Hi all, been around for awhile, new to this discussion.
This is just my 2 cents, and here is some background.
I worked for 12+ yrs part time in the audio business, bread and butter stuff, good audio, real good stuff to select customers, we also did a small line of in-house speakers that I designed and manufactured for a few years, and we sold all I made, custom car audio, competition car audio which I did almost all the sales and all of the design and installation.
We also did commercial sales and installation. Yes I worked lots of hours........
Ok on to my setup
Thiel CS3.6 that I purchased on my birthday 8 yrs ago after waiting 20 yrs for a pair.
Even back in the day when I worked in the business, I could not afford them, rasing kids and paying for a house, but a real good pair popped up just before my birthday and my wife and decided to go have a listen, and bring my amp at the time along for the demo.
She agreed the price was quite good, the distance not to bad (120 miles away for all the US people) so we should hear them, she knew I always wanted a pair, and she has been my second set of ears since I have been around audio.
Needless to say they came home with us. The demo was ok, not earth shattering, but I knew the good was there, just needed to be brought forward with gear tweaking.
So my system has been through several changes, many different amps, pre amps and cabling.
Later I make mention of a manufacture visit, he wasn't the only one I have had visit.
Another manufacturer from here in Ottawa reached out to me, as he had heard I had a pair of Thiel CS3.6 (their reputation preceded them) and he asked if I would be kind enough to allow him to bring over a pair of mono tube amps to see how they faired with the big Thiels
His pair of mono amps (18 watts) are priced at $12K USD, or close to $15K in todays Canadian dollars.
Not enough power for daily use, sounded pretty good and he was happy with the outcome, his amps lived to tell the tale.
Where I am now is:
Thiel CS3.6 in Amberwood, all original as far as I am aware, on homemade spikes that I fabbed up, no feet or spikes came with them when I purchased.
Yorkville Audio Pro AP1200 Power Amp, yes a pro amp DESIGNED and BUILT not far from me in Yorkville Ontario Canada. Over a kilowatt of power, and a REAL 60 amps of current.
2 ohm burst power at 1kh both channels drive is 1325 watts per channel, 100kz burst power is 1025 watts and 625 continuous into 2 ohms. The amp comes setup to drive 2 ohm loads fro the factory and has to be configured internally to drive 8 ohm loads.
Yorkville says right in the manual they will drive a dead short, but please don't do it, its hard on the outputs.
Toroidal transformer is almost 9" in diameter and the thickness of the case and it makes up most of the amps 33lb weight
Adequate power to drive the hungry CS's
They are bridgeable if I really what to have serious power, 1300 watts continuous, burst at 100kz 4 ohm mono is 2 kilowatts!!
Not spec'd into 2 ohm mono, but Yorkville says it will do it no problem, as I am not driving it hard at all, it would be "just fine" they say.
90db listening levels at 8 ft in my room just lights the activity lights on the amp, so I am pretty sure I don't "need "the 2 kilowatts
These amps are designed to be dragged down the road by the cord, racked, and then drive 18" pro audio sub bins all night at clipping or just under, so they will live forever in a home environment.
I have been through a number of amps, some good, some not so good, some other Canadian amps, Audio Design amps actually and Howard Brown who was the driving force behind them back in the day is still very active on a well know Canadian audio forum, and I have had several conversations with him, a spectacular human being, Kudos Howard!
The best I actually heard on the CS's was a short demo with a Moon W5, just sublime as far as I am concerned, but out of reach money wise, and I wasn't buying the amp, it was a favour to a person buying some cables from me.
The AP is close, at 1/10 the cost, law of diminishing returns at play, me thinks so......
Stock AC cord is used, as it is captive.
Dolan PM-1 Pre amp Very well designed and built like a tank Canadian pre amp built right here in Ottawa back in the day.
Well reviewed and sought after. Amazing phono stage.
I have been blessed with having Richard Dolan ( the man responsible for the PM-1) over to the house to hear my setup and have some real interesting discussion about the design and manufacture of his pre amp, from early design, testing and listening sessions to settle on which part gets used where, some real interesting stuff. A great opportunity to host a person who actually made one of the pieces in your system, does't happen often, not to me anyway.
And if I remember correctly Richard met Jim a couple times at shows.
The Dolan story is kinda sad in some ways, I think Richard should write a book, just my opinion, and Richard is another great human being, it was pleasure to spend time with him
A spectacular pre amp, that contains 3200 parts assembled in the correct order!
Stock AC cord is used, as it is captive.
Digital Audio is done by an Asus HTPC in a audio component looking case, Intel i5 2.8 ghz 32GB ram and oversize CPU fan that runs very slow, for low noise, less that 30db at normal speed, 47db max, so I have never heard it actually except when I built the system and booted it with cover off, very quiet.
SSD 500gb OS drive Win 10 and an 8TB storage drive that contains all my media (this is my media server for my whole house) and an Asus Xonar Essence STX dedicated sound card (Dual Burr-Brown 24 bit DAC's) that I use to feed the Dolan PM-1. Foobar is my media front end of choice, along with app on my Android phone takes care of all my hard digital media as well as any streaming service I prefer.
I have some HiRez stuff and some not so high rez, but all ripped in lossless if at all possible.
I use a Tara Labs Prism AC power cable to the HTPC, and I purchased the best 650 watt power supply that I could when I built the HTPC, the Zonar is also powered from the power supply via Molex connector, not from the PCI-e bus.
Systemdek iiX turntable with Profile arm and a Shure M95HE cartridge for my LP collection.
The Dolan has a spectacular phono stage in it, one reason they are sought after, is that vey reason, and Richard telling me about that was a small book on its own, lets just say that was was the most time spent on the pre.
Cabling and speaker cable is all Tara Labs RSC Reference Gen 2 that I have owned since being in the business, best cable as far as I am concerned, I am sure YMMV
I also have a couple pieces of Cardas Neutral Reference RCA and they are good, but I like the detail of the Tara, feed the Thiels the best possible signal, don't sugar coat it.
So I love my CS3.6, I will alway have them, as far as I am concerned, my last pair of speakers, I may pick up something else interesting, but the 3.6's stay.
They do everything I need them to do, and they play all the music I listen too, and that range is pretty wide and they play as quiet or as loud as I need, and at low volume they DO NOT lose the dynamics, and thats quite a trick to pull off.
I know some say they are "hard" "bright" "brittle" and I feel for those people that haven't heard them driven correctly, but peoples tastes vary, some people like a coloured speaker, I don't.
Ok, I have babbled enough.
I just need to say thanks to the group, and mostly to Jim for leaving us a suburb product for all of us to enjoy.
Thanks again Jim where ever you are!
