Tower Speaker Reviews

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.

Home theater is the union of big-screen television and surround sound. Those are the two bedrock principles on which this magazine was founded. So, it may seem heretical to even consider modifying that second requirement. After all, the whole notion of home theater has matured in tandem with advances in both video and surround technology.

When I say, "horn loudspeaker," what do you think of first? Most longtime audiophiles immediately visualize big corner-mounted Klipsch K-Horns or Altec Lansing "Voice of the Theater" speakers. Although horn-mounted technology is not as common today as it was during the golden age of mono in the '40's and '50's, it still exists. The Triad InRoom Platinum speaker system ($29,850 as tested), for example, is very much here and now.

<IMG SRC="/images/archivesart/506vander3a.1.jpg" ALT="506vander3a.1.jpg" WIDTH=220 HEIGHT=281 HSPACE=4 VSPACE=4 ALIGN=RIGHT><B>Price</B>: $11,673 as configured in SCB's former reference system.

The Vandersteen 3A is a higher-end variation on the theme established by the company's first loudspeaker, the 2C. The latter is still available, though much updated into the current, highly popular 2Ce. A four-way design, the 3A has separate sub-enclosures for each drive unit; the whole affair is covered with a knit grille-cloth "sock" with wood trim end pieces. A rear-mounted metal brace allows the user to vary the tiltback&mdash;an important consideration for best performance with this loudspeaker.