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We began with our human voice test, on which the Thiel did well. The lows were not boomy or chesty, but they had satisfactory resonance. “The bass isn’t constipated anymore,” said Gerard. Our voices were startlingly natural. Perhaps you can fool us on the exact way a bassoon or a bottleneck guitar should sound, but not with the sound of our own voices reading short poems. We really did seem to be there, perfect clones of ourselves. With the two musical selections, the tonal balance was finally just right. Those troublesome strings in the Beethoven sounded like those of a real symphony orchestra. “Here’s proof that this is a much better recording than we had supposed,” said Gerard. The Jennifer Warnes song was very good, her voice expressive and rhythmic. All was in its place. Albert alone hesitated, still haunted by the sound of the JMLab. And now into the Kappa room, to see what this large Thiel could do with our three movie selections. We listened with great interest to the CROSSTALK pink noise bursts as the Moon Attraction set itself up. The Thiel’s character wasn’t identical to that of our other speakers, but it was close. We guessed that on actual program material the MCS1 would have little difficulty blending in. We were right. The Amadeus segment was breathtaking. “I thought it sounded perfect before!” exclaimed Reine, “but this…you know in the first seconds that it’s going to be great.” Albert used almost the same words. “This is the first time I’ve been able to hear the decay of each One day, in the not too distant future, audiophiles will wonder how we managed to enjoy movies back then and yet missed so much of their inherent audio quality. (We do acknowledge today how little audiophiles actually heard, in the 60’s, from their best LPs.) Sound is absolutely essential to the enjoyment of movies — images show you what is happening from a distance, but great sound brings you right where it is happening. I remember, many years ago, driving long hours, listening to classic movies I had recorded on cassettes. The trip seemed to take mere minutes while I was taken through Casablanca or A Night at The Opera. Central speakers are for voice, of course, but also for details, those wonderful tokens of reality that complete the illusion, that carry you right where the images were captured. You can hear what the actors heard or what the director wanted you to believe the characters heard, and when the magic works you find yourself right there. Live. Magic worked very often with the wonderful ProAc and the superb JMLab, but only the Thiel created magic all the time, in every scene, and with an unmatched ability to reveal real space and even silence. That’s the sign of things to come in that not too distant future. —Albert Simon The voice test was so revealing that I wasn’t surprised when it turned out to be an excellent predictor of how each speaker would perform on an actual movie. Three of the six are exceptional. With any of those three, watching a film is not a waste of time or a mere pastime, but an opportunity to leave behind everyday worries in favor of spending enchanting hours in the comfort of your home. Savings on gasoline, theatre tickets and perhaps baby sitters help pay for a true high end home theatre system. So let me talk about those three. The ProAc surprised me. Our voices were natural, and music emerged with lots of impact, a satisfactory bottom end and a remarkable balance, though with a slightly sharp top end. When we put it into the movie system, voices remained very natural, with clear words and an excellent reproduction of the choir. I was surprised even by the fine details of ambient sounds. This is a speaker that deserves serious consideration. Our voices seemed natural with the JMLab as well, and music was reproduced with all of the usual audiophile virtues. But with films I heard even more detail, and I was astonished by the depth of image. Ambient sounds, right down to the rubbing of feet on floors added to my pleasure, as did the reactions of crowds, and their applause. This speaker helped draw me into the film. This is a terrific speaker. The Thiel more than delighted me from the start. On both voice and music, it was even clearer, with even more subtle detail. Sounds are well separated, rhythm is flawless, strings and brass shine but without shrillness, the human voice is exquisite in its modulations, the string bass is solid, percussion is at once substantial and detailed…in short, lyricism and emotion are present and accounted for, and nothing gets hidden. But it is before the screen that it showed off the qualities indispensable to making a Third in number, not in quality Bïa (pronounced Bee-yah) was born in Brazil, lives in France, records in Canada. She’s the sort of singer whose records sell on first hearing. This is her third recording (after Sources and La mémoire du vent). Our recommendation? Buy any one of them…after which we’re sure you’ll order the other two. film truly involving. It finally demonstrated what I had always maintained: for a film to be truly satisfying, a great picture is not enough. It must have the support of impeccable sound. The Thiel can satisfy the most demanding videophile. —Reine Lessard I think I went into this dizzying test series underestimating the importance of the central speaker. For instance, I was convinced that the Totem would be adequate even for our (increasingly) expensive Kappa system. After all, I know how good the other Model Ones sound, so why not…? And it turned out to be reasonably good, a logical choice for the Model Ones if you choose to use them as your main speakers (an interesting idea by the way). Our system needs more. Since four of the six speakers were broken in by use in our Kappa system, I got a considerable advance listen to them. For quite a while I was convinced the JMLab was going to be our final choice. Indeed, if it had matched our main speakers better, it well might have been. Then I fell in love with the ProAc. I wish it were better looking, but oh what a speaker! That said, I have to stress that I agreed with my colleagues that the Thiel was the one to get. I was ready to reject it, because it was so large and heavy that we would probably have to leave it parked on the floor, attached to that ill-conceived stand. When I discovered that our in-house platform would let us place even this large speaker on top of the TV, the choice was an easy one. —Gerard Rejskind 40 ULTRA HIGH FIDELITY Magazine
phrase in the dialog. There’s so much dynamic contrast you can hear everything. And there’s an aura of background silence that wasn’t there before.” The second scene, in which the Emperor comes on stage to congratulate Mozart after the opera (but also to complain that it has “too many notes”), took on an added dimension. The richness of subtle sounds gave the old theatre, with its creaks and echoes, a depth and a spaciousness that had merely been hinted at before. In the Harry Potter scene, we were startled by the clarity of the delightful voice of Molly Weasley (Julie Walters). We were all but knocked out of our chairs by the air displaced when Ron and then Harry go up the chimney with a pinch of flue powder. But even more impressive was the scene in which Harry gets sidetracked in the worrisome KnockturnAlley. We could hear for the first time the many layers of John Williams’ remarkable musical score, some of them actually behind the ambient sound field, all peeled back where we could follow them. “Hagrid’s voice is more natural too,” said Albert. Music, voices, sounds and image just clicked. The scene was so awesome we opted to watch it a second time. The Fifth Element was similarly impressive, and we actually let the disc roll well into the next chapter. We left our notebooks nearly blank, scrawling down only single words, such as “superb” and “magnificent.” What to add? Well yes, there was something to add. We still needed a reference centre for our Kappa system, didn’t we? We had been freeloading long enough with borrowed speakers. Time to lay out the cash. But for which one? The first three were not suitable for a system of this caliber. The second three were definite candidates. Would we choose the magical JMLab? Would we opt instead for the superb ProAc, with its nearly perfect match with our existing Energy and Elipson speakers? Or… It turned out to be “or.” In what turned out to be a near dead heat, we made our choice, and we are giving the Thiel MCS1 what we think will be a good home. If you are tempted to do the same, we understand fully. Naim Neat ProAc Rega Arcam Creek Crimson Because everything else sounds like Super Nintendo hi fi fo fum The Goods Are Odd, But ! The Odds Are Good 935 Mount Pleasant Road Toronto 416-421-7552 Ringmat Royd Visonik Cyrus Ecosse Eichmann Epos ULTRA HIGH FIDELITY Magazine 41
Page 1 and 2: No. 67 $4.99 LOUDSPEAKERS: A new im
Page 3 and 4: Cinema Placing the Centre Speaker 5
Page 5 and 6: AVOID THE DOG-EARED COPIES A surpri
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Page 47 and 48: THE ANNIVERSARY COLLECTION: Issues
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