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!
Has anyone here heard the dual CS5s used to create a dipole? I remember Jim Thiel saying that putting two CS5 pairs back to back would provide greater listening improvement than bi-amping the beasts. I ask because I've recently been playing with my new toys, a Bose 901 II system. And while I've just taken the conversation from the sublime to the ridiculous, I have to admit that these little beasts sound a lot bigger and better than they ought to: they're not the most accurate speakers in the world but they are a whole lot of fun. And I also found that the music is far less of a blurred mess than intuition would suggest.
In a moment of insight or madness, I realized that the 901s are a highly equalized single driver system. Not sure if that would make them time and phase coherent but there is no crossover to throw the signal out. And I know that the 3.5s were phase coherent and used an equalizer so the 901 EQ wouldn't necessarily cause phase issues.
This makes me wonder if phase coherence wasn't part of the secret sauce that made the 901s work in the first place. The end result isn't a jumbled mess, it's a pretty impressive Technicolor rendition of the signal. And if I'm right, two pairs of CS5s would give you that signal in Technicolor and 8k -- although you'd be spending a whole lot more on amplification :)
Dsper I have spent a great deal of time in Indy. Was a Colts season ticket holder until a few years ago. I recall Ovation as a big dealer in the area, but not familiar with the one you mentioned.
Wow! Really appreciate all the responses. It is wonderful to be able to tap into so many knowledgeable resources. Really just getting started so I will be more active when I have something valuable to add. I don't listen really loud, at least not too often, so the Bryston is going to need to be the starter amp, and the CS5 has no second lugs for biamping. My vandersteen's do, and they are powered by 2 Mitsubishi DA-15s vertically biamped. I just don't have any decent source equipment. Tons of CDs but my older transport wont spin- it has the pioneer stable platter, but cannot see an appropriate path for repair. I hate throwing away- everything else works, but economics will probably require. Thanks again.
Ovinwar - the CS5 was Thiel's first application of in-house Finite Element Analysis, applied to all aspects of development. The original CS5 tweeter (also used in CS5.1, 3.6 and 2.2) was wholly developed in-house and represents a giant leap ahead, beyond what we could buy in the marketplace. The other drivers, MB dome upper mid, Focal lower mid and both Seas upper and lower woofers were the closest to our goals that we could get from those various suppliers. After introduction, we developed custom motor manufacturing which we applied to those non-tweeter drivers for considerably lower distortion and greater clarity.
Most CS5 owners upgraded to the CS5i, which might be available from Rob Gillum at Coherent Source Service. However that settles might influence the level of performance you seek in your ancillary gear. The CS5 was our state of the art, but the bar was raised significantly by the CS5i, which could justify ultra-performance signal purity.
Your Bryston in bridged mode is not recommended for the low impedance of your speakers. In bridge mode, 8 ohm is recommended as minimum and your speakers go down to below 3 ohm. Keep them in unbridged mode and they will comfortably go down to 4 ohm and produce 200 + watt. Your amp would be great for bi amping though!
Steve McCormack said the DNA-500 is the best amp he's ever heard , lucky you . If you truely like the sound I would suggest sending it to Steve for one of his upgrades , or DIY .
I have a CJ/McCormack DNA-250 that I have been replacing/upgrading capacitors and resistors ( getting 4 Hovlands in todays mail ) and I can tell you that changing a few componets can make a hugh improvement in sound . Replacing three 2 watt resistors with Tantalum ones from Audio Note suprised the heck out of me , highly recomended .
jafant seems like more people are discovering McCormack amps .
Next year my Thiels !
Rob
p.s. Does anybody here have experience with Goldring MI cartridges or Grace F9-L ( 5.5mv ) cartridges ?
Re DAC/Transport - here are some items I can speak to from personal experience that you could land today for less than a grand.
Re transport - check out the Bluesound site's outlet store at www.bluesound.com. They are currently asking $199 for 1st gen Bluesound Node and $399 for 2nd gen Bluesound Node 2.
For a more than capable DAC, I've seen Bryston BDA-1 currently going for as little as $500 on Audiogon.
I personally had the 1st gen Node hooked up to the BDA-1 via Toslink and can report that this is a more than capable combination. I happily employed this combo in my main rig from 2014 until earlier this year, and still employ both pieces of kit elsewhere.
I have CS5's and live in the greater Indianapolis area. Audio Solutions would lend me used gear home for in home auditions, which were on a 15 amp circuit.
I tried Krell, Pass, and Mark Levinson, among others, all of which were rated at 300 WPC plus into 8 ohms and doubled down. They all could power the CS5's and all sounded a bit different to me in my listening room. Also, they all were huge boat anchors, like 150 pounds. It was really a lot of fun maneuvering those behemoths from car trunk, down the stairs, and back out again. Fun - truly and sarcastically.
I thought that the Pass 350.0 was the best, because it sounded very solid and had a presence to the sound. But it was just too big.
I lived with a Coda at 300 WPC for a while and it did a pretty good job but seemed to me to get a bit constricted at the highest volumes.
My current amp is a McCormack DNA-500 and It is effortless in powering the Thiel CS5's as anything I have heard in my listening room. It may miss that last bit of rock solid presence I thought I heard with the Pass.
I always am looking at potential amp changes but the DNA-500 makes me very happy and weighs in at less than 100 pounds; so it will probably take me winning a lottery to change it out.
Thank you jafant. Tastes span AC DC to Allan Taylor, Spyro Gyro to Carole King. Also don't mind some newer pop and country music as long as it isn't 90% backtracks and focus is on the voice. I enjoy great voices, beautiful piano, or acoustic guitar the most. Chris Stapelton would be a more recent voice. James Taylor would be a longtime favorite. Chris Botti, Mark Knopfler, Poco. Not much exposure to classical but new age Jazz is pretty incredible. To the enlightened I am most likely a neanderthal on the music taste front, but all of us are a product of those things to which we have been exposed.
I have had a capable NAD receiver and Infinity Preludes up until recently, as well as a Samsung Radiant wifi system for streaming throughout the house. Setting my office up with some better sound.Wanted to build from used and keep the budget reasonable because I am slightly OCD, I can get addicted to things pretty quickly so controlling that is a must for marital harmony. On that front, the 225 pound, 6 ft shipping boxes were not the most popular package to end up on our porch! No way to hide those on entry.
Welcome! good to see you here. Stay tuned while one of the Panel's vintage experts addresses your query. I look forward in reading more about your musical tastes and system.
Looking for CS5 suggestions. I have a Bryston 8B ST. Bridged it is 250WPC. I listen to lots of different music but room is lower ceiling and long/narrow. Is an upgrade in order or will the Bryston suffice? Also, looking for a decent used DAC/Transport that is sub $1000. Does that exist? Thanks in advance.
Good to see you as always. Hope that you are enjoying the CS 2.4 loudspeakers. Feel free to report its merit(s) compared to the 3.5 model. Winding down Summer here in the deep South.
For those of us who want to keep the “computer” out of the two channel setup, this piece performed the best. Prior to buying the Hap I had a Bluesound Vault2. I felt that the Bluesound offered marginally superior sonics, but in order to incorporate it into my system I would have had to run a 70 foot Ethernet cable fro my bedroom to the living room. Ain’t gonna happen.
Either unit had a 1TB hard drive which was more than sufficient for my collection. With the Hap I bought a cheap apple disk drive - $80 - and loaded approximately 600 cd’s worth of files onto it. That, and my iTunes library, didn’t tip over 500GB. Sheesh.
The Hap’s interface was simple, straightforward, no nonsense. The only reason why I sold it was because 2018, in a word, sucked for me. That’s the final addition to my current setup. They seem to hover around $1200 pre-owned (I sold mine for that) and have been $1999 new for the past few years. It is a worthy product for anyone’s setup.
As you're keeping the 28B monos, I'd suggest you consider the BP17 cubed preamp. IMO, it's a neutral preamp, and neither adds to nor subtracts from what is on a CD. It does require some additional break-in beyond the 100 hours of testing by Bryston.
Batmanfan - I have been told that one of Jim's primary preamps was the Sonic Frontiers 2-piece gold unit. But I don't know if it was used for the 3.7s. I know that at shows we never mixed and matched pre and power amps, seeming poor form from an industry allies perspective.
batmanfan - there are several discussions in the digital group of threads that could be helpful; my take is if you have more than one source (and I bet you do), DAC design continues to change and evolve, so if you want to maintain the ability to change/upgrade the DAC, you'd be better off with separates. That being said, there are fans of some boxes that do both, but this does lead to some built-in constraints down the road. The other question is the streaming part - again, one unit or a combined DAC/streamer. With all things audio, cost becomes the biggest constraint.
Batmanfan - I claim ignorance of what preamp Jim used for the CS3.7 development. He used the Krell FPB-600 and Goertz flatwire.
How he approached equipment, in general, was to work with the obvious allies in the business, those brands which would be demonstrated and sold with our speakers. They included Audio Research, Bryston, Krell and Levinson - I remember the Pass Aleph 0 that Nelson developed to drive our speakers well; there may have been others later or fallen through my memory lapses. There was never time to play with toys. Thiel generally borrowed and lent so that latest versions of those amp brands and our speakers were in each others' stables.
Very nice system you own. Many audiophiles enjoy the Sony ES HAP-Z1 for server/streamer activities. It is a cool device that was ahead of its time upon release to consumers.
@Tomthiel, what did Jim use as a preamp when developing the CS3.7s, do you know? Were there certain brands or types (tube vs. ss) that he gravitated towards?
I’m struggling to make a decision now that my pre/pro is dead. Lately, I’ve become interested in digital delivery, both storing media via a NAS and streaming. I still have a CD collection but the digital aspect I find extremely convenient, especially as it relates to new music.
I don’t mind investing in equipment that would last a while, such as my 2.7s, Bryston 28Bs, Alpha Core AG3 speaker cables, and Straighwire ICs (since I don’t see myself replacing any of these). However, I don’t want to spend much money on things that change quickly, like certain technology and digital standards.
What do people think I should invest in and which things should I stay way from. For example, do DACs change often? If so, should I invest in a good preamp but get external DACs that I can swap out as technology changes? Appreciate everyone’s thoughts.
After several comparison I ended that I’m more happy listening to my cd’s ripped into the hd of my player Sony HAP Z1 ES than directly from my cd player/external DAC . IMHO the Thiel CS 3.6’s are stellar with this combo, (thanks also to the beautiful pairing preamplifier Doge 8- McCormack DNA-2)crazy fine details, amazing bass and clear treble, can’t be happier for the money invested. I’ll let them never go, because of this I invested some money to get a full set of spare drivers from Rob, want sleep with not worries!
By and large, I agree; however, for classical music nuts, there are only two full-catalog choices for streaming, viz., Idagio and Primephonic. Only Idagio has a desktop app, so that would limit me to Idagio.
Guess I'm antedeluvian, as I don't mind getting up after an hour or so of listening to switch CDs. (Good for the acing bones!)
My son, two daughters and five grandchildren are committed to streaming, and they love the capability. But they're into jazz, rock, and synthetic stuff. Two have good AV setups. "Classical ??? Isn't that stuff a little old fashioned?" Oh Well.
Streaming versus physical media: i stream at work, but for serious listening at home with my big system, it is compact discs all the way. I do not know about others, but for me, part of the pleasure of this hobby is building a collection of music and then choosing what to play. FDR collected stamps, I collect cds and can never have enough. When i get one i do not like it goes to the used record store. It is all fun. What a wonderful hobby.
Different strokes for different folks. There is still very much a place for physical media. But all the same, in my opinion streaming from a subscription service like Tidal or Qobuz has its place, especially with respect to music discovery. I find streaming to be a complimentary arrangement, not so much a replacement for physical media, although for some folks it can be.
Still alive and kicking, and enjoying my system more each day. IMO, the 4B cubed is an excellent choice for the 2.7s.
My "listening room" is 16 x 24 x 12, with a large opening on one long side to another room. However, I don't play my music at ear-shattering levels, so there's no clipping on near-instantaneous changes in volume. The BP-26 has gone to live with my son, so the 17 cubed is the preamp.
No on yet has convinced me streaming is the way to go, so the classical CD collection is getting a workout.
Tom FWIW I emailed rob a few months back asking about driver / parts availability for the cs5 and 7.2 as I want to get a pair of them rob said both are excellent speakers and that he has parts for both possibly a little longer for the 7.2s
I owned 7.2s before the 3.7s (and at the time they were in a huge 2-story grand room with a 19 foot ceiling that opened into other spaces) and yes they took lots of power. Had 2.3s before the 7.2s.
jafant - I would suppose he has everything, but please check with Rob and let us know. I believe the 7.2 shares its high coax with the 2.3 and the other drivers were Thiel design and in-house manufacture.
the power cable thing is always tricky. i use the big PS AC-12 for amps and power plants, but have had great results with the Pangea cords from Audio Advisor. Really well make and not crazy priced
Those 7.2s in NC have been for sale for quite a while. I think the best single place to see what is available is hifishark.com. It pulls from a bunch of different sites.
Awhile back, Rob told me that 7.2s "never" come up for sale and "almost always" are still owned by the original purchaser; as well as "most" CS7s were upgraded to 7.2 status with new Thiel drivers and XO modifications. Seems like they're keepers. I hope to hear a pair some day.
+1 re sdl4's recommendation on a power cord for the PS Audio Stellar Pre/Dac, especially if you use the DAC; I use a PS Audio PWD as a volume control/DAC and was happily surprised when I replaced the stock cord with a Cardas Clear M and the SQ improved. Not dramatically but enough to make the cost worth it. Seems like many believe that EVERYTHING matters for digital equipment.
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