Ceramique Designs

Many high-end speaker builders use Thiel units. This page gives an overview of some designs.

Commercial designs

There is an increasing amount of companies applying Thiel units to their designs. Here is an (obviously non-complete) list:

lumenwhiteLumenwhite            marten Marten Design

usherUsher                       kharmaKharma

ventureVenture                     isophoneIsophon

   orpheoMargules                  akkusAkkus

    MuineMutine                               hawk w standTalon

jasJas Audio

In Stereophile some tests can be seen of the Marten Design Coltrane, the Lumenwhite, and the Kharma. From the curves, it is obvious that the frequency response is not totally equalized. Especially the Lumenwhite has a significant deviating response, with a lot of dips and peaks. This probably gives a very responsive, airy and fast sound, but with lots of resonances and difficult to focus stereo image.

martenfilter martentotal
[Stereophile, Marten Design Coltrane, 2/2005]

lumenwhitefilter lumentotal
[Stereophile, Lumenwhite, 10/2002]

lumenwhite
[Stereoplay, Lumenwhite]


DIY designs

Thiel units seem to have quite some attraction to the DIY community. I guess their differentiating ceramique technology, their high price, and the fact that these units are used by high-end speaker companies attract many people.

Chorda

The Chorda from Hobby Hifi uses quite some compensation circuitry to get a flat response from the C^2 220 over a wide range. The enclosure is 60 litres, and has a vent of 100 mm and a length of 350 mm.

chordawoofer

chordatotal

chordafilter

The filter is a parallel filter. The values of the woofer section are:
L1 = 2.2mH 2.0mm air-core
C1 = 15uF MKP, R1 = 8,2 Ohm
C2 = 8.2uF MKP, L2 = 3.3mH 1.0mm air, R2 = 15 Ohm
C3 = 8.2uF MKP, L3 = 0.22mH 0.7mm air.

DIY TLS

The response curves shown of the DIY TLS design differ a lot from my own. I tried to contact the author, but so far I haven't received a response, so I have no clue about the backgrounds.

diytlsfilter

diytlsresponse

Pure

The Pure is probably derived from the Kharma, and is based on a combination of series and parallel filtering developed in cooperation with Tony Gee. The crossover frequencies of the C^2 79 are at approximately 300Hz and 2.5kHz.

next ->