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!
Kenazfilan - regarding back to back CS5s. Jim made that comment at the press conference introducing the CS5 in response to a question as to why he didn't provide a second set of inputs. It was not a thought-out position, but rather offhand: "if you want to spend an additional $10K for a second run of expensive cable, you'd get better results with a second set of speakers". The response begs the question of the cost of amplifying the second set of speakers, their cable, etc. Anyhow, back in the listening room after the show, we tested the idea, and it has merit. The 2 speakers per channel act as bi-polar radiators which comes close to omni-directional radiation into the room. The polar response becomes extremely uniform and the sound-field becomes immersive. One caveat is that the room must be well damped, especially at the launch-speaker end so that the additional reflected sound-power does not overwhelm the direct radiation from the front speakers. We had perhaps 8' to the front wall and perhaps 6-7' to each side wall. The front and back speakers need not be the same model. For demonstration-testing I used a Yamaha P2200 professional power amp with adjustable gain for the back speakers so that the direct vs reflected sound could be blended on the fly. Each speaker is producing half the sound while coupling better to the room for a very big, impressive presentation.
It would be hard to imagine incorporating this idea into a normal residential-sized room, and also the extra amps and cables would have to be found. But . . . I still have that Yamaha amp and a bunch of speakers in the hot-rod garage. I'll try to find time to try it out.
Dspr- regarding the CS5 vs CS5i. The late 80s was when Jim was exploring electro-magnetic field effects for higher resolution driver motors. Thiel developed new magnet and pole piece geometries which were applied to the CS5 midranges, woofers and sub-woofers. Also, the mass loading of the subs was changed from rubber mats to a central plug. The global result of the new motor geometries was greater definition and articulation through the lower and mid ranges. Unchanged were the upper midrange and tweeter, and no crossover changes were required.
Rob has driver rebuild parts, which are universal for 5 and 5i.ScanSpeak no longer makes those Thiel drivers. I remember a marked improvement in articulation / resolution in the CS5i, but the impedance requirements and resulting amplification requirements remained unchanged.
Beetle - I agree, one would not expect a paper cone to act that way. But it isn't truly a paper cone, but a multi-fiber cone with cellulose as one of the fibers. Jim developed that driver for the CS1.5 in parallel with another more expensive solution, which was chosen. I understand that the CS.5 was created to make use of that woofer. And that decay plot also speaks to the solidity of the cabinet. Small is beautiful.
Thanks much for the background on the .5s. Much appreciated. My son has another year of grad school, then it will be time to be looking for an affordable amp to pair with those puppies as a graduation gift.
Jazzman - I know a little which I'll be glad to remember. You might read Stereophile's 1995 review when it was introduced, https://www.stereophile.com/floorloudspeakers/223/index.htmlI find it nearly incredible that this little, inexpensive speaker performed so very well - compare that review with products costing high multiples of its $1k+ / pair. The .5 was my last production engineering product before leaving Thiel for New Hampshire. It got the same 1" MDF walls and interior cabinet bracing, which resulted in the deadest of any Thiel product ever. The Vifa drivers were entirely Thiel-designed with the fancy magnet structures, and the "paper" woofer cone actually had multiple-fiber reinforcement and damped coating, which made it behave extremely well. The crossover, although quite simple, has the same high-purity copper coils, polypropylene caps and low-induction resistors as the rest of the family. The .5 got a full technical paper, and its attributes, performance and measurements could easily be read as applying to a $10K speaker with the exception of its bass extension. The CS.5 was an exercise is how inexpensively we could produce an full-bore Thiel speaker. On a personal note, in 1997 I introduced a pair to the resident musical theatre producer of my new-home rural New Hampshire village, which led to more pairs, and the founding of a small local Performing Arts Foundation. I am on the board and produce musical events at our Arts Center, using Thiel speakers, which were originally borrowed .5s, then my 2.2s and now 1.6s since my 2.2s are in the redevelopment studio.
Your son is very fortunate to ge those .5s. There are plenty of spare drivers and parts to last his lifetime. I have .5 drivers here for comparative analysis and they are really exceptional. Do note that electrolytic caps can deteriorate in storage and might best be replaced before putting them back into service if more than 30 years has elapsed. I'm glad you asked.
i sold the Bose 901 between 1979 and 1981. we also had Dahlquist, Maggies, and Infinity among others. they were horrible sounding in all respects. we used to say that the more you spent on bose, the worst they sounded. we actually liked their little 301 for what it was. when a guy came into our store with a Molly Hatchet or AC/DC album under their arm, we would immediately show them the 901 as we knew they were pretty much indestructible. If he came in with classical then it was either Maggies or DQ-10's. they were wretched speakers in my opinion
Might you be able to provide any history of the cs .5. This speaker, which I like to think of as the baby Thiel was my entry into the world of Thiel. I had a pair in my main rig from 1996 to 2011 before graduating to a pair of 2.4s. My cs .5s are now in bubble wrap in my crawl space, to be turned over to my son when he is ready for them.
Kenazfilan - the Bose 901 was a huge marketplace success at the time we were developing our initial ideas and prototypes. Audiophiles and specialty stores nearly universally rejected them as gimmicks, but there were some valid ideas in there. The crossoverless multiple driver does preserve phase relationships, which are only partially obscured by the small differences in distance to the reflecting walls. The short distance between the speaker and wall minimizes the distance difference between the reflected wavefront and front-firing direct radiator. The equalizer does not introduce phase shift and the sealed bass rolls off at 12dB / octave, which is quite benign. I concur with your speculation that the design might sound like hash with higher order crossovers introducing baked in phase shifts. I would love to see impulse response and other "normal" tests on the 901.It might fare fairly well at low levels in a highly damped room. But, those CTS drivers were driven far beyond their linear excursion and the dust-cap "tweeter" was very ragged, and the room perimeter drive is inherently problematic and so forth and so on. I am amazed at their success. Bose spent more on advertising than on product. And it worked for them.
The 901 was, I believe, the only speaker that Jim dissected to see how other designs coped with the intrinsic constraints and trade-offs of the art. It definitely served as encouragement that we could do better.
I did that for years running my PS Audio DSD DAC directly into the amp.then got the BHK preamp. do not ask me why, but it improved things greatly. Paul McGowan's philosophy is that there is no preamp like no preamp, unless you have a really great one.
This is a little late regarding the preamp discussion a few days ago, but I just wanted to chime in: I'm very happy with no preamp whatsoever. I run a Berkeley Alpha DAC directly into the amplifier, which goes directly to my 3.7s. Sounds fabulous! I wonder why more people who have this capability don't seem to do this.
+1 on audio solutions in indy, my experiences there have been good, lots of used gear, some of which gets listed here from time to time. They had a pair of 2.3s and were happy to hook up several different tube amps to them which convinced i could enjoy the sound of mid power tubes with the Thiels. Ovation is ok too, seemed for focused on HT although they carry some good brands. Nice to know AS lends equipment out!
Yes- over on the other Audio forums, there are a few Thiel owners who enjoy McCormack power amps. These two brands have a special synergy. Good to see you here as always.
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.
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