Thiel Owners

Unsound - an interesting thing about the 3.6 is that the drivers and XO are extremely well developed. The specs are great. However, it is the product where I identified the "hard glare" which I have been working to ameliorate with surface flow technologies. An updated 3.6 may perhaps be the easiest products to upgrade. Or so it seems at least until it gets on the bench.

I believe that a peer would have been good for him, his products, his company, and its future. But he never found that place. We all make our way the best we can. Thiel Audio carried him pretty well.

This is a very sweet and succinct assessment of Jim and his company.  As only a brother could write for us.

@tomthiel, I think your 3 series division is most logical. There is much respective overlaps there. The division also corresponds to amplification requirements of their respective eras, earlier models >4Ohms, later models <3 Ohms, and what users might have built around. I have no idea how many units have survived. IMHO, the marketplace for these  speakers is too unstable now to use as a barometer.

@thielrules, this also true of many other manufacturer's powered subs. Unlike some high end consumer class D amps, the OEM Class D units have perhaps become the most persistent break down problem in audio presently. 

We have not yet developed a maintenance solution, but are working on it.

Although the Thiel subs are great, I decided not to go this route as Rob warned me that he can't service these build in amps. When they malfunction, you are stuck. 

Unsound - you've got me thinking . . . I've been considering the 3.6 as the terminal discrete driver iteration of the model 3. But it might be more rightly thought of as a transition product between the sealed-bass "pure 3s" and the reflex bass "new 3s". The CS3 and 3.5 were, if I remember correctly, identical except for the midrange driver with its crossover tweaks, and the single jacks. The CS3 mid was too fragile and the more robust 3.5 mid was in fact a full-range driver. Any upgrades to the 3.5 could be applied to the 3 as well, creating perhaps a 3.5r (renaissance) as the next "pure 3". Combined, about 7500 pair or 'pure 3s' were sold. We know some of them survive on this forum and my "new" pair in the studio. How many do you think are out there?

Hey Jafant.

For interconnects, I generally use the Audioquest Evergreens. I think they sound good, are well made, and are generally a good value. My speaker cables are DIY built from some bulk Canare Star Quad cable I picked up a few years ago. 

How about you?

rockrink

I am looking forward in reading about the consultation with Rob.
Which cables/cords round out your system?
Big Lucinda Williams fan as well.

Happy Listening!

Thanks for the warm welcome. 

I checked the model number last night, and I stand corrected. The correct model is 03A. 

I have reached out to Mr. Gillum and will keep the group posted.

I have these paired with an Electrocompaniet integrated amp. I play vinyl from a VPI Scout and digital streaming using Audirvana running on a mac mini. My tastes range from Lucinda Williams to Led Zeppelin to Max Richter to Mark Knopfler and all points in between. And I am always looking for new music to listen to. When I first brought the Thiels into our living room, I played Lucinda's Rescue from her album West as a demo for my wife, and she just stared at the speakers and smiled. Scuffs and scars and all, they are now a part of our decor. 

I believe that a peer would have been good for him, his products, his company, and its future. But he never found that place. We all make our way the best we can. Thiel Audio carried him pretty well.

Unsound - again I agree. I suppose “maddening” is the word I would attach to Jim’s insistence on such low impedances.

@tomthiel, I guess you like the flat drivers. :-).
The other reason I’d be some what less interested in an updated 3.6 is the amplifier straining impedance load, without the redeeming lobing fix.

Saw Simon over at Audio Consultants yesterday where they are in process of cleaning up what little they have left. In case anyone is interested, among the leftovers was a pair of Thiel SCS3 speakers.

Unsound - I believe that the wavy driver completely eliminates lobing at its cross point, leaving only the lower cross point to lobe. And the 3.7 lower point is so low that beaming is quite minimal, so the on and off axis response is effectively very similar, leaving only on axis ear height as a constraint, which is easily solvable - sit on a couch or easy chair. The flat wavy disc practically solves the hollow tweeter launch environment. Can you tell that I’m a fan? 
My main reason for addressing the older models is due to their geriatric needs, the large quantities, and the greater room for improvement.

rockrink

Welcome! Good to see you here. Consult Mr. Rob Gillum at Coherent Source Service (CSS) in Lexington KY. Keep us posted on your progress. I look forward in reading more about your musical tastes and system.

Happy Listening!

@tomthiel, the flat concentric mid/tweeter of the 3.7’s are of greater interest to me than the 3.6’s separate drivers. I would imagine the concentric driver could go a long way towards ameliorating lobing issues?

Brayeagle - thanks. I also confirmed with Rob that the SS2.2 is all Jim's design, updated by an improved amplifier.
Unsound - I don't know. The motor and coil could be the same, but the surround, spider - compliance in general, and moving system mass would have to be altered. It would be a piece of cake for Jim to modify such a woofer, and could also be done by SEAS, etc. But, as usual, a stable forward-reaching company would have to take on such an endeavor, DIY couldn't in my opinion.
Robrink - sorry that I missed it. I gather that you have 03As. Well worth upgrading. I remember those plinths as made from Baltic Birch, which could be repaired by a local cabinet shop.

Tom,
   "Does anybody here know if the SS2.2 has the room boundary compensation.?"

Yes, it does. Mine is corrected in meters,, rather than feet. 

@tomthiel, understood. Could the parameters of the original woofers be modified to make them more appropriate?

Unsound / Warren - a woofer designed for sealed box loading is a different animal from a ported unit. What you propose is very interesting to me. I would like to take a 3.6 and replace the woofer for a sealed box loading to make a super 3.5. That would be a worthy undertaking in my estimation. 

Robrink - 02A doesn't sound like a Thiel model. Can you tell us anything about it?

@robrink, You might want to start here:

https://www.coherentsourceservice.com/

Does anyone have information about the 02A floor standers. I have a pair and had the mids rebuilt. I finally convinced my wife that we should "test" them out in our main listening/living room. Now, she won't stop listening to them and the pretty newish non-Thiel speakers that had been in that room are relegated to my home office.

I am trying to see about having the crossovers rebuilt. Also, they have the black built-in pedestal stands where the terminals are located, which are made of MDF and have absorbed moisture over the years. Any tips on getting replacement pedestals is greatly appreciated. 

Thanks all.

@warjarrett, I'm envious of your potential setup! I'm confident that such a configuration will compete with systems that cost multiplies of your proposed Thiel system.
I'm not trying to tell you what to do or how to decorate,  but...,there is a strong argument to be made for using even more than 2 subs. Using even more multiple smaller subs to even out room induced anomalies that particularly effect bass response, might be more effective than a couple of larger subs. DSP can also be quite helpful with bass peaks though much less so with nulls. Of course vertical space loss might be less intrusive than extra footprint room space loss. Not to mention the extra cabling required. With so much invested in bass response, one has to wonder if the 3.7's could be modified for sealed bass response? Perhaps replacing the passive radiator with another woofer and appropriate cross-over to compensate for differing proximities to the floor and the variables that brings.

What ever you decide, I wish you the best of luck and do hope your report back on your decisions and results. I'm sure many here share my envious curiosity.



I

Speaking of boundary compensation (that is correction for SBIR --- Speaker Boundary Interference Response), Thiel smart subs have SBIR correction to compensate for reflections off the front and side walls, but not the rear wall (behind the listener). It turned out I had a major rear-wall SBIR problem that could not be fixed by adding forward facing subs along or near the front wall of any size or quantity. The only cure was a sizeable array of *tuned* bass traps on the rear wall, tuned in my case around 50 Hz (where regular bass traps have very little effect). The key diagnostic for rear-wall SBIR is that the drop-out frequency shifts with distance from the listening position to the rear wall, but not with sub placement along the front wall. Once that problem was fixed, I did go with a 2-sub solution that works very well.

The distance from the LP to the rear wall gives you the quarter-wavelength of the SBIR dropout. From that you can find the dropout’s center frequency. If that frequency is well above your bass range, you can feel safe that you don’t have a rear-wall SBIR problem.

My room dimensions are roughly 15’ (front wall width) by 22’ x 8’3". I wish I had higher ceilings, but otherwise the room sounds great –– after treatment for early reflections, general bass control, and the aforementioned tuned bass traps for SBIR.

I strongly agree with other posters that emphasize the importance of getting your room’s bass response under control before going too far with adding subs. If your bass reverberation times are too long, adding more bass is likely to seriously degrade your sound.

....

I’m likely the guy with the Thiel SI-1 active crossover that @tomthiel mentioned. Although the passive PXO crossovers also do a fine job blending subs with mains, active crossovers also relieve the mains from reproducing low bass. This audibly improves the sound of my 3.7s (for a number of physical reasons): sweeter highs and plays louder w/o distortion. I was looking at Marchand active crossovers just before my SI-1 came up for sale. I wanted a crossover with balanced circuitry, and one of the Marchand variants was the only one I could find, other than the SI-1, that had this feature. In principle, a properly configured Marchand X-over should bring similar benefits, but the SI-1 was designed by Jim Thiel to make configuration a snap, even for non-experts.

Correction: I have read that the SS2.2 was introduced when Kathy was still president, so it would be an update of Jim's design. The conversation and questions I am remembering must have come later in the game.

Warren- wow. Let us know how this venture unfolds. Are you a closet headbanger?

FWIW - I think the SS2.2 is a post Jim Thiel alteration , much like the CS1.7 was. Does anybody here know if the SS2.2 has the room boundary compensation.?

Regarding subwoofers for my CS3.7s, I am throwing caution into the wind, along with money  (gulp). I am buying two SS3 subs, and providing all the answers that I was hoping someone here could answer for me. The single SS2.2 I have now is on US Audiomart. But I suspect just adding another SS2.2 would have been the more conservative and equally satisfying route.

Do you mean the 3.6 made it, but the 3.5 and 3.7 didn't? I strongly disagree with that. Every model in the 3 series was an innovative step forward in audiophile speaker history. The O3a was reviewed as unmatched in palpability of imaging. The CS3.5 was an O3a and 3.0 perfected, with an EQ that really brought full bass to a reasonbly priced speaker along with every audiophile quality fully provided.

The 3.6 sold a lot, and was a little better than the 3.5, but not so revolutionary in the history of audio. The 3.7 was the designer's testiment in revolution, execu5ion, performance, and accuracy including the most advanced custom driver designs ever yet marketed.

Check out The 10 Most Influential Speakers of the Last 50 Years article over on Audioholics.com -  Thiel Audio 3.6 makes this list.

Happy Listening!

@warjarrett, Perhaps 2 SS1's might work for you?

Warren - I lack the direct comparison of SS2 vs SS3, but can share some relevant experience. I have one SS1 and two SS2s, which I have mixed and matched and moved around. First, my room is weird. It is my guitar-making and music studio and speaker workshop rolled into one. Its acoustics are good, but unusual, so YMMV. In the corner of a second floor residential-construction building with 12K cuft with open stairway connection at far corner to identical space below and smaller attic space above. Lots of volume. Playback is intelligible anywhere in the whole envelope. The studio walls enclose 3600 cuft in an L with front and left exterior walls solid and other walls porous - non-reflective with lots of diffusion. Virtually no room modes. Speakers in the assymetric L corner, listening in the 15’ wide top of L. It’s weird, but it works and presents neutral sound and smooth measurements.

In this context I have experimented with Thiel subwoofers.
SS1 between speakers and in solid corner (front left). Thiel PXO sums R&L channels. Dedicated XOs for PPoints, CS1.6, CS2.4 (used with my CS2.2s) and CS3.6. The PPs and 1.6 are substantially upgraded by deep bass. The 2.2s and 3.6s additional deep bass is nice, but not musically necessary for me. Same speakers with pair of SS2s. The musical experience is qualitatively improved with all speakers. The art of mixing includes collapsing to mono without cancellation, but that business is difficult and approximate at best, as Unsound noted. Note that using a pair of subwoofers driven by a single PXO was substantially inferior to using a pair of PXOs, one for each channel, which keeps the bass information of that channel with the speaker for that channel, as Unsound  observed above.

Regarding replacing an SS2 with SS3, I believe the only reason would be if your space / loudness requirements are overloading the SS2. I don’t overload my SS1 in the corner (best coupling) at robust loudness levels into an effectively huge space. Any model SS's low frequency extension is lower than musical content for all practical purposes. My experience is that a pair of SS1s or SS2s with 2 PXOs provides a highly satisfying musical experience for 2 channel music. I plead ignorance of HT .1 channel.
Note that someone here previously reported a big step up by using Thiel’s Sub Integrator whereby you can tailor a sub to woofer crosspoint at a higher frequency and custom slopes. I want one, but haven’t seen any on the market. Perhaps your Marchand might provide that function. I consider all of these options as more satisfying than going to an SS3, UNLESS you have a very large room, listen at loud levels, and are running out of steam with the SS2. I vote that two SS2s in any placement driven by two separate PXOs would be worth an audition.
Enjoy,
Tom

And, there is more to this integration of SS subwoofers to CS3.7 speakers. The Thiel passive crossover that is specifically configured for CS3.7 speakers was designed to only have a mono output. So one subwoofer was the original design concept. I would have to use Y adapters to split for two subwoofers, so they would both be mono anyway. 

It is a wonderful implementation because the crossover adds nothing in the signal path going  to the main speakers. The CS3.7s run full range. The crossover only senses the main speakers' signals from theor speaker cables, then transfers that information to the subwoofer to create ONLY the bass that 3.7s cannot reproduce alone. 

I do have a very nice Marchand active crossover I could use, but it seems to me that Thiel figured this all out, so why not use their passive crossover as intended?

tomthiel

I can second your assessment of the CS 2.7 vs. CS 3.7 models. Precisely reported. Room size/space should be the deciding factor.

Happy Listening!

Is there anyone reading this who has heard the difference between a SS2 subwoofer vs. a SS3 subwoofer?

I just don't want two of these big subwoofers in my living room. So for me, it looks like I will have to experiment for myself, 1 SS2 vs. 1 SS3. A pair of SS3 subwoofers would cost more than than the 3.7s are worth and has got to be overkill for just 2 channel music with CS3.7 speakers.

unsound  

Have to agree with  you. Was able to find one SS2.2 sub for my 2.7s. Financial constraints prohibited acquiring the second one. 

With a majority of my classical CD s,  it's not noticeable, except when the bass viol is  solo or prominent (right side of soundstage.)

@warjarrett, tomthiel set you right. Two subs are better than one. Especially for two channel music as opposed to the .1 output for home theatre. Unlike HT with it’s dedicated sub channel, when using one sub for two channel sources, the bass frequencies need to be summed. It’s possible that one channels signal will be overlapping and opposing the other channel, which can actually cause bass subtraction. Furthermore, having two subs can distribute the bass in the room so that room influenced peaks and valleys can be evened out.

To anyone who has used Thiel SS2 or SS3 subwoofer(s), either single or pair, with CS3.7 speakers, playing 2-channel music (not multi-channel video), I would like to ask for your advice. I currently listen to a pair of CS3.7 with a single SS2 in the middle of the CS3.7s, and now I feel like upgrading the subwoofer.

Shall I get another SS2, and run a pair of them, OR, shall I sell the SS2 and buy a SS3? Tom Thiel recommends a pair of SS2 over a SS3, for stereo music listening. But for me, that is starting to make my living room too full of speakers. I would rather trade-up in woofer size to a single SS3. The question is: What sonic benefits will I be likely to hear, comparing these two models, and will being bigger actually provide a sonic upgrade?

I don't usually play loud, bass heavy music. Maybe a Mahler Symphony could benefit from a little more bass power for the tympany drums, and I would like to hear Tool or Perfect Circle with lower and more powerful bass.

But what will I really hear, if I were to get the pair of 12" woofers (in a SS3) compared to the pair of 10" woofers (in the SS2) that I have now? According to the specs, the bigger woofers don't actually play lower, just louder.

These numbers were chosen as an example, but isn’t as unlikely as it seems. These are peak levels taken from the listening position (9’) from a pair of speakers playing (2 speakers = +3dB) with some room boost, and C-weighting (accounting for most of the bass). That’s not filling the entire room with 100dB, those are peak readings at a semi-nearfield listening position in a near-ideal room for these speakers. And this represents probably less than 5% of my overall listening, and then for perhaps a side of an album. 95dB peaks would be a more typical *loud* listening session, still infrequent, with *no* 2.4 power handling concerns.

Even then, if that highest level is 105dB at 1m, that’s ~100 amplifier watts (if they’re 87dB@1W/1m), and my amp delivers ~500 watts per channel into 2 ohms with plenty of dynamic headroom. I now better know the limits of the limited midrange, and am comfortable with keeping volume and program material well within their comfort zone. I have never heard my amp compress, harden, and certainly not clip at any volume into any speaker load, which suggests I’m not intent on finding the limits of my amp or any guest speaker!

Rob Gillum tells me in ’destruction testing’ of the similar 2.3 coax development, they typically achieved 115dB SPL steady-state (not transients) before ’it blew apart’ (with 600W Krell monoblocks), and that 100dB peak SPLs from 2.4s should be reasonable in a 3000 cubic foot room (mine is 2500). FWIW, I have never blown a 2.3 coax, even though we have no reason to believe they are a sturdier design. Indeed, Rob says his current rebuilds of these drivers use more-modern adhesives and construction techniques that will increase the robustness of the 2.3/2.4 coax.

Half my coaxes were covered under warranty, and only one exhibited obvious signs of being driven beyond its excursion limit. More typically the lead wires fatigue from years of excursions (well within the driver's (motor + surround) excursion limits) and open the circuit.  Rebuilding a coax every couple years is a whole lot cheaper than buying a speaker today that ticks as many boxes for me as my 2.4s!

if playing 100dB, mid asked to put out 250Hz percussives at 88dB (round 'electrical' numbers, not taking acoustic roll-off contributions to the end-result 6dB/octave slopes.)). Ask Rob how many 2.4 coaxes I've gone through, and not due to lack of clean watts and amps!

Interesting. If ability to play >100 dB was an important factor to me I would probably look at something like the JBL K2 S9800. Modestly efficient Thiels with their low impedance seem a, um, sub-optimal choice for those who like to listen at very high SPLs. And to still have your CS2.4s after burning multiple coaxes? You must *really* like their sound!

Correction: In the second last paragraph I mis-typed 3.7 and 2.7 where I meant to say that the model 3 was designed to play louder . . . and the model 2 was to be more intimate . . .

sdecker - you are asking the right questions. And I have no answers. Remember that I had no involvement or insider information from 1995 to 2012. I'll tell you what little I have pieced together. Please pardon any repetition for the long term readers.

Thiel created the CS2.7 to develop and demonstrate their ability to produce valid products without Jim. They auditioned multiple inside and outside engineering solutions and landed on Warkwyn - Toronto, a full service design development firm with full access to the Canadian Research Center which develops most of the Canadian brands' products. The concept design was developed by Home Team Thiel, and Warkwyn did the engineering and prototyping. The results were not acceptable to HTT, and that process went on for a couple of years and cost mid $six figures. I got the impression that engineering decisions, such as you iterate above, were not on the table for discussion for reasons I can only speculate.

I will say that Jim never used a cap larger than 100uF, even in parallel circuits. I will say that Jim was very cognizant of beaming and its power response implications. And it seems to me that the core personality of the 2.7 became conflated with the 3.7 to a much greater degree than previous model generations. The 3.7 was designed to play louder into larger spaces with deeper bass; whereas the 2.7 was to be more intimate in smaller spaces with less bass extension to not distress those smaller spaces, at considerably reduced cost. Such gestalt overview seems to have suffered as time went on - the 2.7 / 3.7 seem far more similar to me than the CS2 / CS3.5.

Your suggestions above seem well considered to me. I wonder with you why such basic considerations didn't make it into the product. Notice that there is a convenient slot of 2.5 - 2.6 in the line-up. Who knows what the future might bring?

@tomthiel, sorry I was off the forum for a week and didn't see your response about 2.7 development until recently.

I'm unclear why the 2.7 needed a HIGHER frequency woofer XO point than the 2.4's 1000Hz. The 3.7's 4.5" midrange should be able to much better handle lower frequencies than the 2.4's 2.5" midrange. Indeed, the 3.7 XO is at 300Hz, so the mid can go at least that low. So why not lower the XO point of the 2.7 woofer to say 500Hz for better power handling and even less beaming? That would stress the 2.7/3.7 midrange less than in the 3.7, and stress the 2.7/2.4 woofer less than in the 2.4, so a win/win with a lower XO point, but you state it is higher, and with 14X more capacitance, it would seem a LOT higher. Hmmm.  Please expound.

To that point, why wouldn't the 2.7 use 4x100uF film caps or even smaller to get to 416uF, rather than one massive 400uF? It would seem the slight increases in space and price 4 or more film caps would create would more than offset the potential sonic deficit of one giant electrolytic directly between the amp and wonderfully pure coax driver.

Indeed, that's the weakest link of the 2.4 for me, the excursions required of a 2.5" cone (effectively less when including the hole in the middle for a tweeter dome) to move enough air at lower frequencies at higher volumes, to below say 250Hz (2 octaves below XO point, so only -12dB; if playing 100dB, mid asked to put out 250Hz percussives at 88dB (round 'electrical' numbers, not taking acoustic roll-off contributions to the end-result 6dB/octave slopes.)).  Ask Rob how many 2.4 coaxes I've gone through, and not due to lack of clean watts and amps!

@8th-note, Great job reporting!
Geesh, $600 for a driver rebuild !?
....And with so much work on your part.

Re: CS6 Woofer Rebuild & Replacement

I thought I would document my experience of removing and replacing my CS6 woofer in case there might be any useful tips for other Thiel owners.

When I figured out that I had blown my woofer I called Rob and basically asked, "What now?" Rob was very patient and helpful but I also learned a few tricks myself. Here are the steps I went through.

1. Lay the speaker on the floor on its back. Do not try to remove the woofer with the speaker standing up. Rob suggested it would be easier to do the operation if you can put the speaker on some sort of stand but I had to make due with the floor because I had no way to lift a 170 lb. cabinet onto a table, nor did I have a table that would support it. When you lay the speaker on its back it is really helpful to put a pillow under the upper cabinet so that the upper part of the cabinet is slightly off the floor. That's so that you can get your fingers under it to stand it back up again. I learned this the hard way the first time I laid the speaker down to hook up the spades to the terminals.

2. Have a thick cotton towel handy to lay on the face of the speaker over the mid/tweeter so that when you remove the woofer you have a place to set it without scratching the baffle.

3. The 9/64 allen wrench required to remove the screws is an odd size so you will need a complete set of SAE allen wrenches that include that size.

4. There are screws for the trim plate and then seperate screws that hold the woofer to the baffle. In the case of the woofer they are the same size. However I strongly recommend placing the trim plate screws along with their washers in a separate baggie with a label. The reason for this will become evident below. Remove the screws for the trim plate and be careful to remove and keep track of the tiny thin black washers. They like to fall into the cabinet and bury themselves in the insulation. If you lose some of these washers it is extremely difficult to find replacements. There are also tiny black rubber O rings which can also get lost. Those are easier to replace but still rare. Of course I would never be so stupid as to lose any parts like this but I'm pointing this out just in case.

5. Take a photo or two to document where the rubber o-rings go. Once you remove the trim plate and account for all the hardware you can remove the screws holding the woofer to the baffle. According to Rob I should have been able to get my old fat fingers to grip the edge of the rubber surround where it meets the basket and lift the woofer out of the cabinet. Forget it. Ain't happenin'. I was afraid I would damage the rubber surround so I called Rob back and asked if I could pop it out by removing the passive radiator and reaching around to get under it. Rob complimented me on my speaker repair ingenuity and agreed that would work.

6. To remove the passive radiator you need to remove the trim ring and then remove the radiator. The screws for the trim ring and the passive radiator are different lengths. IMPORTANT: Keep the screws separate and label them along with their respective washers (both metal and rubber). Steve put them all in the same bag. Steve used the wrong screws to reinstall the passive radiator. Steve broke the passive radiator. Don't be like Steve.

7. Even when I had access to the bottom of the woofer I could not lift it up out of the baffle. It was stuck. Fortunately there is a brace that goes under the woofer with a inch or so clearance. I used a plastic scraper to apply some leverage between the brace and the woofer magnet and popped it loose. Then I figured I could lift it out as Rob had recommended. No effin' way. That sucker is heavy and it didn't want to budge. I was able to push up the bottom of the speaker from inside with one hand and get my fingers between the basked and the baffle with the other. Then I could get both hands under the baffle, lift the speaker up and out, turn it over, and set it on the towel face down. There is enough wire to be able to do this.

8. I am an absolute novice when it comes to soldering so I watched a couple of Youtube videos and got myself a 25 watt Weller soldering iron at Lowes. Rob had noted that they use silver solder which has a higher melting point so when I went to desolder the wires from the speaker terminals it took a little time before the solder melted but when it did the wires came off readily. The wires from the crossover were crimped around short wires that were attached to the speaker terminals in a simple arrangement.

9. I followed Rob's directions about packing the driver because if it breaks in shipping it could be very expensive to fix. The repair was $600 on a sound driver - I would hate to know what it would cost to fix a broken one.

10. CSS had the driver fixed in several days and sent it back. Rob sent some silver solder to reconnect the wires to the speaker terminals. I cut off the ends and stripped the wires, crimped them around the woofer wires at a 90 degree angle, and soldered them in place. With a low wattage soldering iron you have to be patient but eventually you heat up the wires enough to melt the solder and make a good connection. At least I took a photo and noted which crossover wire goes to which driver terminal. C'mon, I'm not that stupid.

11. Replacing the woofer back in the baffle was pretty simple. There are metal inserts in the baffle material for the screws but I suspect you have to be really careful to not overtighten them. Hopefully you noted where the washers and rubber o-rings go so you can put them back properly.

12. When I replaced the passive radiator I used the long screws to fasten the trim ring. I heard what I thought was a couple of cracking noises so I stopped and took it back out. The screws bottomed out and stressed the soft wood of the radiator and cracked it. The unit was still intact but there were cracks. I gathered up a bunch of clamps and carefully applied wood glue to the interior of the cracks with a toothpick and clamped it all the way around. I'm comfortable that it's as good as new, but damn, I was pissed at myself for making such a dumb mistake. My mood changed considerably when I fired them up and they sounded wonderful. I think they sound better than they did before but that's probably my imagination.

The moral of the story is that we are very fortunate to have support for decades-old highly custom designed speakers for which the manufacturer is out of business. I'll add my voice to the chorus of shoutouts for Rob - he was an absolute pleasure to deal with and I wish him a long, happy, and profitable career in giving extended life to these amazing speakers.

@8th-note Glad to read that your CS6s are working again. We are fortunate to have Rob/CSS! Thiel Audio went into bankruptcy about one month after I bought my 2.4s. Rob opened not long after and I asked him about replacement drivers. He said none are available for that model but that he can rebuild them. When I did my upgrade, I found his name on two of my drivers (one was dated well after the speakers were built, so he must have serviced that one).

Hello again. My last post was in August when I talked about my newly acquired CS6's and the fact that one of them had a woofer with a dented dust cap. Tom and a couple other members gave some advise about using a vacuum cleaner or tape (Ron G. recommended the same things) but none of that worked. Whatever material that cone is made of is very stiff and didn't want to move. Due to my audiophile OCD I was seriously considering getting it repaired even though it sounded OK.

Well, through sheer stupidity and carelessness, I solved the problem. I was hooking up my Denon Blu Ray player to my PS Audio DAC and didn't mute the preamp. I sent a few seconds of loud digital hash through the speakers and blew one of the woofers. Fortunately the woofer that fried was the one with the dent. I called Ron at CSS and he patiently helped me through the process to get the woofer removed and sent in for repair. When I finally got it sent to him the turnaround was very fast. My speakers were out of commission for the last few months but last week I reinstalled the rebuilt driver and my CS6's are back in action!

In the meantime I worked my way through this entire thread and I have to say that this has been like a 400 level course on speaker design and construction (not to mention amps, cables, etc). Virtually all of the discourse has been constructive and based on first-hand experience. Thanks so much to Tom and the other knowledgeable participants in this forum. This has made me appreciate my Thiels (and Thiel owners) even more.

BTW, SNs are 1537 & 1538, Morado finish.

I will make some subsequent posts regarding my amateur speaker surgery and other relevant observations but again, thanks to all who have generously contributed your experience and knowledge. This is hands-down the best audio discussion I have ever seen in my 40+ years of this hobby.

Happy Friday! All