it at home. So, the aforementioned audiophile big-rig got traded in for the agile and ergonomic zöet. This isn't exactly the marriage influenced decision it appears to be on the surface - just don't tell my wife. zöet is not the economical and unstylish family sedan of audiophile 2 channel. It's more like the very fast and sporty luxury mid-size that happens to be large enough to fit a carseat. This was not the emasculating trade that it may appear to be at first glance. THIEL doesn't build minivans.

More to come...

2009-01-18T19:54:00.004-07:00

After what was generally a bad weekend, I am pleased to report (for the few of you who care about these self-indulgent, diary-esque posts) that I had an absolutely blissful hour this evening.

Darling bride had to drive to the Reynolds building to pick up some stuff for some art she's making which left darling daughter and me by ourselves for a bit after dinner. Darling daughter did not take a 2nd nap this afternoon, and at 6:45, I wasn't about to afford her one for fear of an all nighter. We played upstairs with some toys together for only a few minutes after Mom left. Out of the blue, she just broke down and begged to be held. I threw her pink blanket over my shoulder and picked her up. It's nice to be wanted.

We walked downstairs and put on Ryan Adams' Gold on the CS3.7s a little louder than normal to drown out the dishwasher in the next room and the playoffs upstairs. Gold is one of few records made after 2000 that I know ALL the words to. Quietly I sang halfway to myself, halfway to her. She's got to be the only person on the planet who doesn't run for the hills when I sing. After the 2nd track, I looked down at her laying on my shoulder, and she was asleep. She, the girl who awakens at the slightest sound at any other time was sound asleep on me with the stereo up and the lights on.

Since she was born, darling bride and I have been unsuccessful getting her to sleep through the night on a regular basis. I panicked a little actually. It's barely 7 o'clock. If I put her in the crib now, she'll be up at midnight. Besides, she didn't get a diaper change or her PJs. But if she naps, we'll be done for. We won't even get her to bed until midnight. Even still, there's no guarantee that she'll sleep through the night. Arg!

But oh my God, she was so cute lying with her cheek on my shoulder and open palm on my chest. Walking around with this sight in my eyes and La Cienega Just Smiled in my ears was just too much. This was perfect. I used to take weekend afternoon naps with Nattie when she was a little baby just like this (but 15dB quieter at least). We'd settle on the green chair beside the left speaker together listening to Neil Young or Nick Drake, or Lambchop. She'd nap for hours and I'd just bask in mellow guitars.

I wanted her to sleep and I wanted to listen to Ryan Adams. By the time Rescue Blues was done, I was done singing and ready to sit down. I switched off the bright overhead light leaving only the dim yellow lamps. We sat down right in the middle of the couch, the sweet spot, and chilled out.

Somehow Someday somehow didn't wake her up. I never turned it down. The dishwasher stopped so the music seemed much louder now, but if I stood up to get the remote, would Nattie wake up? Better not to risk it. So there we laid without moving any more than a finger nearly all the way to the end. No one could expect her to sleep through the rollicking Tina Toledo's Street Walkin' Blues.

She woke up looking just as surprised as I must have an hour before when I found her sleeping on me. Not bothered surprised; pleasantly surprised. Moments later Mom came home and it was over. Back to normal.

Two of my favorite things happened tonight at once, and neither of them has happened in ages. Nattie napped softly on my chest just like she'd done hundreds of times as an infant. And I got to sit in the sweet spot listening to one of the best albums by my favorite song writer. That the two happened at once was a priceless and cherished coincidence. One hour this evening totally turned my weekend around.

EngadgetHD gets SCS4s

2008-12-08T07:38:00.003-07:00

Steven Kim of Engadget just received a pair of Dark Cherry SCS4s for review. He hasn't reviewed them yet-just took them out of the box, but he's taken some great shots. Check out the initial pics and keep checking back for a review.
http://www.engadgethd.com/2008/12/09/thiel-scs4-speakers-unboxed/

Hall of Shame Entry

2008-12-05T08:01:00.004-07:00

Today's nominee is a PowerPlane 1.2 - a very robust speaker that has probably fallen victim to an amplifier going DC. It takes a LOT of power to burn these crossovers. Behold:

This breaks our hearts.

Showing some respect for CS1.5 woofers

2008-10-31T07:17:00.004-07:00

One of the most heartbreaking phone calls I (thankfully seldom) have to make goes like this:
"Hi, it's Gary from THIEL. Just calling to let you know we received your parts."

Customer says, " Great, that was fast, what did you find wrong?"

"Well, your drivers were more or less wrecked. I can't tell if they played pin ball or demolition derby on the FedEx truck en route here. The combination of sparse styrofoam peanuts and ill-placed bubble wrap provided little in the way of protection. Oh, and the shoe box you packed everything in fell apart in the rain storm we had yesterday. The only reason they got here to begin with is that you strategically placed a strip of packing tape over our address."

"Oh, so could you tell what was causing them to buzz? Is it under warranty?"

*nearly choking* "Are you kidding??"

Unfortunately, this extreme is far more common than the opposite extreme. Allow me to share an example of the opposite extreme with you. Dear customer Arthur warmed my heart this week by packing his CS1.5s in such a way that made freight damage all but impossible. I was so tickled to receive his package that I almost giggled like a school girl. This man KNOWS how to package his drivers. Pictures are worth 1000 words. Behold:

New Speaker + Refurb special pricing details

2008-10-28T09:42:00.005-07:00

If you haven't read the post below, read it first.

If you buy:

pair of SCS4s, or PowerPlane 1.2s - Get $200 off restoration of your old THIELs
Pair of CS1.6s, an SS1, or an MCS1 - Get $250 off restoration of your old THIELs
Pair of CS2.4s, pair of CS2.4SEs, 5 PowerPlane1.2s, or 5 PowerPoint1.2s, - Get $500 off restoration of your classic THIELs
Pair of CS3.7s - Get $1000 (!) off restoration of your classic THIELs.

Fine print:

No, if your restoration is cheaper than your discount you don't get the balance back in cash. Thanks for asking
No, it's not retroactive - this is only for new THIEL purchases going forward...thanks for asking.
No, we won't restore your JBLs, Advents, QUADs, or other speaker - we don't even know how.

Questions? Call or e-mail Gary!

New THIEL and Restoration Special!

2008-10-27T12:35:00.003-07:00

I get calls quite often from folks who own THIEL speakers and are interested in trading them in to us for credit towards new ones. THIEL is not going to introduce that program.

However, we've long thought that it would be nice for us to show some thanks to those who own classic THIELs. So, we're offering you all a special. When you buy new THIELs from your dealer, you can send back your classics for restoration and we'll give you a sweet deal on the price of the restoration.

When THIEL restore s speakers, they are treated with all the love and care we've got. We get a little sentimental around here when we see a pair of classic Model 03as come in. It's also a real blast to hook up a pair of freshly restored CS3s or CS3.5s to our big system in our listening room. Next time you're coming into town, bring your classic THIELs, let us restore them, then hook them up to our new Jeff Rowland Continnum 500 or Krell Evolution 600s. You've never heard them sing like this before!

So what would you do with a pair of nicely restored THIELs now that you have a new pair? Your options are many:

Sell them for much more than you would have received if they were just in OK condition (selling your THIELs breaks Jim's heart!)

Put them upstairs in the bedroom on a 2nd system (That's what I'd do)

Give them to your son or daughter to ~~blow up~~ play at college

Use them as rear or side channels in your newly started surround sound system. (Be selfish!)

Donate them to your favorite music school (Don't be so selfish!)

Just because you're shelling out for a new pair of THIELs doesn't mean the old ones get kicked to the curb. Do something nice for the classic speakers that made you a THIEL lover! Stay tuned for price break details on the program effective immediately.

Old THIEL SS2 Hits Rock Bottom

2008-10-14T10:48:00.002-06:00

We've got an old SS2 here from the "early days" that we keep strapped face down to a cart so that we can have a convenient test cabinet for amplifiers that come back for service. We've rigged it up with clamps to make exchanging amps a breeze, so the whole cart + subwoofer assembly is a convenient test rig for amps.

Jim instructed Rob to run a particular amp HARD - an instruction Rob was too happy to comply with. So he pressed play, let the sub's massive output rattle everything in this bay of the plant and went to lunch. Pleased that he heard the sub still playing when he came back from lunch, Rob walked over to measure the temperature of the amp. Before he got there, "CRASH!....thud thud thud thud"

The SS2 was playing so hard, it shook the very heavy duty straps off the cabinet, the sub hit the floor back first driving the clamps to break the back of the sub. An adjacent edge broke open, and the grille mesh ripped out of the front. After years of service, our SS2 test cab is toast.

Cat Scratch Fever!

2008-08-14T15:01:00.002-06:00

I'm a big time animal lover, and I've got a cat who likes to keep warm on my Krell KRC-HR power supply. He doesn't cause any damage to my gear, and I generally get along with him except when he whines in the middle of the night and interrupts my already fragmented sleep. He's a troublemaker, but doesn't destroy stuff.

This guy must have done something really rotten to his cat to deserve this kind of punishment. We got these parts in after shutdown, and man they look rough. We see lots of cat scratch fever around here - I think audiophiles must be cat lovers. But man, this is bad. The customer said the woofers don't look bad at all which leads me to believe that his cat took running leaps at the speakers, landed on the low-mids, and clawed it's way to the top of the cabient shredding the grilles and everything beneath them on the way up. Despite our best efforts at protecting the delicate Scan-Speak tweeters with a tough screen, you can see that it was crushed by penetrating claws of destruction.

We've seen grilles that look worse than these before. Some have come in with actual tears in them. No such thing was found on these grilles probably because the cat got a great grip on the drivers. This poor guy is out more than $1100 bucks getting his speakers fixed. Bad kitty!

To all you cat owners wondering if you should upgrade to CS3.7s: A number of innovations have been developed to deter cat-scratch fever. 1) when the grille is in place, a screen covers the entire coax making it difficult for all but the most aggressive cats to shred the driver. 2) The tweeter is fortified by a rigid guard which provides a 2nd level of protection beyond the aforementioned screen. 3) The cast aluminum top is formed into a shape that makes it very unlikely that your cat will choose it as a perch.

Kiddie Audio Standard

2008-06-30T09:22:00.002-06:00

As our darling daughter Natalia gets more and more into toys that flash and sing songs, I consider more and more what standard of audio fidelity she's coming to expect. Let me be perfectly clear - the toys she has that giggle, sing, and otherwise make noise sound abhorrently dreadful. I mean they sound horrible! At best, they are 8 bit polyphonic midi devices that reproduce their dedicated 3 octaves without buzzsaw distortion. At worst, they wouldn't pass QC at the store-brand (pick your big-box retailer) alarm clock assembly facility.

Believe me, I'm not so snobbish to think that every audible nuance that Natalia experiences in these formative years must be reproduced with the kind of clarity and detail that would make Jim proud, but surely, growing up with toys like these is bound to give her the impression that 128kbps MP3s are God's gift to recorded sound.

Darling Wife bought her a really cute little pudgy elephant the other day found on sale that I think is supposed to approximate some type of baby babble, tongue-hanging-out-of-mouth noise. When Jennifer and I make this noise for Natalia, she goes berserk - absolutely loves it. When this little toy makes the noise, she stares at it as if to say, "What the hell is this and what did it just call me??"

Maybe, just maybe, an older generation has come to appreciate higher fidelity more because they didn't grow up with toys that pretended to sing songs. Their noise maker toys were more akin to playing cards in bicycle spokes some type of castoffs from the parents.

Sure, I'd love for all of her toys to have CS3.7 coaxes and miniature Krells belting out "Itsy Bitsy Spider", but I suppose that's not a very cost effective proposition.

Your fingers-in-ears baby rearer,

Gary

THIEL Restoration Shipping Tips

2008-05-16T07:21:00.003-06:00

There is a very active trade network for used THIEL speakers old and new. A search any day on Audiogon or ebay turns up several THIELs from all eras. Such robust enthusiasm for our older models prompted us to advertise the capabilities of our service department as savvy THIEL restoration experts.

One of the great challenges (as clearly illustrated above) of getting a good restoration job is getting the speakers to THIEL in the same condition that they left your house.

It's no secret that THIEL speakers weigh a ton. Even our bookshelf speakers can be surprisingly heavy in their boxes. This mandates expensive and well padded shipping containers for all models, but even with very protective packages, damage happens sometimes. So, when returning your speakers to us for refurb, take some extra care in doing so.

1) When at all possible, use original packing material for your speaker. If you don't have it, buy it from us. Not only is the original packing the safest for your speaker, but if you need to file a claim, most shippers are more receptive to paying a claim if you are using original packing material.

2) If you're shipping CS2 series or larger, please contact me so we can arrange to get them back by truck. Surprisingly, it's not as expensive as you think to send these by truck compared to a common carrier. More? Yes, but not tons more.

3) Do your best to procure a pallet to which the speakers can be strapped. This creates a boundary around the speakers (albeit small) and also boosts the odds that the speakers will stay upright throughout their whole journey. Pallets are not too hard to find. Ask any big-box retailer or grocery store if they'll give you one, and they probably will. Or, you can find a place to buy one via the phone book or Google.

4) How do you strap the speakers to a pallet? Duct tape is pretty stout stuff and should do the trick. Or, you might even try a roll of kitchen grade cling-wrap. It's very strong - just ask my high-school friend Kevin how easy it was to get into his Toyota after my junior-year prank. Whichever you use, be generous!

5) If you live within a few hours of Lexington, KY consider bringing the speakers down yourself. I'm happy to show you around the place and spin a few tracks with you in our listening room. It'll be fun!

6) Don't worry if you're having trouble reconciling any of the above. If you have a special case, call me. I'm sure we can work something out. Long live your THIEL classics!

Your freight-claim filing friend,

Gary

Vinyl is Dead! Long live Hardwood Veneer

2007-09-19T07:07:00.000-06:00

Vinyl has a very special place in our hearts for those of us who love music and high performance audio. It's such a wonderful medium for music, but you'll never find it on the cabinet walls of THIEL speakers.

Ever since Jim designed, built, and sold speakers from his garage outside of Lexington in the 70s, we've used real hardwood veneers. The only deviation from this practice was offering black laminate on some models back in the 80s and 90s.

Why real, natural, from-the-earth, hardwood veneers?
Quite simply, it's gorgeous. The look of a beautifully crafted cabinet, piece of furniture, or fine loudspeaker finished in fine hardwood veneer is stunning. Every speaker is unique. Even when we book-match veneers, each sheet is a little different, and each tree looks completely different from the last. Aesthetics are awe-inspring. Some hardwoods with wild grain patterns pick up light so magnificently that the grain seems to stand out in relief from the cabinet walls. There are massive features of heavy grain lines rising into cathedral shapes that draw you in for a closer look, then the minute details capture your eyes. If the speakers didn't sound so damn good, you might sit there and stare at them all day.

So why doesn't everyone use real hardwood?
Because in all things beautiful and natural, there are features and flaws that for some people completely wreck what would otherwise be a text-book example of beauty. I've got a pair of PCSs on my desk that have quite possibly the most remarkable bird's eye maple veneer ever seen. The reason I've got them and not some lucky customer is that we rejected them at final assembly because each speaker has a dark bird's eye that looks suspiciously like a sperm cell seen under an microscope. They're not flaws if you think that flaws are man-made. Rather, they're features...and they're book matched!

Everything in nature has something about it that we don't like. I LOVE backpacking in the mountains, and I've been doing it for as long as I can remember, and I'll do it till I die, but I still hate mosquitoes. Would I be happier if my PCSs didn't have little grey twin sperm on their tops? Probably, but I sure wouldn't return them or gripe about it especially if the only way to ensure that it would never happen again was to go for vinyl veneer that looks the same every time, and I don't fixate on this feature every time I see the speakers. My PCSs are still gorgeous speakers just like super-models with one well placed mole on their faces are still total babes. Hrm...don't they call these beauty spots? Maybe we're on to something!

I suspect the reason most loudspeaker manufacturers don't use a wide variety of hardwood veneers anymore because they were put out with the heartburn caused by having to deal with flaws, beauty spots, and general irregularity of natural hardwood. Let me assure you that our manufacturing process would be much simpler if we slapped a big vinyl "cherry-look" sticker on every cabinet wall in phase-1 of our manufacturing process.

But our speakers wouldn't be as beautiful. Even if they still sounded the same, I don't think our speakers would be as popular as they are. I, for one, wouldn't love my THIELs as much if they weren't finished in natural hardwood veneer.

--Gary

The life of tweeters as toys

2007-07-05T08:41:00.000-06:00

As my wife and I prepare for our 2nd prenatal doctor visit, an e-mail from yet another THIEL owner with children has compelled me to ponder the joys of fatherhood and the delight I'll take in sharing my favorite music with our new, lovely child.

The author of the aforementioned message, is but one of many fathers who's bright, curious children take a keen interest in high performance audio by exercising their sense of touch. I'm sure this young prodigy learned a great deal about the construction (or destruction) of high frequency drivers when he, with his smiling face, wide eyes, and outstretched arms, reached high for the top of Dad's finely finished, classic CS2.2s, and pushed hard upon the thin, shiny tweeter dome. He most certainly learned that though lesser drivers may crumple just the same, none can produce the satisfying, easily audible 'crunch' that ours can. Surely the feel and crunch imparted in him a sense of quality that he'll carry forth throughout his life. Perhaps the memory will remain strong enough that he'll cry a single tear of pride when his child crushes his first THIEL tweeter.

I will resist the temptation to move my THIEL speakers into a far away, locked basement guarded by baby gates and child proof doorknob locks. Our baby will be encouraged to learn and be curious, and will learn the virtue of sharing by our own example! Our baby will also enjoy the gift of music reproduced through a fine quality system. My hope is that our newest family member doesn't inflict too much damage so I can minimize our expense. Somehow, I don't see THIEL accepting diaper coupons for driver rebuilds.

With spare tweeters in waiting,
-Gary

'cause Jim designed it, thats why.

2007-06-29T14:07:00.001-06:00

This morning the sales department marveled over a slight modification to the PowerPoint 1.2 cabinet, the kind of thing that most folks will never notice, and makes no difference in terms of sound.

The modification included changing the binding posts and pocket they sit in. We're now using the same posts we use on PXO5 passive crossovers. "They're just cooler," I remarked.
"Yeah!" says Jim. "You know why? 'Cause I designed them, that's why!"

There's such joy in the little things around here. Perhaps we're just suckers for details.

-Gary

Distortion happens before the mic is even flipped on

2007-04-10T19:51:00.000-06:00

The process of creating art induces distortion! How ridiculous does that sound! But how true it is!

If you've read my earlier musings (c'mon, it's not like I've got a vast repertoires), you know I am fascinated by Brooks Jensen and his writings. He's a very keen observer and thinker. Once again, it's proved here. "The process of being a photographer is to work diligently to minimize the degradation in each step from conception to the final result" italics are mine for emphasis. Read the book that it's in, Letting Go Of The Camera. I love it.

I just immediately thought that there is no reason I should find this to be so profound. Of course, we only find music and other arts to be so beautiful because we can see through it into the minds of their creators which is the object of real intrigue. It's very easy for me to call music beautiful when it's beautiful on its surface. The best music, the stuff that give me ERS, is the music that is so clear that I can KNOW without any hesitation what was in the creator's head.

Think of all the ways any artist can wreck what was initially a flash of life-altering creative vision. That'll take us forever, and I must sleep tonight, or I'll be cranky and unsympathetic when you call tomorrow with a blown tweeter and need it back by Saturday.

Let's start smaller. Think of 10 ways a singer/songwriter can adulterate what would otherwise be his career defining song. Specifically, 5 technical flaws and 5 creative flaws. When you're writing your list, consider that these flaws might not be immediately evident upon first listen, and the song might still be very good, even touching, but it just didn't move you because...

Technical Flaws-
1. It doesn't sound like it's in an intimate space that I feel like I'm sharing with the singer when I hear it played back.

2. Said singer/songwriter just didn't connect with his voice and guitar that day. It's just merely a bad performance. Or, the artist just isn't a master of his craft. That's not to say you have to be a virtuoso, you just don't want your impeccable vision blurred by your inability to control your voice, guitar, whatever else you play.

3. Other noises, goings on, punch ins, print through on the tape, etc. that you never intended to be there and don't add anything to the performance or presentation. Let's be professionals here y'all. You don't have to own Ocean Way to make a quality recording.

4. Unless your vision very deliberately includes liberties with the tuning of instruments, please play in tune. And, no, that doesn't mean auto-tuning it later. Take the time to tune EVERYTHING. It counts, it really really does. Oh, if your vision DOES include liberties, be prepared to defend yourself, number of cents you meant to be off included. Or, better yet, it should be so clear to me after being unbelievably moved by your song that I shouldn't have to ask why you only played your A string out of tune.

5. Make sure your voice sounds just like it did when the song came to you in your head. When you conceived your song, remember how excited you got when you heard the pre-chorus singing to yourself in your head? Voices have such nuance. Please let me hear every one you heard in your head.

Creative-
1. It's really easy to always think that every little thing that happens in the studio or in collaboration with your producer means something and should be part of the song. Not every accident is a happy one. Happy accidents do occur and can really ice the cake of an already good song, but we don't always get the little inside jokes or irony behind little accidents that happen. Choose the ones you include wisely.

2. As silly as it sounds to some, I'm sure, put the song in the right place relative to the rest of the album. This is probably more a matter of personal preference, but I think choosing and arranging the songs that go on an album together is an art unto itself. A great example is hearing Ryan Adam's harmonica wail into "Come Pick Me Up' right after "Damn Sam". There's just about nothing on this album that surprises me any more; I've played it gazillions of times. But I'll be damned if that part doesn't raise the hair on the back of my neck every time. I don't get it when I hear the song in a compilation like the Elizabethtown soundtrack.

3. If something bothers you as an artist a little bit in the studio or while writing it, you won't possibly be able to listen around it, and rest assured it'll drive you nuts. Maybe it'll drive you so crazy that the song doesn't mean anything to you anymore by the time you're done with it. I botched a snare track once pretty badly, but I was able to 'save' it in the mix. I even did such a great job fixing it that I got complimented on how right the snare sounded on the song by the very professor that critiqued my mix. But, a few others picked up on it, and every time I hear the song, I can't help but wish I got to re-track the snare.

4. Don't be afraid to let your vision evolve, grow, or be altered, but be sure it changes for the right reason. For example, don't change it for technical reasons like you can't quite lick that riff. Just learn how to lick that riff. How idealistic is that!

5. You'll know you really nailed it when it's done and you can still be excited about it, at least smile. If you just wipe your forehead and say geez, glad that's over with, something probably went wrong somewhere along the way.

I realize that this turned into more of a plea to the artists. I didn't mean for that to happen, nor am I really qualified to make such claims. But, that's my list and I'm stickin' to it. Send me yours as a comment. I'd really like to hear your thoughts.

--Gary

PS - ERS is "Endless Repeat Syndrome". It's the kind if thing that used to break your cassette tapes in the car at the same song every time you'd buy a new copy of the tape.