Help me pick a tube amp for Thiel 2.4's

Both Rogue and Manley are excellent sonic matches. Choose the cables correctly.

I used to own the 2.4's & pondered the same thing & realized I couldn't afford the tube power the thiels required & deserved, then backed up & punted. good luck.

I've had great success with the Rogue Zeus and my Thiel 2.3s.

Before going tube, my solid state amps were the Bryston 4B ST and the Plinius SA-102.

I've found the Rouge to offer a much more detailed and present midrange than the Plinius and far less grain than the Bryston.

While it has the lowest power rating than the others, the bass presence is satsifying. I beleive that is due to the overall better midrange offered by the triode setting.

Caveat! I've never heard them (been meaning to), but, the Walcott's sure look interesting.

Try to audition a used pair c-j Premier 12 monos!

Good Luck!

I just found your question searching for an alternate issue. You have probably settled your system by now, but I wanted to pass on some of the things I experienced moving my 2.3's to a more smooth sound. I love their passion and texture, but my ears find them painful with conventional ss equipment. I just finished a new system upgrade and moved to tube pre and amp. I chose the Blue Circle Despina pre and switched the 6922 tubes from Electro Harmonix to the 1964 NOS Amperex 7308 PQ, white label, made in Holland. An excellent match with the Thiels. I found the Electro Harmonix tube very cool and harsh in mid to highs - bad match for Thiels to my taste.
As to amps, I am driving mine at more than adequate volumes with a prototype 35W tube amp by a local designer (Gordan Maughan). I never thought it would drive them, but ample headroom and power. So I learned that all amps are not designed the same. I had previously auditioned a pair of VTL signature 500W monoblocks in my home. Beautiful sound but expensive and high maintenance. The 125W VTL monoblocks clipped badly against the 2.3's at moderate volume. I am not an amp design expert at all, but if I had to go back to audio 'salon' offerings I would check out the VAC amps as I believe they can offer lots of bang at lower power. I did talk to them and found them very knowledgeable about lower impedance speaker driving. See the audiogon listing that references Thiel using 100W VAC in their showroom.

[http://cls.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/cls.pl?ampstube&1120667111]

I have auditioned a lot of solid state amps against the Thiel's in my home. I will just mention a few. I found the Rowland Concentra II and the Musical Fidelity A308 way too etched and extended in the high frequencies for my comfort with the Thiels. I just had the Blue Circle BC26 ss amp in and it had ample power with a smooth sound.

Good luck,

Try to find a Music Reference RM 200 or RM9 MKII. They are both superb sounding amps with the ability to drive virtually any reasonable speaker. The Quicksilver V4 is also good as is the VAC 100wpc amp. The Thiel does like warmth. For solid state, try a Rowland Concentra II or the new monoblocks. Jallen

If you're thinking of using tube with Thiel, you might want to try the Zero Autotransformer which can double up the impedance of the speakers.

See the following discussion from previous post:

http://forum.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/fr.pl?cspkr&1034006724&read&keyw&zzthiel+cs-2+4

Anyone thought of Denon AVC-A1SR? It has 225W x 7 channels.
Any comment from the rest?
Ken

You should give more details about what you have, what you listen to, and what you would like to accomplish. I have found that the more specific you are, the more helpful people can be. Otherwise, you will just get a bunch of people chiming in about how they like this and that...

I would recommend at least 250 watts to drive these to their full effect. I'm sure some people enjoy them with less, but I wouldn't think twice about matching these with something as high as 350 watts.

Rob