Thiel Owners

Hello, I am new to this forum as well to a pair of CS2s. Of which I just replaced the dust covers and grill cloths, veneer will likely follow. I consider them worthy candidates for the work.

Couple of questions and thank you in advance for any help!

I understand there was a update to this model during it's production that offered beneficial sonic upgrades. Does anyone know the approx serial # this began? Mine are in the 3ks.

Has anyone recapped these crossovers and if so results?

Again, thank you and I look forward to reviewing the 262 pages of knowledge and opinion as time allows.

Scott

quasar24

Welcome! Scott. Good to see you here today. The Panel does have a couple of CS2 fans and owners. Feel free to peruse these pages or stay tuned until one of the CS2 experts chimes in to address your query. I am looking forward in reading more about your Musical tastes and System.

Happy Listening!

Curious if anyone here knows the CS3 frequency response without the Bass EQ? I have the original documentation that came with my CS3's but it only shows the response with the Bass EQ.

Hello Scott,

Good to meet you. In these 262 pages there has been barely a whiff of mention of the CS2. I'll attach a tribute I wrote to the CS2 several years ago and add some here.

Generally first generation Thiel models survive a few years before they get replaced by what we learned first out. The CS2.2 (1991) came seven years (longest run)  after the 2 (1984) with over 7500 pair sold - most in our history. Its clear mission was as trickle-down from the model 3 plus benign tradeoffs: Less bass extension, less output capacity, smaller woofer allowing an octave higher transition to smaller midrange for easier transition to the tweeter. It worked.

I'll add that the cabinet material :1-1/8" industrial particleboard of 100% spruce for almost double the stiffness of the later 1" MDF made for one of the best cabinets in our long history. 

To your question, the XO transition serial number was 4901 about 2 years in. Rob Gillum of Coherent Source Service can tell us the particulars, but I have the later schematic. I can supply some back-story. Larry Archibald, then publisher of Stereophile loved the CS2s, but niggled them more than once in print. I found out more than a year later that he listened exclusively without grilles, even though he was told and other reviewers enumerated how integral the grille was to their performance. We wanted Larry to update the record with his better assessment, which he wouldn't do (egg on his face). So Jim looked for an improvement and found an extremely subtle change which gave Larry a scapegoat. Short story is that the grille's absence accounted for the lion's share of Larry's complaint. Also, you may not have the 1" butyl tape anchoring the grille board to the baffle, which brings further significant improvement.

I agree that the CS2 is worthy of upgrade and may have been hot-rodded by some on this forum. But things get a little sticky. That tweeter and midrange are no longer available. The woofer is early but true Jim Thiel with many enhancements. It will stay. Rob has a midrange drop-in if a re-engineered unit proves unfeasible. Understand that newly developed drivers are to fit multiple products in order to justify their development cost. The CS5 needs a lower tweeter which is now an unviable 2" MB Quart dome, and the CS2 and 2.2 need a small midrange. A  3" Thiel driver might fill both the CS2 and CS5 needs. It would use the double-cone geometry and Jim's lifetime motor improvements. This is not a front-burner project, but of great personal interest to me.

Bottom line is that mid and tweeter changes require crossover changes. So you don't want to dive too deeply tweaking around obsolete drivers. All that said, there is some low-hanging fruit for you. Replacing the series resistors with Mills MRA12s makes for an inexpensive and lovely improvement. There are 1 tweeter and  2 midrange feed caps to replace with Clarity CSAs to significantly clean up the sound. Of further note, as many on this forum know, I've been developing new internal wire. It is lab proven and now being developed for manufacturing. It incorporates new art and I am as thrilled as can be about its upgrade performance, including affordability.

Within the foreseeable future your speakers will be formally addressed. For now, I probably have those caps for you to experiment with, and the resistors are readil available. Send me a PM if interested in wading in.

Here's a readout of the CS2 tribute.

CS2 Chapter in Thiel History

The CS2 began life in 1984 after the game-changing introduction of the CS3 in 1983.

The CS3 was the 4^th iteration of the model 3 – equalized sealed 10” 3-way with bass response to 20Hz. It demanded a fairly large room, a very robust woofer, and a midrange to cover 7+ octaves including in and out ramps. The model 3 spent significant budget on that very capable woofer and the active equalizer to take it so low. Its right price was considerably higher than Jim wanted to charge, and many of its virtues were not needed by many listeners.

The model 4 filled smaller spaces with a bass limit in the mid 40s from a ported 6.5” two-way floor-stander. That format became the CS1 series.

Thiel needed something for smaller rooms with less demanding bass at significantly lower cost than the CS3 while providing better performance than the 04/CS1. The CS2 was born from that need. From the beginning its identity included trimming costs without sacrificing performance beyond bass extension. In fact, its midrange could be cleaner since its crosspoint came in at 800Hz rather than the model 3's 400Hz.

By this time Thiel had established a strong working relationship with Vifa, who co-developed a 3.5” full-range driver for our CS2 midrange needs. Vifa and Jim co-developed the woofer with some of his emerging motor geometries and techniques, even though it was still a conventional overhung motor design. A reflex woofer costs about half of a boosted sealed woofer because its low-frequency linear excursion requirement stops at the port tuning.

In 1984 all cabinet work was still conventional tablesaw work along with our newly acquired inverted router. The CS3 baffle was being sculpted with hand tools, at considerable cost. We developed the routable CS2 grille board as a wave-guide and diffraction control mechanism with considerable success, at very low cost compared to the CS3 baffle. Later when we bonded the grille to the baffle with rubber tape, it became even more effective. The port cost nearly nothing compared to the $ multi-hundred equalizer, which audiophiles wanted to be more transparent (requiring higher cost.) The CS2 load was a very resistive 6 ohms minimum, and moderate 87dB sensitivity, making it extraordinarily easy to drive. We focused our collective energies into cost-effectively producing this low-cost / nearly full range, coherent source for smaller spaces. It was our first real hit.

The introductory price was $1350/ pair against the CS3's (insufficient) $1950. It met its market and sold consistently well. Its 1991 replacement CS2.2 was driven by our developing CNC capability for a more sophisticated cabinet to support new driver technologies first developed for the 1988 CS5.

The CS2 served as a sophisticated, elegant entry-level speaker for a broad audience. It sold about 7500 pairs over its 7 years, the most of any Thiel model.