Although "audiophile ceiling-speaker" might seem an oxymoron of the same magnitude as "English cuisine" or "American diplomacy," that didn't stop a number of speaker companies from releasing new models at the recent CEDIA show, all claiming high performance. The interest is perfectly understandable: Ceiling speakers are beloved of buyers of whole-house media systems (and airport PA designers) because they require zero floor space and disappear into rooms. For several reasons, however, they usually sound mediocre — frequently downright bad. I'd never heard a good one, until now. Thiel, a small, high-end maker of long standing and sterling reputation based in Lexington, Kentucky, has attempted this feat in its PowerPoint 1.2, with results not far from astonishing.
SETUP Like Alexander with the Gordian knot, Thiel solved its problem with a single sword-stroke, by taking the ceiling-speaker out of the ceiling. The Thiel PowerPoint 1.2 ceiling speaker ($1,450 each) is a high-performance, coincident-source two-way speaker in a contoured, cast-aluminum "pod" that mounts to the ceiling, with the tail near the juncture of a wall. This third-of-a-watermelon enclosure is very rigid and non-resonant. Equally important, it provides fixed foreknowledge of the driver's location relative to the two primary reflective surfaces, allowing the Thiel to optimize its sound in ways impossible with traditional ceiling speakers.
At Thiel's urging I eschewed the crossover circuit in my processor for the company's own PX 05 passive crossover ($500). This small, nicely finished component is supplied custom-tuned to your particular Thiel models, accepting speaker-level signals from all five channels and summing their bass content to a single subwoofer output.
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The Short Form
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| Price $10,750 (AS TESTED) / thielaudio.com / 859-254-9427 |
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Snapshot
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| A no-brainer if you demand serious performance from a ceiling-mounted speaker and have a generous budget. |
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Plus
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•Exceptional sound quality for ceiling speaker •Surprising bass extension •Unexpectedly natural imaging |
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Minus
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•Jetsonian look won't please all •Slightly elevated sonic image •Sub volume limit falls short of speakers' |
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Key Features
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PowerPoint 1.2 •($1,450 each): 6.5-in woofer with coaxially mounted 1-in dome tweeter, 6.5 in high, 21 in deep; 10 lb SmartSub SS1 •($2,900; $3,000 as shown with amberwood finish): 10-in driver; 500-watt RMS amp; 20 x 10.5 x 15 in; 65 lb •Finish: PowerPoint 1.2: paintable matte-white aluminum; Subwoofer: satin-black or optional wood veneers |
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Test Bench
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The PowerPoint 1.2 has uniform directivity and near identical response for all channel positions. The trace shows a moderate depression between 1 kHz and 3.5 kHz and roughness above 1 kHz. Nominal impedance was just 3 ohms, so use an appropriate amp. The SS1 sub was measured with its PX05 passive crossover. It showed limited upper bandwidth, though the side- and rear-wall compensation settings extend its range somewhat. — Tom Nousaine Full Lab Results |
Sound was open, clean, and well defined, with none of the hyped output in the 80-Hz octave by which many small speakers hope to fool the ear into perceiving more bass than is really there. Bass was smooth and controlled but clearly beginning to roll off fairly quickly below that point. In my setup, however, the Thiels at first produced a modest surfeit of output in the next, upper-bass/lowest midrange octave, lending deep male vocals a touch of over-full, extra-warm tonality. (This seemed to diminish slightly after some hours of operation.) I suspect much of this arose from ceiling-to-wall, boundary-effect reinforcement. Had I spaced my PowerPoints' "tails" a couple feet from the wall instead of about 6 inches (I couldn't, because of my temporary setup's mechanics), I suspect this might have been much mitigated. And when I later tried the system "upside-down" on the floor some 18 inches farther from the wall, it was.
Treble seemed a bit warm at first as well — a characteristic that also improved slightly with a dozen or so hours use, so I left the system playing overnight a couple of times at moderate volume, which did in fact appear to continue the process somewhat. A little unexpectedly, I found that on-axis listening really made a difference here: If I moved more than about 20 degrees off center, front-to-back, by line of sight to the tweeters, treble definitely "darkened" and the Thiels lost a bit of sparkle and air.
But I don't mean to pick nits, because really, the PowerPoint 1.2's musical abilities were quite remarkable. The Thiels' tonal balance through the critical midrange was essentially perfect, yielding consistently uncolored, natural-sounding voices and instruments, while their smooth extension into the treble regions delivered obvious detail and depth. In my setup, the PowerPoints projected a very cohesive soundstage that seemed distinctly to wrap around toward the sides of the listening area: shallower in the center, but quite deep and out-from-the-wall toward either side.
Adding the sub immediately produced near-perfect bass integration and impressive extension. A PBS-HD Great Performances concert of the Vienna Philharmonic celebrating Mozart's 250th birthday (in quite fine Dolby Digital 5.1) provided very believable extended sound from the small-section basses and cellos, with no hint of "hand-off," bloat, or response-gaps between sub and sats. Bigger-bass music proved the SS1 goes plenty deep and holds its own up to moderately kickin' levels: Pressed hard, the woofer didn't clack or snort, but distinctly stopped getting louder, which I take to be well-implemented limiting circuitry at work.
MOVIE PERFORMANCE Performance on film sound was also unexpectedly high-end, "for a ceiling speaker." With the psychoacoustic aid of a video image to "anchor" the sound, I had a hard time noticing that the sonic image was slightly above the screen; only when I turned off the TV did the sound seem to shift mysteriously upward a couple of feet. Front-stage cohesion was extremely good — not surprising, given the coincident-driver design. When troop trucks and tanks moved across the screen in The Great Raid, the smoothness and stability of their accompanying roars, rattles, and whooshes were impressive. (Sounds panning extreme left or right do seem to move up a bit as well, but again, you simply don't notice this unless forced.)
As with music, the SS1 proved a stellar small woofer, with surprising low-end potential well below 30 Hz. Favorite deep-bass effects such as the sliding stone door early in Stargate reproduced with all their foundations intact, though as I increased the system volume, the Thiel sub fell well shy of first-run-cinema reference-level performance. This should be an excellent sub for small rooms or systems where higher-volume playback isn't necessary.
BOTTOM LINE The Thiel PowerPoint 1.2 ceiling speaker system delivers truly elevated performance (ouch!). At $1,450 per speaker, it's obvious overkill for casual multiroom applications. But where serious audio reproduction is desired and ceiling speakers are the only acceptable option, demanding (and well-funded) listeners will find these an impressive and highly livable solution. Under those conditions, I recommend them enthusiastically.
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