Hegel Amps with Thiels

^IMHO, the McCormack's are very nice amps, with tight rhythmic bass, and smooth liquid treble, unfortunately their somewhat forward nature can make them a bit shouty with Thiels. A lovely and near perfect match with Vandersteens.

^I can very well understand how you might feel about the above pairings. But, the Vandy's though sharing similar design paramters, are voiced differently than the Thiels, and the c-j's run in the same direction as the Vandys. Some of the McCormack amps have a very similar design to some c-j amps, but are again voiced differently. The McCormacks might just work for you, especially more so with the CS 5's, with their rather extreme load. I happen to like the X series Pass amps with Thiels, but can understand your misgivings. I hate to be so redundant, but the bipolar output Krells are in my mind the perfect match for the CS 5's, more so than the mosfet output competition. Maybe it's due the devices chosen or maybe not,  but the big Krells work better with the CS 5's than any other amps I've heard with them.