Tower Speaker Reviews

History may one day judge “offshoring” to be the macroeconomic disaster that some pundits would have us believe. Still, you can’t argue that it’s been a microeconomics windfall for American consumers.

The odds of finding a horse for $3,000 that will win the Kentucky Derby are about as good as they are of me hitting the Pick 6 at Santa Anita Race Track—in other words, it ain't gonna happen (although, in the case of the latter, it won't be for lack of trying). Even Seattle Slew, one of the great bargains in horse-racing history, carried an initial price tag of $17,500.

Since veteran Acoustic Research loudspeaker designer Ken Kantor and Chris Byrne founded the company back in 1986, NHT has been tossed around like a corporate football: first to Jensen International in the early 1990's, then to Recoton, and to Rockford Corporation in 2002 following Recoton's failure. Finally, in 2005, Rockford handed it off to Colorado-based Vinci Group.

A decade ago Sonus faber introduced the Concert line, a series of loudspeakers designed to deliver Sonus faber performance and industrial design at a more affordable price point. That's what high-end companies do after establishing a strong reputation at the upper echelon of the marketplace. Once your products become the object of lust, you feed the hungry beast. And make no mistake: early Sonus faber products made waves both for their spectacular looks and their intoxicating sound.

In this case, Thiel isn't a color, it's a lack of color, and nothing impressed me so much during my time with these five Thiel CS1.6 speakers as their colorlessness. One color particularly notable by its absence is green, as in the minimal amount of greenbacks you'll have to peel off your roll—the CS1.6 is one of the more affordable floorstanding speakers in the Thiel line. For only $2390, you can get a pair finished on five sides in a wood veneer, like the beautiful natural-cherry ones I used for the front channels—or, if you want to save a cool grand on a quintet, the $1990/pair matte-black models I put in the rear are all the color you'll need.

Defining the Possibilities

Speakers sometimes remind me of cars. The marketing campaigns are built around uniqueness, but in a larger sense, most are far more similar than different. Most cars have combustion engines, four wheels that go around, and options that are more distinguished by the jargon that describes them than by their functionality. These days, many speakers are assembled from materials that are purchased from a handful of well-known source component companies. They often have much more in common with each other than people are led to believe.