way to achieve higher sensitivity is to
reduce the amount of moving mass
in the diaphragm, which unavoid-
ably reduces diaphragm stiffness and
increases distortion, especially at
louder levels.
In an effort to overcome these
penalties, Thiel designed an innova-
tive voice coil that was dramatically
wider (three inches) than convention-
al voice coils in 6.5-inch woofers.
Thiel found that the wider coil’s
energy was being spread more wide-
ly and evenly across the diaphragm,
raising sensitivity and increasing
stiffness. Because the voice coil was
so wide, the magnet had to be
installed inside it instead of in the
conventional exterior location.
Consequently, Thiel used a higher
quality neodymium magnet that
would fit inside the voice coil. And
with the magnet installed within the
voice coil, the speaker is self-shield-
ing, meaning that it can be used close
to CRT-based video display devices.
Although Thiel ended up not sig-
nificantly reducing the moving mass
of the diaphragm, he achieved the
desired sensitivity improvement and
pushed the first resonant mode of
the woofer up to 9kHz, well above
the crucial upper midrange. The
CS1.6 is a two-way design that cross-
es over from the woofer to the tweet-
er at 3kHz; thus, the 9kHz resonant
mode (distortion) is far above the
crossover point, significantly reduc-
ing the audibility of the distortion.
Moreover, a 9kHz resonance origi-
nating from a 6.5-inch driver has
limited dispersion, reducing its audi-
bility to anyone not sitting on axis
with the driver.
The most notable visual charac-
teristic of the CS1.6 is its long
(roughly 20 inches) vertical slotted
port. By using this arrangement with
a surrounding taper that disperses
air across a six-inch-wide area, Thiel
maintained the efficiency of the
port, with or without grille cloth.
The tweeter of the CS1.6, says
Thiel, has more in common with
its cost-no-object siblings than it
does with tweeters commonly
found in the two-grand range.
Thiel incorporated the techniques
he employs in the CS7.2 tweeter: a
short-coil/long-gap configuration
with a copper-stabilized motor sys-
tem. The result according to Thiel
is that the CS1.6 tweeter is capable
of significant excursion, meaning
that it is both lower in distortion
and capable of higher levels. Thiel
even uses a high-quality poly-
styrene-foil bypass capacitor in the
crossover, improving treble dynam-
ics and purity.
Finally, the cabinet is a substantial
upgrade over the CS1.5. The baffle is
two-inch thick MDF, permitting
Thiel to round the baffle away from
the tweeter, reducing diffraction
effects and improving spatial resolu-
tion. The rest of the cabinet is made
of one-inch thick MDF. All together,
the CS1.6 weighs 38 pounds.
Q u i e t G r a c e s a n d
E m p h a t i c M o m e n t s
I wish one sentence could convey
the entirety of the CS1.6’s sonic
beauty. I can’t think of one, so I’ll
start by telling you what it did for
me: It relaxed me in a way no hi-fi
has since I worked with the Audio
Artistry speakers. The CS1.6 has the
physiological restorative capabilities
of live music; it untied tension knots
and pulled at emotional strings. It
found quiet graces within the music
and brought them gently but insis-
tently to my attention. The simple
interweaving lines in the “Allegretto”
movement of Beethoven’s
Symphony
No. 7
[DG 431 76802] unfolded in a
stately, inevitable progression that
drew me hypnotically from one line
to the next. Throughout this move-
ment, the CS1.6 easily kept the
instrumental groups separated tim-
brally and spatially.
Easily. That’s one word that helps
to describe the CS1.6. Everything it
does, it does easily. A key indicator of
quality is that the speaker requires
only a smidge of volume before it
becomes musically satisfying. The
CS1.6 fills out tonally at volume levels
much closer to live levels and its reso-
lution of transient information is so
penetrating, you can hear everything
at levels that won’t threaten your
hearing. Live music, as you may know,
rarely reaches 100dB at the audience.
Julian Bream’s guitar, as he per-
forms Rodrigo’s
Concierto de Aranjuez
[BMG 6525-2-RG] is both lyrically
mournful in the tailing shape of
the notes and emphatic in its lead-
ing transient speed. The CS1.6 did
not soften the leading edge, and
just as quickly released that hard
transient to make way for the more
nuanced and emotional shape of
the note. This bespeaks an excep-
tional level of true dynamics, espe-
cially in the tweeter.
Intrinsic in the CS1.6’s effortless
sound is its top-to-bottom coordina-
tion. The lower frequencies are cor-
rectly placed in time relative to the
middle and treble frequencies. The
consequence is a stunning level of
intelligibility, both in instrumental
and human voices. The CS1.6 is
nearly magical in the way it presents
the female voice. Whether it was
Janis Ian
[Breaking Silence
; Morgan
Creek 2959-20023], Jennifer Warnes
[Famous Blue Raincoat
;
Classic
Compact Discs RTHCD 5052] or
Bonnie Raitt
[Road Tested
; Capitol
7243 8 3370-52], this speaker pre-
sented each voice with unsurpassed
clarity and body. Each voice was dis-
tinctive, as were the production val-
ues of each recording. The Ian is
soft; Warnes’ production is more pop
and slightly hard; Raitt’s live per-
formance has a trace of sibilance
that the CS1.6 neither hid nor exag-
gerated. Moreover, it easily handled
Warnes’ demanding dynamic range.
Given its excellent intelligibility,
the CS1.6 would also be adept in a
home theater (indeed, with its
short-ish stature, I’d use it as a cen-
ter channel).
D y n a m i c s ,
T o n a l i t y , S p a c e
As I mentioned above, there is no
bottom octave. Achieving the desired
sensitivity nearly ensured this result,
and this is, after all, a two-way design.
But the bass produced by the CS1.6
(solid to 50Hz) is of the highest quali-
ty. Pitch definition and timbre resolu-
3
•
THE ABSOLUTE SOUND
•
135
