Las Vegas – Speaker supplier Thiel Audio is going to International CES with a new industrial design said to offer a sleeker look than past designs while delivering superior on- and off-axis response uniformity, lower distortion, and improved power handling.
The new design will appear at CES in the shape of the TM3 two-way bass-reflex bookshelf speaker, expected to ship in late spring at a targeted suggested retail of $2,999/pair in standard finishes, excluding optional floor stands. The industrial design will also appear in future Thiel speakers.
Thiel has been known for speakers with sloped-back baffles or concentrically mounted drivers to achieve phase and time coherence, but whereas the “phase and time coherent designs were forward thinking in their day,” new advances make it possible “not to use the previous designs as the foundation for new and better speakers,” a spokesman said.
Product development director Mark Mason added that the company “pioneered phase- and time-coherent loudspeaker designs in an era where driver capabilities and engineering principles were not as developed as they are today.”
For the TM3 and new speakers going forward, he said, Thiel is “employing a different approach” to “deliver superior performance both on and off axis as well as greater durability, less driver strain, lower distortion and improved power handling.” The company is “taking the new Thiel designs into the modern era to deliver outstanding performance and value, a lasting product featuring beautiful aesthetics,” he added.
For his part, CEO Bill Thomas called the TM3 “the first in a series of innovative designs as part of a comprehensive product roadmap that we will be presenting to our dealers and distributors worldwide.”
Thiel positions the speaker’s capabilities as “ideal for traditional music applications as well as the rigors of movies soundtracks,” in part due to its “tremendous dynamic capability.”
The speaker, which will be displayed at Venetian Towers 29-111, incorporates a 1-inch tweeter and 6.5-inch cast-basket woofer in a sculpted multi-ply wood enclosure. Specifications include 45Hz-30KHz frequency response, sensitivity of 87dB at 2.83v at 1m, 8-ohm nominal impedance, 3.5-ohm minimum impedance, and size of 16 by 9.5 by 8.7 inches.
