Amp for Thiel CS 2?

I ran the CS 2's for many years, and tried a variety of amps with them. More often than not, they're better with a dedicated power amp. I did have nice sounds with an Electrocompaniet integrated. A bit of an off electronic flavor, and somewhat dark, loosing the upper extension these speakers are capable of. At the same time that's much better than an amp that is bright or grainy, as these speakers will clearly reveal such aberrations. I'd suggest being careful to not use an overly sweet amp that's flabby in the bass, as the speakers ported bass and very slight upperbass/lower-midrange leaness will not take kindly to that either.

What timing... I just sold my 1986 CS2s and they left my house 10 minutes ago! A 15 year old son of friends of ours bought them, and I promised him I would help him choose an integrated amp that would drive them.

Any ideas on SS integrateds that could drive these beauties?

For years, I was driving them with a 100WPC Electron Kinetics Eagle 2A, which I had completely rebuilt last year. It sounds unbelievably good with the CS2s. I'm reluctant to sell this amp b/c John Iverson built and tweaked this unit himself and then disappeared forever. No one seems to know where this amp legend went...

I had a buddy in the late 80s who used Spectral gear with his 2 2s. They sounded fantastic. His system is the reason I eventually moved to Thiel speakers. That is in spite of hearing them in a couple of different stereo stores where they sounded too bright and harsh to me. I just remember one store that had Bryston amps powering some CS3.6 speakers. The highs were drilling a hole in my head. My personal experience with Thiels is that high current amps work best. I quickly settled on the Pass Labs amp with my speakers. Buying it hurt a bit, but my pain was assuaged by the beautiful music that they make now.

I'm with Unsound on this one. What do you consider "reasonably priced"?

The CS 2's have a nominal impedance of 6 Ohms and a minimum impedance of 5 Ohms.

If I'm correct, the Thiels drop to around 2 ohms at times. Make sure the amp can take it.

What's "reasonably priced"?