Thiel and Jeff Rowland

I own the Jeff Rowland Concentra integrated connected to ProAc 2.5 speakers (Meridian 508.20) and like this combination. I have owned Thiel speakers before and they are complex and do not sound good with all amplifiers. Please listen before you buy. cheers.....

I wholeheartedly agree with others who recommended the Krell KSA-150 (which I have) and the 250 amp with the 3.6s. Great presence and soundstage with that combination. Now I'm looking for the right preamp to run the Krell in balanced mode. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

thanks again for the feedback, the good kind. i wrote a note to thiel asking this question. if i hear anything ill let you know.

http://gonmain.iserver.net/cgi-bin/cl.pl?ampstran&985292394
Don't know if you saw these yet ???May be worth looking into?

I don't know if your going to spend what the Rowland 8Ti goes for but that was the amp I borrowed to audition...WOW!!
Smooth as butter on almost all recordings,from old to new.
Look for a Rowland from '91 to '96 with 150 wpc minimum.That
is going to be my next move in the spring just for arguments
sake. Not many Rowlands make it to the used market,but the ones that do keep a fairly high resale value.--------After listening to Krell KSA-150/250's there was a warmer sound from the Rowland but the sheer control over the 3.6's was had by the KSA-250, "GOOD" MIT cables started to bring back the warmth to the Thiels and left me feeling that I was not missing anything. The boys @ Thiel even agree that the older
KSA-150/250 amps with MIT Highline series wires sound very,very good....as do Goertz wires.(haven't tried them yet)...BRYhifi

At different times, but not together, I have owned both the 3.6s and the Concentra Integrated Model 1 (not the newly released Model II) and I have some reservations about how well that combination may work together electronically. The Thiel 3.6 is a truly excellent speaker, and I made a huge mistake in selling it (i.e. sometimes an upgrade turns out to be a downgrade). However, because the impedance is often well below 4 ohms, it can present a very difficult load for an amplifier, depending partially of course upon how loud you play your system. The Concentra I ( as incidentally is also the case with the Levinson 383) does not always like to see lower impedance loads, and thus the combination of the two may be questionable in terms of extracting the maximum performance benefits. The Concentra is beautifully built, and its ergonomic feel is the best I have ever experienced in my 36 years as an audio hobbyist. Under more normal conditions, it sounds superb and I would absolutely agree with all of the positive comments I have read.

thanks bryhifi. just building now. have wadia 27ix/270 and like the 3.6's i've demo'd a lot. the room now is small but eventualy will be 1100 sqft or so. i've read so much about the 3.6's in combination with classe, krell, and ml, but never read any one who has hooked them up to rowlands, which as i understand are less dry, as you put it, than ml, and rowlands are on the list of amps that thiel recommends.

Stevedepp,how big is the room that you'll be using???If it's fairly large than I can tell you first hand that you'll need quite a bit of power to get the 3.6's up to a fun volume.If you don't listen to your system loud than it won't be as bad.Personally I thought the ML amps were to dry sounding with my 3.6's and finally settled in with an older Krell amp with lots of balls at a very low cost compared to new pricing! Did try a Rowland on loan from a local dealer and it sounded sweet but cost was too big of a factor for a minor sound difference to the Krell. As always your front end source components may bring you different results than mine with regard to ML sounding dry. 3.6's are ruthless with what you put in front of them and connect up with but once you find the synergy they will explode into your listening room with pure , coherent , MUSIC!!! as a musician my ears are very pleased with accuracy & timbre.
What is your front end set-up?????BRYhifi