Thiel 3.7 NOV review. Question for Anthony Cordesman

Here is Anthony H. Cordesman's reply:

Mark,

These speakers are so different in concept and set up that there is no easy answer to your question. I describe the sound and set up options for the Vandersteen 5A in the last two issues of Hi Fi +, and the key purpose of my review is to explain that the Vandersteen 5A permits a wide range of adjustments in the bass and treble, and its sound is very set up sensitive in terms of speaker height and tilt. In contrast, the Thiel permits no adjustments. What you hear in a demo is not subject to your own adjustments.

I'd suggest you read through these two articles in Hi Fi +, and the earlier review of the 5A in TAS, and then do some comparative listening at a dealer that can survive a conversation as to set up features and adjustments and who have taken the 5A instruction manual (on the web at the Vandersteen site) seriously.

That said, my summary comments are that you will find that the Thiel is more detailed, with more treble and upper midrange energy, but less deep bass and less ability to tailor the lower octaves to compensate for room effects. The choice will be a matter of taste and associated components.

Once again, disregard the extreme comments on either speaker on the web. There is some remarkably silly commentary on both speakers, much of it written by audiophiles who must have heard heard an improperly set up unit, who did not check out the adjustments, or simply need serious psychiatric help.

Careless trash talk is becoming far too common, with an ugly undercurrent of conspiracy theory about the industry, dealers, and reviewers. The key in making any comparison is always to listen for yourself, and treat the comments of reviewers, dealers, manufacturers, and sane fellow audiophiles as nothing more than an introduction that helps you make your own judgments.

Tony Cordesman

• reply

I haven't heard the 5A's, but I did audition the 3.7's against another well-known standard-bearer (if not top of the line), the Maggie 3.6's.  As a former owner for many years of Thiel 2.2's, who used to sell Maggies around the same period, back when the current model was the 3.3, I was prepared to like and admire what I thought Maggies have always done well, but to prefer the Thiels' balance of attributes overall.  To my great surprise, it wasn't even close for me -- the Maggies won hands down, and at less than half the price.
 
It was the things I preferred most about the 3.6's that also surprised me the most: That they had the more propulsive and solidly tactile bass, the more fully-saturated tonal color and richly detailed midrange, the more fleshed-out imaging, the more 3-D soundfield, the greater dynamic life -- the Maggies were simply more involving and convincing (hung on the end of the same audition system and located close to the same spots in the room).   That they imbued music with more believable power and density, and at satisfyingly loud volumes, really shocked me.  I expected the usual spooky imaging and transparency, as well as a large soundstage, low coloration, and non-boxy openess (great with acoustic music, but electric?...), but not the emotional, visceral excitement I heard and felt.
 
If I'd been blindfolded, I wouldn't have even guessed they were Maggies, or planars at all, so absent were any telltale signs pointing toward my previously-held conception of what their characteristic signature was (somewhat ghostly and granular, compressed and dry, images too big and diffuse, if enjoyably so).  Initially, I just assumed that a subwoofer must have been in-system to get that kind of body and heft, not to mention reverberent resolution, from a Maggie, but one wasn't.  (I might've even believed it had I been told I was listening to Wilsons, although obviously the Maggies don't actually possess that kind of slam.)  By comparison, the Thiels not only sounded smaller, but also deader, paler, and more constricted and removed from the original event; after the Maggies they lacked for the breath of reality, sounding much more like canned stereo, however clean, tidy and well-controlled.  (And remember, I like Thiels.)  The Maggies didn't even yield anything in the way of precise definition and coherence, credible-seeming assertions about the importance of time and phase alignment notwithstanding.  And although I still assume the monopolar Thiels would normally be easier to place (and definitely offer a larger listening window), the dealer's room did not appear specially set up for dipolar radiators, other than being fairly large.
 
I can only wonder what the comparison would be like between the 3.7's and the more comparably-priced Maggie 20.1's (which, unlike the 3.6's, drive their LF planar panels in push-pull fashion).  No, I haven't bought the Maggies -- I still cling to the notion that it's probably easier to live with dynamic-box, quasi-point-source speakers in many ways (I got Mordaunt-Short Performance 6's, with their unique semi-dipole dome tweeters) -- and of course this was only one audition, with which partnering gear I can't even recall.  But it was certainly an ear-opener, disabusing me of several preconceptions about the relative sonic virtues and vices of Maggies in particular, and making a strong argument for the the dipolar, line-source approach, provided one can live with the placement and room requirements, visual obtrusiveness and limited listening position.  The high sound quality and value are certainly there.

• reply