MCS1, SCS3 and SS2 Design and Setup
THIEL MCS1 Front Grill
Prior to my audition, I curiously explored the sleek, tightly fit speaker grills. Upon thorough investigation I noticed that they were very difficult to remove. Once I managed to pry them off, I recognized that the grill frame was constructed with a semi-flexible aluminum frame that is made to slide very firmly around the front of the speaker. Once wedged back on, I discovered why the grill cloth draped tightly around the front baffle. This method minimizes diffraction caused by the speaker grill thereby allowing purists to leave the grill on during their critical listening. The THIEL grill design is commendable.
THIEL SS2 (formally called SW1) Subwoofer
- Powered subwoofer with two 10" metal cones
- Short coil/long gap woofers with 2.5" diameter voice coils
- copper pole sleeves
- 20-pound magnet structures
- high excursion suspensions
- cast aluminum chassis
- optional companion SC1 Controller
Thiel SS2 Subwoofer Amplifier Specifications:
- Type: Switching, Class D
- Power: 1000 watts, RMS
- Distortion: less than 1% at full rated output.
- 16 Hz-800 Hz
- 17 Hz–300 Hz ± .5dB
- 1 volt for 120 dB@1m
- 11 x 20 x 23.5 inches
- 108 pounds
- 10 years
Subwoofer "The Integrator" Controller
THIEL Audio's "Integrator" subwoofer controller offered several unique adjustments as part of THIEL's all digitally controlled SmartSub technology. There were three buttons located on the front panel of the controller. One was devoted to mode select button and the others were for increasing and decreasing the settings. The mode selections included an output level setting along with rather unique, side and rear wall settings. The wall settings could be configured with distance settings from the side wall and rear wall.
According to Jim Thiel:
“…the settings actually alter the frequency response of the subwoofer to compensate for the frequency response changes caused by the reinforcement and reflection of the nearby wall. This compensation allows the energy put into the room to be essentially the same as it would be without the nearby walls rather than being greatly altered by the wall effects.”
Editor Notes:This form of boundary compensation is usually found on bi-amplified 6” or 8” two-way studio monitors. The compensation usually has a “shelving” characteristic which means that it affects all frequencies from a certain point down(i.e. 80Hz). The reason to do this in a two-way studio monitor is to prevent excessive bass boost which would tend to color the vocals, and frequencies typically below 2KHz, which are handled by the woofer in these bi-amped designs. To apply this logic to a subwoofer means that you are abdicating substantial amounts of “free” boundary proximity gain and asking the woofers themselves to perform all the bass duty. Granted, the substantial “free gain” of common subwoofers often leads to a peak at some frequency below 100Hz but there are several subwoofer systems on the market today which incorporate at least a single band of parametric equalization which allows the system's response to be relatively flat while in a corner and still enjoying the benefits of passive, free room gain.
SS2 Subwoofer Setup
Given the layout of the theater room and my personal tastes, I did not position the SS2 subwoofer as suggested in the owner's manual. Instead, I located it in the back of the room remembering that bass is non-directional and that it shouldn't matter which corner it is placed so long as I accurately compensated for path differences between the speakers and subwoofer via the processor digital delay settings.
One feature the SS2 didn't offer was a frequency setting; but when considering that most current processors or receivers include adjustable LFE output, leaving out this feature seemed more intentional than an oversight. Depending on your particular configuration, the SW1 can be hooked up to a system without an LFE output via THIEL's separate controller or a passive crossover to match any main speaker.
One minor note about the SS2 subwoofer that I noticed was that the power indicating LED was placed on the front baffle making it visible during movie watching. At first I found this to be a nuisance as the LED was distracting in the dark. It was only by further investigation and questioning this feature directly with THIEL Audio that I was able to find that the LED can indeed be turned off by pressing both the "increase" and "decrease" buttons at the same time which to me seemed a rather odd procedure.
