Thiel Audio Holds First Webinar to Outline Company Direction, Product Plans

Thiel Audio held the first of a series of webinars for dealers and current and potential customers. The company plans to use webinars for distributor and dealer training, consumer support and media events, said Dawn Cloyd, Thiel director of international sales. As evidence of the hazards of first runs, Cloyd said the Thursday webinar was designed and intended for consumers, “but lots of industry friends,” including anyone who had signed up for Thiel consumer e-news on its website, received the invitation, “an error on our part.” The upside was a “great response,” Cloyd said, resulting in overbooking beyond the 25-person limit.

Thiel used the 75-minute session to provide an overview of the company and the basics of loudspeakers, offer tips on how to demo speakers and reassure customers and dealers that the 34-year-old company remains committed to its audiophile roots despite the passing of founder and head speaker designer Jim Thiel last year. Gary Dayton, manager of customer support and technical service, said he and company president Kathy Gornik are heading a team of driver and speaker designers -- one in and one outside of the company -- to maintain Thiel’s vision. Going forward, Dayton said, speaker development “is not going to be a major departure from anything you've seen from Thiel in the past.” He and Gornik remain “very sensitive to subscribing to the same philosophies and techniques that Jim Thiel learned over the course of his life and built into our speakers,” he said. Cloyd said Thiel left behind volumes of white papers, designs and technology and that other designers have stepped forward to offer their services to the company based on Thiel’s reputation in the industry. “We have an embarrassment of riches at our disposal,” she said.

Attendees used the event to ask about announced products including the USS SmartSub that was due to ship in Q1 of this year. Dayton said the powered subwoofer has been “subject to many delays,” but the project is moving along “relatively smoothly” with a completely updated amplifier design and is on time under a new schedule. At CES, Thiel will demo the new SCS4T floor standing loudspeaker, Dayton said, with shipping to follow later in the month. The CS1.7 speaker, with a new driver that will be used with subsequent speakers, will ship “sometime in 2011,” he said.