Rocky Mountain Audio Fest: Marantz, Thiel & VTL
October 22nd, 2006 — By Neil Gader
- Thiel CS 3.7 Loudspeaker; $9900/pr
- VTL MB-450 monoblock amplifiers; $13,500/pr
- Marantz SA-11S1 SACD player: $3500
My first look at the new Thiel three-way was frankly a bit of a shock. With grille cloth removed, it’s silver ribbed woofers and sparkling concentric mid-tweeter array and rounded aluminum top cap is a striking departure for Thiel. A more conservative eye might even think it looked straight out of an episode of Pimp My Speaker. However driven by the silky new 450W VTL monoblocks and Cardas wiring this system was both aggressively dynamic and revealingly sweet and delicate. It seemed to soften the dryer, clinical signature that has inhabited some Thiel products. It also produced the kind of natural soundstage during the playback of some familiar Mark Knopfler material that is rare in this kind of show environment. To these ears it is an arresting improvement over its predecessor, the CS 2.4. A good deal of the credit should be rightfully ladled at the doorstep of VTL. Beautifully turned out with a luxurious extruded aluminum panel that frames a compliment of eight 6550 (or KT-88 output tubes this combination demonstrated solid bass control, and pitch definition. Given the narrow shoebox confines of the room I think the true potential of the system is yet to be discovered. Both of these products promise to be key releases in 2007.
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Do the woofer cones spin?
Comment by Tom Martin October 23rd, 2006 @ 10:10 amAlthough the new Thiel wooferer looks like bling, it represents a leap in thought by Jim Thiel. He explained at a CEDIA press conference that although every designer strives for a combination of stiffness and low mass in driver diaphrams, everyone tends to look to new materials to achive those two often conflicting goals. Thiel thought “outside the box” in completely changing the cone profile (it’s flatter in this new design) as well as introducing stiffining ribs in the cone. Thiel claims that this technique produces massive improvements (high stiffness, low mass). Traditional methods tended to yield only incremental improvements in these areas.
Jim Thiel is one of the most imaginative and innovative thinkers working in loudspeaker design, and this new driver is an example.
Robert Harley
Comment by Robert Harley October 23rd, 2006 @ 7:12 pm