Thiel Owners

I just bought a mint condition Thiel CS.5 and very happy with the results I am getting in my room. This is a serious speaker indeed. Paired with a Vincent SV-236MK integrated amp (tested also with a Rogue Sphinx and a NAD C275BEE power amp) it produced a big holographic sound with amazing consistency from top to bottom, and for my surprise they were the most easy speakers to place in the room up until now.

The speakers just disappear and the bass is very satisfying in my 3,6 x 4,9m dedicated listening room. Some CS.5 users reported a week bass output but in my room (and to my tastes) it is are very good and proportional to the rest of the spectrum.

A praise must be given also to the top end quality: I am discovering so much new details in very well known records... it is addictive!

Some of my other speakers are: Totem Arro, KEF LS50 and Duevel Planets, and they all have their strengths but I find the Thiel to be easily more engaging and true to the music.

I also love the design and the built quality and I am proud to own them.

I am having so much fun with my Thiel CS.5 but sometimes I feel the need for a bit more bass.

My room is rectangular shape (speakers on the short wall) with 2,42cm ceilings and a total area of 18sq meters.

The amp that I currently use is the Vincent SV237MK (250w/4ohms), famous for a well extended quality bass deliver. Although I have a REL Stampede 5 subwoofer, I never use it because I have always found that it mess the speakers natural voicing / balance.

Following general Thiel instructions I use the CS.5:

- resting on the 3 plastic cups (without spikes) on hard concrete floor

- grilles on

- straight, without toe-in

- distant from the boundaries, more or less where all my other speakers work well in my room (90cm from front wall, 76cm from side wall, 185cm between them, 278cm from speakers to listening position).

- good neutral to warm speaker cables, VanDamme LC-OFC 4mm or Straightwire Encore.

The imaging and tonality is better away from the front wall, and moving my chair closer to the speakers mess up the balance between the drivers... any suggestions?

I continue to enjoy my CS.5 and still looking for a mint pair of CS1.5 or the more modern 1.6, only to get a tad more bass and grunt… love the sound :)

This is one of the most satisfying components on the proud of ownership scale…

@jafant 

thanks :)

unfortunately, here in Europe, Thiel speakers were always expensive and a bit rare. But I am still looking for a mint pair.

The have my kind of sound without a doubt:)

I have the chance to buy a pair of mint condition SCS4T and I wonder if someone can share some users experiences.

I have a small dedicated listening room (190 sq feet) and perhaps it can work in such small space.

Thanks.

I have been enjoying my Thiel CS.5 from time to time, as I roll several components along the year, but they have been a bit forgotten by the arrival of the Magnepan LRS+, little more than a year ago.

The CS.5 sounded very good powered by the Vincent SV-237MK, Rogue Sphinx v1 (both already sold) and specially engaging with the Naim 122x / Fc2x / 150x (a surprise!).

Some months ago, the Kinki Studio EX-P7 and EX-M7 pre-power combo came to elevate the system’s performance to a new level, in every aspect. This was with the Totem Model and the LRS+.

Then, a week a go, it was time to give place to CS.5 and my jaw immediately dropped! I have never listened to this level of quality from the little Thiels! My lord! The imaging, soundstage, depth and percussion realism is like a miracle: the speakers totally vanished (like never before) presenting a huge sound, well balanced, palpable and hugely engaging. No trace of sibilance of fatiguing…

Of corse, like with the Totem or Magnepan, a REL Stampede 5 helps in the low frequencies department, but in a perfectly non-perceptive way.

Kudos to Thiel (what a quality product! They perform and look like new!)…and also to Kinki Studio :)

@jafant thanks!

To be clear, I have the small 0.5 and not the big 5 model, nevertheless they are unbelievable. 
Funny how the Copland CSA70 can efficiently power the LRS+ but not the CS.5.

After so many amplifiers it was the Kinki Studio combo that could show what these little Thiel can do! …also, they are 25+ years speakers that look and sound like new! 

@tomthiel you are probably right… although the Copland, despite not doubling the power at half the impedance, it is a amplifier designed for tough loads.
From the Hifi-News review:

…the CSA70 is a distinct, standalone amp in the range, capable of delivering 2x90W/8ohm and 2x140W/4ohm with sufficient headroom to sustain peaks of 110W, 206W, 352W and a full 475W (21.8A) into 8, 4, 2 and 1ohm loads, respectively [see Graph 1, below]. Add to this fine load tolerance a usefully low 0.01-0.07ohm output impedance and response that's flat to –0.3dB from 1Hz-20kHz (and –1.9dB/100kHz). 

Also the LRS+ are quite demanding, very evident after some listening test with very capable amps, but the Copland finally showed a very firm grip and sure footed performance.

But in the end it was the Kinki Studio combo that revealed everything (!) about the CS.5 capabilities. 
One question: what kind of speaker cable is recommended for the Thiels?

@tomthiel the Kinki Studio power amplifier is indeed different animal, very powerful and transparent with a superior damping factor.

A technical description (taken from the excellent SoundNews review (*) can shed some light about it:

“The EX-M7 is a direct DC coupled power amplifier, meaning that it doesn’t have a single capacitor in the signal path, all the caps you see are used only for power filtering or for storing power for high dynamic swings. You should know that M7 is working in Class-AB, meaning that is consumes a lot of power, offers a lot of power in return and dissipates a lot of heat as well.

With a direct DC coupled design, offering a continuous power of 250W into 8 Ohms, 420W into 4 Ohms and almost double that number for some instantaneous dynamic swings, should result an ultra-fast response time, some world-class dynamics and an amazing transient response without affecting refinement or the detail and the transparency of the sound.

M7 is drawing power from two oversized and encapsulated 400VA toroidal transformers that can provide up to 72 Volts DC and 18 A peak current! I’m sorry, but all my past power amplifiers and integrated ones are sitting numb and silently in a corner. In terms of specs, the big guy simply outperformed them all.

The incredible spec sheet doesn’t stop here: 4 Exicon mosfets are driving the output stage – these are among the best you could possibly have, there are also 4 output transistors per channel (8 in total) that should provide an instant power delivery to your loudspeakers, some high-performance Mundorf caps for power filtering, 8 incredibly large blue caps per channel for storing DC power, another 2 smaller toroidal transformers, I see some juicy and oversized ceramic resistors, and the list goes on and on”

(*) - https://soundnews.net/amplifiers/power-amps/kinki-studio-ex-m7-power-amp-review-a-natural-bare-knuckle-pugilist/

@unsound, I am not guided by specs since I am not educated enough to understand all of the parameters, but perhaps others can. Like perhaps most of us, my “tools” are my ears and the Kinki Studio (marketing) or not do sound amazing, very transparent and powerful. 

But more importantly in this discussion is the Thiels being such a wonderful reveling speaker that demands only the best to shown his magic.