I liked these much better than Thiel's 1.5; but that comment can very much be filed under "damning with faint praise" given my opinion of the 1.5. These had some of the icy brightness of the 1.5s, but were much improved in this regard. I think I could probably live with these speakers if I had to, but I would never choose to do so.
In this price range, Martin Logan's SL3 sounded much better; and there are even $2000 speakers that I much preferred.

I recently decided to upgrade my entire audio system and spent about 3 months listening and comparing various models of CD players, Pre Amps, Power Amps and Speakers. My preference in terms of sound signature is for products that are quite transparent with little or no coloration. My music tastes are mostly classical (large and small scale orchestral and opera) with occasional evenings listening to 60s, 70s and 80s rock. (Beatles, Rolling Stones, Eagles, Elton John...).
In comparing speakers I seriously auditioned the PSB Goldi, Vandersteen 3a's (the signatures were not available at the time), Magnepan 3.5's, Martin Logan SL3, Hales Transcendence 3 and Hales Revelation 3. All of these speakers are good. My eventual selection of the Thiel 2.3 was a matter of taste based mostly on acoustic performance, I was looking for transparency, clarity and good soundstaging together with a keen eye on build quality and room aesthetics.

In this group the PSB's were the weakest units (especially in build quality) however they were also the cheapest and on balance hold there own with quite a few more expensive units.

To me the Martin Logans had a distinct sound in the upper registers that I simply was not comfortable listening to. I would describe the sound as brassy and quite forward. In AB comparisons with the Thiel 2.3's the Thiels were definitely cleaner and seemed to have more attack compared to the Martin Logan's.

The Hales units were both good units. The Hales Transcendence 3 might have prevailed in my selection but I had to put a limit to the $ somewhere. In comparison, the Hales Revelation 3 was not as clean or as fast and the bass performance was not as tight as it's more expensive cousin. This was quite easy to hear when playing classical music with lots of dynamics e.g., Gershwin Rhapsody in Blue.

The Vandersteen 3a's were quite laid back, I wanted something with more punch and attack especially in the lower registers. They also had the most bass output. They are probably the more forgiving than the Magnepans or the Thiels when coupled with lesser equipment.

The Magnepan and Thiel speakers were the most transparent I could find in this price range. Both presented stunning clarity and attack in the mid and upper registers. The sound stage with both these units is excellent. The Thiels also were capable of playing louder and had better (more) bass. The Magnepan's are huge! they impose themselves on a room, the Thiels were a much better match visually in my listening room. I spent an extra $300 to get them finished in Morado, a beautiful finish.

My new system has been home for approximately two months and I can say without any hesitation that the Thiels have not disappointed me yet. Specific points in their favor are as follows:

Build quality, the Thiels are put together like fine furniture the fit and finish of the units is simply superb. The cable connections on the bottom are a bit of a pain however, they provide a cleaner look overall. I will probably run the cables under the floor now that I have finalized their room position.

Soundstage is realistic open and smooth. Small orchestral pieces are presented with intimacy and detail; larger works loose little or nothing of their original scale.

Excellent control in the bass region short drum rolls and loud percussion passages are presented with precision and speed, Cymbals sound like Cymbals. You can also easily appreciate detail in the lower registers.

Integration of the drive units is flawless, probably due to the first order crossover and attention to constant phase response. Integration of the tweeter with the mid range can easily spoil a good unit, the Thiels have no problem in this critical area.

Speaker placement is not super critical, just keep them away from the walls to avoid a muddied bass and confused soundstage. I started to listen with them toed in (old habits die hard) but slowly I turned them straight ahead. The soundstage just got better and the sweet spot wider as I reduced the toe in.

Overall dynamics are thrilling and very realistic, it is quite easy to lull yourself into visualizing live performances.

The rest of my equipment consists of the BRYSTON BP20 preamp, the 3BST power amp and the Rega Planet CD player. This setup is very analytical. The Rega has a smooth top end, so to me it was a good match with the rest of the Bryston and Thiel units.

If you are looking for speakers in this price range give these a listen.

I would not have bought them if I did not think they were 5 star units!!!

The Thiel 2.3 is a ground-breaking product.
Superb sounstage, listen to any good quality recording and the placement of the instruments and vocals put you right their!

These units demonstrate the meaning of transparency and clarity, they are extreamly revealing.

Plenty of usable bass right down to the lower 30s, that means you are only missing the bottom half octave, more than enough for any music needs.

Placement not critical as long as you follow the handbook Thiel supplies. Wonderfull build quality.

I have owned this speaker for 2 months. It turns out that they need a good kick to maximize their performance, especially with tube amps which must fight the Thiel's low impedence. The two key performance attributes of the 2.3 to my ear are: 1) No glaring faults- compared to others in the immediate price range, the 2.3s give you the whole package- imaging, flat-as-a-board frequency response, musicality, top to bottom coherence, and satisfying bass. 2) A pronounced, effortless, wide open midrange- for me this made the Thiels the most enjoyable $3500 speaker that I listened to (better that Hales, Proac, Medowlark, Audio Physic, and even the Thiel 3.6). I am upgrading to Merlin VSM-SE's for the same qualities as above PLUS more detail in the mids and highs PLUS- most importantly- a high impedence and sensitivity. Finally, I can turn the volume up!!!

After 3 weeks of constant listening I might have only given the 2.3's a 3. I then went and bought a Sunfire amp. I now have no trouble with a 5 rating.It was a simple matter of under powering them.I am unclear why this is not made more clear in the marketing info or on the web page. I feel that the 2.3's are by far the most accurate speaker in this price range.

These are good speakers for the money. Really gave the B&W Nautilus 802 ($8000) a run for its money. Extremely dynamic, extremely detailed, a very "exciting" speaker to listen to. Very large soundstage.But after only 3 or 4 cuts, the brightness was very apparent. My ears were ringing. The cost of all this detail and dynamics are an extremely bright sound. And the 2.3's are going to very critical of poor recordings.
While I was impressed with the Thiels, I could not live with them. Because of the high value, I'll give them 4 stars.

Like many other speakers from Thiel, the 2.3s give a very revealing sound, pinpoint imaging, and great reproduction of percussion sounds. While they are definitely better and more forgiving than the 2.2s, I still feel sometimes they tend to be too analytical and dry or liveless.

I was lidstening to an Aerial 10T at a dealer when a guy came into the room and said " I am a drummerer, drums don't sound like that. I just sold my 10Ts and bought a paIR of 2.3" He then walked out of the room and brought in the latest Stereophile with a review. He states better sound at half the price. With an intro like this, I went to a dealer to listen. Actually twice. Imaging and soundstage were great but they were TOOOOOOO revealing and my girlfriend pianist was getting tired of them. I have 4-500 CDs, probably most of average quality. Yhis speaker made me realize how bad they were. I enjoy music. This speaker took the music away. As for the drummer, I'll be nice!. Now I know why I do not go to many concerts anymore. If you enjoy misery through revealing, these are for you!

I love these speakers and bought them. But to qualify this recommendation I need to outline my biases. I find stereo gear that adds a persistant tonal colour regardless of source material to be highly frustrating. Problems of this nature send me into an endless search for the change to cables, or isolation that will ameliorate the problem - that drive me and everyone in the household to distraction. Worst of all it causes me to continuously listen to what the system is adding to the music to validate whether my attempts to fix the problem are working satisfactorily. So the absence of tonal colour abberations are top of my list when buying new equipment.
Such issues as "pace, rhythm & timing" or "edge definition" or "imaging" or "soundstaging" or "transparency" or "frequency extension" or "dynamics" or "bloom" are what it should be about, since these are the things that drive involvement in the music - but I cannot engage in the music when tonal issues are wrong.

So what do I think about the Thiel 2.3 speakers? I love 'em. I have always been attracted to Thiel speakers (and others) because of my need for monitor quality tonal balance. But these 2.3s are the best yet for banishing tonal abberations. I stop listening to the system, stop feeling like it needs a tweek here or there just to make it sound better and yes! - I just groove to the music!

If you are a terminal tweeker, and want to know how to quit - then this is the speaker for you. I went through all my tweeking tricks with this speaker just once. These speakers are so revealing I had no difficulty deciding which tweeks were genuinely useful and which were just band-aids and settled on the set-up that worked in no time at all.

If you like your choice of speakers to add your favourite flavouring to all your music - then these are not the speakers for you.

So these speakers are neutral? Well not exactly. The thing that does it for me is the fact that cabinet resonances are practically non-existent, each driver has a smooth response in its operating range, and the coherence from driver to driver is excellent - and I am super-fussy about these things. But in fact these speakers have a gentle rise in output as frequency rises - giving it a lightened quality like you often get from an electrostatic. But individual instruments still manage to maintain their full tonal colour (or darn near to it), so there is no whitening of the sound.

It is interesting that some reviews have called these speakers bright. I cannot agree. Lightened - yes. But bright implies a fatiguing quality that I do not find here. If you find these speakers fatiguingly bright then look to the source material or your electronics (including your power supply). Solving problems elsewhere in your system by buying speakers that muffle the effect does not make much sense to me. The other possibility is that some may have listened to these speakers when they had yet to be fully run in - particularly those that wrote a review as a result of a dealer's demo. These speakers are horrendously bright at certain times during break-in.

This speaker has weaknesses. Transient leading edges are ever so slightly softened. The effect is big enough that I think anyone would notice it, but it barely detracts from the high levels of transparency, dynamics and imaging that are achieved by these speakers. I find this weakness to be one I can readily live with. Better a slight softening than a slight sharpening that becomes a feeling of relentlessness over time. The second weakness is lack of bloom. The soundstage does not bloom and wrap around the listener in the way that some other fine speakers are able to do. There is soundstage depth for sure, and the music does bloom - just not as much as with the best. Some may also feel that the bass could be stronger - but this will only be a concern to those that are fixated on bass - you know who you are. But the bass is ample, detailed, dynamic and rhythmic enough for all musical purposes - with the only exceptions being lack of response below 30Hz and not being a rock-the-house party speaker.

I did not part with my money easily on these speakers and tried everything at around the same price that I could get my hands on - but it was a "no contest". Given my biases, which I have tried to outline, this is definitely the speaker for me in this price range.

I'm in the market for new speakers and I listened extensively to speakers in the 1.5-4k category.I also listened pretty long sessions to expensive speakers for comparison and personal feedback( speakers between 7-78k).Here is what I dicovered to date. Thiel 1.5: extremely detailed, wonderful soundstage width and depth,lacking in vertical recreation of space (everything sounds at the knee level).Disappear wonderfully. Overly bright on poorly recorded material when paired with the Krell 300i,producing listening fatigue in long listening sessions.Suitable for small rooms.Bass amasing for such a small speaker,but clearly lacking in comparison with its larger siblings.ProAc 1SC paired with Audio Research VT100: not as detailed as the little Thiels,ravishing female voice reproduction.Soundstage as good as that of Thiels but much better vertical space recreation, satisfatory bass.The best disappearance act in audio I've seen.Not as good for large scale music as for chamber and vocal music.Stratus Gold i:overal satisfactory performance,good bass, not capable of completely vanishing,very good bang for the buck but clearly not in the same league as the others auditioned.Martin Logan Aerius i:wonderful soundstage but not enough bass and the bass clearly in an inferior class qualitatively when compared with their wonderful midrange.B&W CDM-7SE,N 805:nice speakers with delicate midrange and satisfactory soundstage.Not as detailed as the Thiels,their soundstage inferior to the one reproduced by the ProAcs or the Thiels or the Martin Logans( by a very small margin,it could be their placement)
Thiel 2.3: detail first class.Not suitable in small rooms(poor soundstage,upper bass overload).In medium rooms they shine.Care should be taken when choosing the associated equipment:Krell300i works fine provided that you use a darker,high quality CD player and play good recordings in a treated room.Otherwise,it may display occasionally bright and fatigable sound.Krell 500i:same as above but better.Jeff Rowland Concentra integrated:beautiful,gorgeous combination!VAC Avatar tube integrated:gorgeous combination!Audio Research VT100:of course.I heard larger Thiels still displaying some brightness with this amp,though. Conrad-Johnson Premier 11A: haven't heard this combination but I suspect that this one also deserve a position on my "gorgeous sound and combinations"list.
Cable: among the high quality brands,probably MIT is the best and Kimber the worst when paired with Thiel speakers.Conclusions:
SPEAKER DETAIL/SOUNDSTAGE/HUMAN VOICE/BASS QUALITY/FIT&FINISH/VALUE/ OVERALL
REPRODUCTION
Thiel1.5 ***** ***** **** *** ***** ****1/2 ****1/2
ProAc1SC ****1/2 ***** ***** **1/2 ****1/2 **** ****1/2
PSB Stratus
Gold i **** **1/2 **** ***** ****1/2 ***** ****1/2
ML Aerius i***** ***** ***** ** ****1/2 ****1/2 ****1/2
B&W CDM7SE ****1/2 **** ****1/2 **1/2 ****1/2 **** ****
B&W N805 ****1/2 ****1/2 ****1/2 *** ***** **** ****1/2
Thiel2.3 ***** ***** **** ***** ***** ****1/2 *****

Given the above facts,most likely the Thiel2.3 will be my next speaker.It's not perfect, but its strenghts arguably make it one of the best speaker in the 4k range.My favorite finishes are amberwood and ebony.Any new comments will be appreciated.