Thiel Owners


Guys-

I just scored a sweet pair of CS 2.4SE loudspeakers. Anyone else currently or previously owned this model?
Owners of the CS 2.4 or CS 2.7 are free to chime in as well. Thiel are excellent w/ both tubed or solid-state gear!

Keep me posted & Happy Listening!
jafant

ronkent - Regarding your mod. Be aware that the 3.7 mod that Rob suggested applies to only some speakers, not all. There was a QC problem with FST that required Thiel to test and characterize all incoming 3.7 coaxes and apply padding resistors as needed to bring the amplitude to standard. There were also harmonic distortion problems, which were failed and rebuilt in-house. When reworking drivers, CSS would add the resistors directly to the input terminals, or as in this case specify where to put them in the crossover.

Later, the coaxes were built to proper spec and noted with black trim rings. The 3.7 has an octave-to-octave balance within ± 0.5dB. So, you don’t want to pad it down unless it is out of spec, which is possible.

Note also that the mod as described here (padding both mid and tweeter) would effectively raise the woofer level a couple of dB. Moving the speaker closer to a boundary wall should accomplish the same thing. Also, any perceived brightness could be caused by harmonic distortion rather than simple excess amplitude. In that case padding down would reduce the gross amount of distorted output, but not cure the cause.

Roxy54 - for the record, with the 1987 CS3.5 we converted from 60/40 solder to silver solder for all our speakers. Our choice was the aerospace standard Alpha SAC-305 which is 96.5% tin, 3% silver, and 0.5% copper. It is not only permanent, but is technically superior. The improvements are audible. It requires higher melting temperature, but achievable with a 140 watt soldering gun.

@tomthiel 

That is exactly what I was thinking. As a former bench jeweler, I knew that pure silver would be impossible to use for this purpose. I have used the 3% type that you mention on crossovers. Thanks for the clarification.

ronkent

Thank You for sharing your "mod" project. Enjoy the Music.

 

Happy Listening!

hi Tom,   thank you so much for your response to my post about the mods i did to the coax of the 3.7's.  To clarify it was Rob G who suggested this tweak if we found the top end to be a bit bright and he sent me four 3 ohm resistors to try along with some silver solder.  My friend Bob is much more proficient and comfortable working with a soldering gun and tried different iterations on his 3.7's.  After using the ones Rob had sent he also tried some from Parts Express (see above) in the same value.  Thought the padding was too much and then tried using them in parallel  (becoming 1.5 ohm) which he really liked.  Same here.  We both have extremely good gear with me using a Coda 16 amp,  a BAT VK-80 preamp,  and a digital front end by PS Audio.,

What i heard is along the lines of what you described.   If I could put it in layman's language (i am not very technical),  if i had tone controls in my system,  it would be as if i turned the treble down one click and the bass up one click.   It really made the system more enjoyable than it already was and it was great.  The VP of BAT (Steve) visited my home last fall (before the mod) and was incredibly impressed with the sound i was getting out of a speaker from 2008.  So impressed that he actually may get a pair of the 3.7's someday. 

Others may not like the way the resistors changed the sound but for myself and my friend Bob,  it was a move in the right direction.  Thanks for all you do Tom.  It is greatly appreciated.