September 2007 Reviewed by Randall Smith	Thiel Loudspeakers CS1.6 / MCS1 / PowerPoint 1.2 / SmartSub SS1 Home-Theater Speaker System

Description Model: CS1.6 floorstanding speaker Price: $1195 USD each Dimensions: 35.5"H x 9"W x 11.5"D Weight: 38 pounds each Model: MCS1 stand-mounted center speaker Price: $2200 USD Dimensions: 28.5"W x 10"H x 12.5"D Weight: 61 pounds Model: PowerPoint 1.2 surround speaker Price: $1450 USD each Dimensions: 17.9"W x 6.7"H x 11.8"D Weight: 15.4 pounds each Model: SmartSub SS1 subwoofer Price: $2900 USD Dimensions: 20"H x 11"W x 15.5"D Weight: 55 pounds Model: PX05 passive crossover Price: $500 USD Dimensions: 7"W x 2"H x 6.5"D Weight: 3 pounds System Price: $10,890 USD Warranty: Ten years parts and labor

Features Coherent Source design (CS1.6, MCS1, PowerPoint 1.2) Coincident driver array (CS1.6, MCS1, PowerPoint 1.2) Metal-diaphragm woofers (all) Uniform Resistive Load improves performance with lower-powered amplifiers (CS1.6, MCS1, PowerPoint 1.2) Video shielded (CS1.6, MCS1) Recommended power 50-300W (CS1.6, MCS1, PowerPoint 1.2) Available in a variety of stock and custom finishes (CS1.6, MCS1, SmartSub SS1) Patented SmartSub technology (SmartSub SS1) 500W (manufacturer rated) RMS class-D switching amplifier (SmartSub SS1) Boundary-compensation circuit (SmartSub SS1) Unfiltered LFE and line-level XLR inputs (SmartSub SS1)

I’ve spent years chasing down the best home-theater system I could own. My quest began where the quests of many novice enthusiasts begin: in big-box stores. Buying in such places can be easy if the deciding factor is price, but often the buyer doesn’t end up spending his or her money wisely. I would first look at the specifications, then the price, and finally pick the one that seemed to offer the best performance for the money. For a while, this worked well enough. I would be happy with my most recent purchase for several months -- until a newer version showed up in the stores. Then my desire to own the latest, greatest version of a particular speaker would kick in, and I would inevitably sell my gear and figure out a way to buy the new version. Sound familiar? I was on the home-theater merry-go-round, and made many uneducated purchases because no one was there to guide me.

I’ve never gotten off that merry-go-round, and these last few years of reviewing home-theater equipment for Home Theater & Sound have exposed me to much, much more. I no longer buy at big-box stores, though I do still browse their audio departments for old times’ sake; I’ve now learned enough about speaker design that reading the exaggerated specifications of speakers has become quite a comedy. Too many speaker makers slap a few drivers in a box that was designed to be built quickly and priced low. Today, I understand that much more goes into designing a good loudspeaker, and designer Jim Thiel’s company, Thiel Loudspeakers, is a great example.

If you hadn’t heard . . .

According to Thiel Loudspeakers, their loudspeakers are "precision instruments designed to accurately translate electronic information into sound." Thiel speakers do this in a manner that is scientifically based. From the capabilities of their drive-units, which they manufacture themselves, to the design of the cabinets that house those drivers, the company meticulously builds each speaker to perform its intended function. And every Thiel speaker model incorporates the company’s overriding design philosophy of time and phase coherence.

Take the CS1.6 -- its dynamic drivers are reportedly each optimized for wide dispersion and low distortion, and are mounted in raked-back speaker cabinets designed to prevent time errors and built with front panels of 2"-thick MDF. These baffles incorporate smoothly curved radiuses to help eliminate cabinet diffraction. Theoretically, this removes the cabinet from the process of sound reproduction. Mounted in these well-braced, rigid cabinets, the drivers allow Thiel speakers to cast a soundstage that is wide and precise, with very low distortion. If it’s on the recording, you should be able to hear it through Thiels. At the very least, I was excited at having such a highly engineered set of speakers in my home.

The Thiel system I reviewed costs $10,890: two CS1.6 mains ($2390/pair), one MCS1 center-channel ($2200), two PowerPoint 1.2 surrounds ($2900/pair), a SmartSub SS1 subwoofer ($2900), and a PX05 passive crossover ($500). Thiel speakers are available in a choice of 12 real-wood veneers, as well as satin black. My review system was finished in walnut.

The CS1.6 is a smallish, two-way floorstander weighing a modest 38 pounds. It has a 1" titanium-dome tweeter, a 6.5" aluminum woofer, and a unique slotted port in the front. The port is designed to reduce port chuffing and grille-loading effects. The woofer has a diaphragm and voice-coil designed to improve its upper-midrange performance. By moving "the coil nearer the outer edge of the cone," says Jim Thiel, "the large diameter allows the force from the voice-coil to be distributed over a threefold greater area of the cone rather than being concentrated at the center of the cone. The result is a much stiffer diaphragm that moves unwanted resonances to a much higher frequency (9kHz) for greatly improved upper-midrange performance."

At 61 pounds, the three-way, dual-ported MCS1 is a much larger, heavier model that Thiel says can be used as a main, center, or surround speaker. (It functioned as the review system’s center-channel speaker.) Its most original feature is its tweeter/midrange coaxial driver. Because of this unique driver, the MCS1 has much smoother dispersion than many center-channel speakers. However, the MCS1 is also designed to be used vertically; it can do this properly because its coaxial driver uses a 1" aluminum-dome tweeter mounted inside a 3.5" aluminum-diaphragm midrange. According to Thiel the coaxial driver possesses, "A very low distortion, short-coil/long-gap motor system that greatly increases openness and clarity." The other two drivers are the same 6.5" aluminum woofers found in the CS1.6.

Surround duties were handled by a pair of PowerPoint 1.2s -- one of the most original speakers I have reviewed because of its shape and construction. It’s housed in a cast-aluminum cabinet that angles the speaker at almost 45 degrees, and is designed to be mounted on the wall or ceiling. Using another specially engineered coaxial driver, the two-way PowerPoint 1.2 is capable of being just as dynamic as the other speakers while delivering ultrawide dispersion. These qualities make it ideal for surround duty, and perhaps just what the doctor ordered for imperfect rooms such as mine. The 1.2’s aluminum woofer is the same 6.5" design used in the other speakers, but its 1" metal-dome tweeter is identical to the one used in Thiel’s flagship model, the CS7.2. All of the Thiel speakers are reportedly very sensitive, that spec ranging from 89 to 90dB.

The SmartSub SS1 subwoofer has a single 10" aluminum woofer powered by a 500W class-D switching amplifier. While relatively small for a sub, the 55-pound SS1 plays much larger than its size. Thiel claims that the SS1 can go down to 16Hz, ±3dB, with an output of 106dB at 30Hz -- big-boy numbers. The SS1 has a metal grille on the front; the control knobs are on the rear, along with RCA and XLR input jacks. The Thiel PX05 passive crossover was used at times. I’ll say more about it below.

The CS1.6s were powered by my Krell KSA-50S, the MCS1 and PowerPoint 1.2s by my Anthem MCA-50 five-channel power amp. The signals to all speakers were routed through an Anthem AVM 50 A/V processor, including the LFE channel, which was fed to the SmartSub SS1 via an XLR cable.

Listening

I began my listening with two-channel, music-only recordings. Because I live so close to Ultra Audio’s editor, Jeff Fritz, I often get to hear some of the best loudspeakers on earth, and through those prolonged listening sessions in Jeff’s Music Vault I’ve become familiar with the qualities associated with true high-end speakers. And right out of the box, the CS1.6 amazed me. It soon became obvious that this was as refined a speaker as I’ve heard at or near $2390/pair. While it goes down to only about 50Hz, from the midbass up the CS1.6 was a dream.

For example, listen to Boyz II Men’s a cappella version of "Yesterday," from II [CD, Motown 530576]. The CS1.6s cast a huge vocal soundstage, within which I could easily place each of the band’s five voices -- especially that of the bass singer, Michael Shawn McCray. The CS1.6s easily handled the depth of McCray’s voice, whose central placement in the mix anchors the overall aural image. The Thiels’ reproduction of his range was as textured and detailed as that of any other speaker I’ve heard in my room. If I had to describe the Thiels’ reproduction of this track in one word, it would be pure.

The CS1.6 also excelled with acoustic music. With material such as acoustic double bass or guitar, the speaker’s quickness and agility were highlights. The lower notes of the double bass were clean and precise while remaining unified with the midbass. "Little Black Numbers," from Kathryn Williams’ Old Low Light [CD, Eastwest 0927475522], was a great test of the speaker’s cohesiveness. The song begins with a tasty little bass line that dances all over the low end, each pluck of a string precisely defined and sharp as a tack. Through the Thiels, this wasn’t a one-note boom but a lifelike rendering of the bassist’s performance. After the intro, Williams enters. Her singing style, which is rather quiet and simple, was right on the money through the Thiels, as if she were there in person, her aural image perfectly placed at the center of the soundstage. The little characteristics of Williams’ voice were easily discernible, giving greater realism to the reproduction. Bottom line: I’ve heard speakers that cost many times as much not do much more than this. Other than a somewhat limited bottom end, the CS1.6 has a mighty heart.

The CS1.6 was also very sensitive to the signals it was fed. During the review period I received a Slim Devices Squeezebox, which wirelessly makes contact with my computer’s router and retrieves music from its hard drive. I’ve copied much of my CD collection onto this computer in the lossless WAV format to preserve the full sound quality of each album. I don’t use the Squeezebox for critical listening, but it did give the CS1.6 an opportunity to expose the shortcomings of wireless transfer. Vocal images weren’t as sharp, and the dynamic range of each track seemed a bit constrained. My hope that the Squeezebox’s sound quality would be close to that of the original recordings was dashed. The revealing Thiels shone a spotlight on these shortcomings.

The MCS1 perfectly meshed with the CS1.6s, providing the same wide dispersion as the front speakers while being able to play just a bit lower in the bass. Because of its three-way design, the MCS1 was also able to play more dynamically, and with greater output. However, never during the review period did I ever feel that I was pushing the CS1.6s past their comfort level.

In the opening scene of Ghost Rider, Sam Elliot delivers a monologue that, from the Blu-ray edition, was as free of the actual speaker location as I have experienced from a center-channel speaker. The deep pitch of his voice was palpable, and each word was well defined and larger in size than in any other vocal performance I’ve heard in my room. Quick and immediate, the MCS1 "disappeared" from the room, and cast such a wide wall of sound that I was able to enjoy accurate sound off axis, which helped create seamless interaction among the front three speakers. Their shared tonal balance made the sound of the entire system coherent.

The rear soundstage was admirably handled by the PowerPoint 1.2s. Because they’re wall-mounted, the 1.2s aren’t the easiest speakers for a reviewer to temporarily slip into a system. I had to cut out two 0.75"-thick plywood panels and mount the ten-pound speakers to them. I then attached the panels to homemade speaker brackets on my rear wall, angled down toward my listening position and level-matched to the rest of the system.

I was already impressed with the seamless integration of the CS1.6s and MCS1, but the PowerPoint 1.2s took my appreciation to greater heights. The speaker’s single coaxial driver delivered a tonal balance that made for ultimate system synergy. No matter what material I chose, the overall soundstage never had a hollow spot. Perfect sound pans, smooth and detailed all the way through, provided a level of realism that I marveled at. The Thiel system amazed me even with such material as the Tiger Woods PGA Tour 07 videogame for the PlayStation 3. Ambient sounds are abundant in this game, from birds in the trees to a lawnmower cutting grass; through the Thiels, each effect was well defined within the soundstage. Once I was even fooled -- the sound of an airplane traveling from the right rear to the left front had me looking up at the ceiling. I quickly hit Mute on my remote and was surprised to learn that the sound had been produced by the Thiels. Is there any greater compliment than I thought it was the real thing?

The SmartSub SS1 subwoofer also meshed well with the rest of the system, and maintained the overall tonal balance all the way to the bottom end. While it doesn’t look imposing, the SS1 could shake my room when that was called for. Quick and detailed, it filled in where the CS1.6s trailed off.

Also included for review was Thiel’s PX05 passive crossover. In order to use it, I had to run two more speaker cables from my Krell amp: one to the front speakers, the other to the PX05. From there, the PX05 separated out the lower frequencies the SS1 would reproduce, and sent those to the sub via an XLR cable. In order to do this, I identified the front speakers as Large in the Anthem AVM 50 processor, so that the CS1.6s would receive the full-range audio signal. As mentioned earlier, the CS1.6s played down to around 50Hz; the PX05, which is specifically designed for each speaker model, used the SS1 to properly augment the front speakers down to 20Hz and below.

One song that reveals how well a subwoofer integrates with a pair of front speakers is the title track of Donald Fagen’s Morph the Cat [CD, Reprise 49975]. The opening bass line can sound boomy through a less refined system, but the Thiel setup reproduced each note quickly and with the tonal accuracy of a pair of good full-range speakers, and did so with no overhang. The combination of such an articulate low end and the CS1.6’s midrange purity created a full-range sound that was comparable to that of many far more expensive speakers I’ve heard.

While using the SmartSub SS1 for music-only recordings, I tried to integrate it using the PX05 passive crossover, which required me to use multiple speaker cables to use it properly. It also meant I had to place the sub closer to the amplifier, instead of in a spot where its performance would have been optimized. On the rear panel of the SS1 are a couple of controls that help the sub adapt to the room through a boundary-compensation circuit. In the end, I gained only marginal improvements by using these knobs.

Comparisons

I have not had a speaker system in my home that has bettered the synergy of the Thiel system. The Aerial 10T ($8000/pair, discontinued) is a wonderful full-range speaker, but after listening to the CS1.6, I now prefer the Thiel’s more revealing, more neutral sound. And the addition of the SmartSub SS1 to handle the low end meant that I didn’t feel I was sacrificing a thing with the smaller speaker. No other speaker I have owned or reviewed has impressed me as much.

The MCS1 is a top-notch speaker as well. While I didn’t have the opportunity to listen to three MCS1s up front in my system, I ultimately don’t feel that the two-way CS1.6 limited my enjoyment of movie soundtracks or multichannel music. The tonal accuracy shared among the front three speakers was spot-on perfect, and the wide-dispersion capabilities of the MCS1’s coaxial driver helped the speaker free itself from its location and sound bigger and bolder than the Aerial CC3B ($2000), which has been my reference center for several years. The Aerial has a warmer sound, but is not as revealing as the MCS1.

I compared the powerful SmartSub SS1 with JL Audio’s Fathom f113 ($3200) and SVS’s PB12-Plus/2 ($1199) subwoofers. The JLA and SVS have more output capability than the Thiel sub, but more output is not always a necessity. The SVS is much larger than the Thiel, which will make it less attractive to many. The Thiel is a little quicker and tighter than the SVS, likely due to its 10" woofer, and is more articulate. The Fathom f113 has all the good qualities of the SmartSub SS1, but it also includes JLA’s A.R.O. room-calibration system -- and costs $300 more. I used the JLA with the Thiel system and found that A.R.O. gave me a flatter frequency response that made the system sound cleaner and more accurate. But there was a tradeoff: the tonal balance wasn’t as perfect as with the SmartSub SS1. Although that wouldn’t necessarily be a deal-breaker, someone who owns a pair of Thiel speakers might notice it much more.

I couldn’t compare the PowerPoint 1.2 to any other surround speaker I’ve reviewed because it is truly a unique speaker. From the shape of its cast-aluminum cabinet to the coaxial driver that includes the same tweeter used in Thiel’s C7.2, the PowerPoint 1.2 is designed to be on a par with the other speakers in the Thiel stable, not just relegated to surround duty. The 1.2s’ wide dispersion was a key to their success; while I’ve reviewed speaker systems that can reproduce world-class home-theater soundtracks, none has been able to produce as big a rear soundstage. The PowerPoint 1.2s were one key to tying the entire Thiel system together. They reproduced the sound information in a way that fulfilled everything that a home-theater enthusiast could want from a surround speaker.

Conclusion

The Thiel CS1.6/MCS1/PowerPoint 1.2/SmartSub SS1 system is the best complete surround-sound system I have had in my home -- the word that keeps coming to mind to describe their performance is seamless. Over the years, I’ve come to appreciate the extra mile that the premier speaker designers go in order to perfect their products. I believe that Jim Thiel is one of those designers. Thiel Loudspeakers builds some of the best speakers I have ever heard.

Manufacturer contact information:

Thiel Loudspeakers
1026 Nandino Boulevard
Lexington, KY 40511-1207
Phone: (859) 254-9427
Fax: (859) 254-0075

E-mail: mail@thielaudio.com
Website: www.thielaudio.com

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