Thiel 2.3

Congrats on the purchase and finding the right amplifier! Kudos.

I bought 2.3s years ago new for my brother when he was overseas and had them six months which was fun way back then. Despite my moves up the speaker food chain I listened to his 2.3s two years ago in Kentucky and loved hearing them again. They can be spectacular (and he augmented them with two subs).

The key. Hear is in the Xover parts ,I have worked building them and these 2.3, and 3.6 the Xover parts , need much better quality , and a warmer sounding capacitor 

plain and simple ,the cheap 50 cent cement resistors don’t help at all , and crappy no name, and Solen capacitiors are ranking fought a 6-7 at best out of 15 ,use a mills resistor a Big step up for a lousy $5 each yes it may cost you $1k to rebuild the Xover boards but I can tell you 100% a  night and day improvement in sonics on every level .for the vast majority f speaker mfg even at $10 k+ go cheap on Xover parts , it’s the 🧠 or heart ♥️ of your Loudspeaker . The audio signal goes through here good or bad , stock most speakers have 💩 Xover parts .

i not only owned a Audio store but worked with top techs in modding Loudspeakers,as well as electronics .  A good rule of thumb roughly only 25% of your electronics, or speakers cost goes into the speakers , the rest goes into overhead packaging , and dealer markup , just think a $$4k pair of speakers only $1k goes into the whole speaker including cabinet and packaging. Sad but true .

i look for very good quality used then rebuild ,I just bought a Dynaudio Contour 3.4 speaker ,excellent build quality and very high quality drivers , then just removed the wiring ,and upgraded the Xover boards , now with my SVS 4000 SB subwoofer you have at least a speaker system over $12 k for a total investment around $5k .

very easy to do ,the key is the drivers and cabinet , the Thiel has a lot of potential .

Congrats! Thiels are indeed amazing. Every change upstream I've made through out the decades had always made significant differences. Thiels reveal everything that's thrown at them. I've auditioned a few more "modern" and highly rated speakers and they didn't impress me. Happy listening!

@audiodwebe 

Congratulations doing home work and getting Thiels to sing for you. They are very revealing speakers. You can hear the difference when you change upstream electronics which is a blessing and a curse. But you were willing to tame the beast and you have been rewarded. Those who didn't do their homework have graded Thiel speakers as "harsh and bright." "Ear bleeding" is another category. As you have discovered, there are a number of ways to overcome such issues, one very good option is to use tubes. Impedance of thiels drop to 2 Ohms and may require bit more power to get the best out of it. 

Glad you found a winning combo. I sold the first Thiel speakers in the late 70’s. They sounded bright with everything in the store. The later models always sounded bright to my ears, probably always driven by SS gear.

audiodwebe

Good to read that your CS 2.3 loudspeakers are alive again! Feel free to join us over on the Thiel Owners thread.

Happy Listening!

once again we see that synergy is the lifeblood of putting together great sounding systems

thiels are a challenge to drive, quite revealing... when done right, they can be amazing - other stuff feeding.driving them will be pretty pricey though

Thanks.  I’ll check out the thread.

Sounds like an "A-ha" moment for sure.  

@audiodwebe 

I've owned and enjoyed Thiel speakers for years.  I have a pair of CS 2.4 speakers in my living room (the very next iteration of the model you own) very nicely driven by solid state gear.  But it is not untypical for Thiel speakers to present a very demanding and challenging load exhibiting a wicked impedance curve. 

You might enjoy checking out the Thiel Owners thread here on Audiogon.