Looks like the correct tweeter is a SEAS 25TAF/G H400 (at least that's what it says on mine). I just had a look on Ebay and found some which seem to be the same ones or would match up with mine - like this one here - (although this offer looks slightly different from mine on the underside). Do y'all reckon that would be a safe bet?
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!
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!
13,846 responses Add your response
Jimi - work with Rob. A voice coil is connected to the dome and surround as a moving system. Moving systems are specific to their end-use with varying mass, compliance, impedance, wire gauge and geometry. Your CS1.2 tweeter was made by Vifa, and I don't know about its repair particulars, but Rob will. |
Hey again, thanks for your responses to my post on Sunday! I also wrote Rob Gillum from Coherent Source Service, and he suggested I may have an "open circuit" on the voice coil - so I removed the fabric layer between magnet and dome structure and realized that the voice coil is broken at one point. Is there any kind of how-to guide you could recommend on replacing a voice coil? And can I use any old (or preferably new) 1" / 25.5mm voice coil? Thanks again for your help! |
While upgrading componets in my McCormack DNA-250 amp , I discovered that Conrad Johnson dropped the McCormack from the name but continued to use design . I've been using images of the MF-2550se for reference as to which componets to upgrade . I found this artical that fits in with this Thiel speaker forum ! www.theaudiobeat.com › equipment › conrad_johnson_mf2550se ( excerpt from artical ) These are the sorts of details the MF-2550 SE served up best. The 300-hour Teflon Rubicon had at last been crossed. Among the amplifiers I’ve heard in my system, the Conrad-Johnson MF-2550 SE stands out. Of those amps, its closest competitor in terms of price, specifications, and power is the Classé CA-2300. At $7000, this Canadian anvil delivers 600W into 4 ohms, and was quite capable of handling my Thiel CS3.7s -- and having spent many years with these speakers, I can tell you that, much like their predecessors, the CS7.2s, they will use every watt they can get. The MF-2550 SE produces "just" 400Wpc (confirmed by C-J’s Lew Johnson), but not all watts are created equal. The CA-2300 was a bit sluggish by comparison. The MF-2550 SE gripped the ’3.7s, handling every curve the music threw with agility and speed, and sounding significantly more transparent and musical (in all of the best ways) than the Classé. Rob |
Unsound, the OEM drivers are no longer available, nor can the mid-range be rebuild. Tweeters of dynaudio are still available used. The bass equaliser of the 3.5 is prone to damage from static electricity, and Rob is out of parts to repair them. Fortunately all of this can be managed with dsp and the 3.5 have a new lease on life. |
@thielrules, What an impressive undertaking and write-up! I must confess that I lack the knowledge required to judge the success of many of your choices in making mods on the original 3.5 design. My negative experience with equalizers in the past makes me hesitant to depend on EQ to fix problems in replacement drivers or make decisions on a "house sound," but I have absolutely no experience with modern digital EQ so I am not in any position to offer an informed critique. Above all, I will be very interested in what the speakers now sound like. Please let us know your listening impressions as you log some serious listening time with your "renewed" speakers. Thanks for sharing all this great information! |
Jacksky - nearly all CS5s have been converted to CS5i with upgraded lower midrange, woofers and subwoofer. Rob @ Coherent Source Service has conversion kits for your drivers. I suspect that your exaggerated / loose bass may be caused by the near 1 ohm infrasonic load and sub 2 ohm load through 50 hz. If you have two 7bs, you could split the woofers and run them with one channel and the upper 3 drivers on the other channel. |
I concur that Brystons are a good match...in general. I am running CS5 with Brystons 7b in parralel mode. I tried running them with 250 watt ICE power class D amps, but there was absolutely no guts or life or depth to music. My only issue when running 7B's is that bass is a bit exaggerated, especially at the sub harmonic level. I don't think this is a result of room or treatment due to having experience with several other speakers. Perhaps this relates to what Tom has stated earlier: A) CS5 would have been a good candidate for bi-wiring B) CS5i have more articulated lower and lower mids. Question: would it be a worthwhile endeavor to search out replacement drivers to convert these to CS5i upgrade? |
jimi handtrix - likelihood is very high that your tweeter is "blown". You can test it by taking it out and applying 6 volts DC via a battery. When you touch Tweeter Plus (red) to Battery Plus you should hear a small click and feel the dome against your finger move outward. If nothing happens, the tweeter has failed and we here can help you get a new one. The woofer should move a lot at high frequencies because it rolls off at only 6dB / octave above around 3K± (guessing). |
ok, as promised here is my lengthy write-up of my summer project modifying my Thiel CS3.5https://drive.google.com/file/d/1A1Hs9g2tr27cGUfzSX8IcUy3dC-TpVrk/view?usp=sharing |
Hey y’all, I just picked up a pair of CS1.2’s in Berlin, Germany today! The tweeter on one of the speakers doesn’t seem to be working at all - has anyone experienced this issue before? I suppose this may be more of a general speaker question, but I thought I’d try here nonetheless. I’m assuming that either a contact on the wiring has come undone, or maybe one of the components is fried (although I had a look inside and didn’t see anything "out of the ordinary", but then again I’m no expert!). I think the tweeter itself is still fine, as the other tweeter and both woofers are still in decent condition, could be wrong though. Also, when my other speakers are hooked up (with the same cables to the same channels), there aren't any issues. Any tips would be greatly appreciated! P.S.: I just remembered that when I applied a high-pass filter, there was still a fairly large amount of higher frequencies coming through the woofer. Does anyone know the specs on the woofer (i.e. frequency range)? This just made me think it could possibly be a crossover issue. |
Thank you @oblgny appreciate the recommendations of belles amplifier . I will look into it. i want to keep the price below 1000$. Reading through the threads the most recommended are pass and krell which are more than what I am willing to pay for. bryston seems to be ok if I can get a 4b for my price . Any thoughts on the parasound a21. |
newtoncr... I heartily suggest that you seek a Belles amplifier for your 2.4’s. If you search on the shark you’ll find a couple 150A amplifiers for sale as well as a few of his preamps. If the amps are in good shape, and if they’re anywhere near as good as my 250i Integrated, you’ll discover something remarkably focused on the types of music you enjoy. Those amps hover around $650 - a “Thiel-like” bargain. Now, why am I so smitten with Belles? While I don’t have the ability to conduct an A/B live comparison, 20/20 hindsight and impressions that have remained with me since experiencing them whisper Pass Labs - sans the price of entry. My Belles 250i Integrated provides me with all the clean, articulate sonics that my Pass X150.5 amplifier did - at that time for me it was a match made in heaven. David Belles now makes Power Modules products - they have a website. David is in his eighties and stopped making high powered amplifiers because he couldn’t move them around like he used to. He actually answers the phone, too. Over the years i have bought many pre-owned speakers, amps & preamps without the benefit of a live audition. With Thiel being the sole exclusion, most of the other hardware’s manufacturers are still in business, producing new products. Most offered some degree of assistance on their “legacy”, discontinued models. Most of the time those of us who discovered Thiel did so on the pre-owner market - which is a fairly risky way to purchase something that can be subjected to abuse. I never heard a Thiel model before I wired ‘em into my setup. I’ve never been disappointed, either. Belles philosophy complements Thiel’s. Articulate, uncolored, accurate. Worth your while checking it out if you’re able. |
I am looking for advice for a power amp for my cs 2.4. I recently purchased a pair of cs 2.4. I am running them through arcam amplification . The fmj c 31 preamp and p35 power amp. The power amp is rated at 100 w per channel at 8 and 150 w per channel at 4 ohms. Cables are kimber 12tc. I can spend 1000$ on a power amp , used. I would appreciate any suggestions or is p35 good enough to drive the 2.4. i listen to vocal music and jazz. thank you in advance . |
Interesting that I never used Clapton or any of the other guitar gods to audition Thiels, even though most of the rock I listen to is from them. For my 2.2s in the shop it was Keith Jarret's solo piano improvisations 'Kőln Concert' for emotion, Grateful Dead's 'Blues for Allah' opening 2 songs for timbre and layering and Karajan's Mahler Symphony #5 for clarity, soundstage, positioning and dynamics. For the 3.5s recently the list was longer, but thankfully the seller also enjoyed my selections. The last was replaced by Bernstein's Mahler #9, and added were Solti's Wagner 'Die Walkűre' disc 3 for bass rumble and vocal clarity, highs and lows and finally John Coltrane 'A Love Supreme' for palpability and shape for lack of a better description. Needless to say the 3.5s nailed them all, aural nirvana and an emotional connection with each. Obviously I left with the 3.5s! |
thosb... Wow, it's been quite the while since I've owned the 2.3's I'll do my best to lend you some idea... When I moved up from the 2.2's to the 2.3's I perceived a richer midrange overall. The highs were also more, for lack of a better description, defined. The 2.3's also seemed to project into my listening room - my living room - further. It was an upgrade in everything that was good with the 2.2's. The last Thiels I owned before obtaining these 2.4's were the the 3.6's. At that time I was enjoying a Modwright KWI200 Integrated amp, 200 watts 8 ohms, 400 watts 4 ohms - way more power than I'd ever need. (Even though Thiels and Maggies are supposed to be "power hungry" I never had an amp or integrated that had more on tap than the Modwright did.) Thus far, I am finding that these 2.4's are sonically closer to the 3.5's than they are to the 3.6's. At modest volume level these speakers simply sing, there's really no better description I could offer. The 3.6's DID enjoy getting more juice tossed their way in order to open up the soundstage that these 2.4's provide in spades at my modest levels. I am finding that the sweet spot is tighter on these than the 2.2's, 2.3's, 3.5's & 3.6's. Right now I'm still playing around with positioning them to obtain the best results. What I've gotten with every Thiel model I've owned is a reminder how colored, and artificial sounding so many newly manufactured brands sound by comparison. A very valid point about Thiel is that they reveal everything they receive, solid amplification with ample current is more important than mere watts per channel. To my humble ears I was most pleased with Pass Labs amps, Balanced Audio Technology, Modwright. Of these three it was Pass Labs, period. The B.A.T. struck me as more reserved, more conservative, the highs didn't present as well as they did with the Pass Labs. The Modwright was in every respect a solid performer, but again, to my ears, it didn't match the Pass Labs in detail. Just before I obtained my Belles 250i integrated I was using an Audio Research DSi200 integrated - a switching amp, or class "d." This did not match at all well with the 2.4's. To my ears it sounded like the amp was straining to be heard and, true to Thiel in general, that's what I heard. When I obtained the Belles and wired it up the difference was immediate and palpable. My newly acquired Thiels became Thiels again. The ads I've been seeing for 2.3's seem to be hovering between $800 and $1100, which is a pretty low point of entry for such a good speaker system. They're truly remarkably refined loudspeakers. The only other brand of loudpeaker I have such high regard for is Magnepan - and Jim Thiel once expressed his appreciation for planars himself. One of the BIGGEST differences between the 2.4's and all the other models I've owned is where the cables get connected. ON THE BACK! Woohoo! No more laying the speakers on their side to make the connections, no more lifting 70+ pound cabinets to secure them and snaking the cable through the small tunnel. This is ALMOST the reason to consider the 2.4's. It also makes for swapping cables easier if you're into that. |
Solo, I have been using Eric Clapton, Unplugged lately. With amps, blind comparison is essential, letting my wife do the switching between amps, making sure the spl is equal. I started on the write up and it will be a lengthy document to cover everything. Be patient and your help as a proof reader would be helpful. |
thielrules for a fair amount of material w/o measuring anything I am forced to agree with you. I should be thorough in my posts as the devil is in the details! for the most part I listen to large scale works where there are large dynamic as well as textural changes. this is where the difference lies for me between the 3B and 7B amps for example right now I have on the Berlioz Sym Fantastique - Solti - CSO huge dynamic contrasts and the large ensemble is used sparingly quite often not only is there more impact and weight during the loud parts but the resolution in the softer parts is clearer while still having excellent weight what do you use as a reference recording(s)? the Berlioz isn't a reference as much as it is what I want to listen to at the moment |
