thanks Beetle, and i am definitely less adventurous. I think that ultimately if there is an outboard crossover where we just hook the speaker cables to it and then wire right to the drivers, that would be something i could do. but they do sound great and part of me is afraid to tinker with them. you do not live in NC by any chance :)
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!
13,744 responses Add your response
The CS3.7 XO pic I’ve seen shows good coils but sandcast resistors and CYC MKT caps. The drivers are probably the best ever from Jim Thiel (ie, some of the best ever from any manufacturer) but the passive parts quality is wanting, IMO. If I had 3.7s I would certainly replace the resistors with Mills MRAs which are cost effective, high reward/low risk. Replacing the caps *might* be more risky but I would probably do that, too. There is a LOT of capacitance on that board, so might have to go outboard if replacing everything including the big electrolytics. I would start with the tweeter and midrange caps. That said, waiting for Tom Thiel’s solution is probably advisable for the less adventuresome. |
ronkent Absolutely! Lately, the thread has been flabbergasted by all of this cross-over (XO) and driver reinstatement/replacement talk (of course this is perfectly fine and fitting). I wanted to circle back around to anyone here changed or swapped out any Gear? Any Cabling shoot-out(s) going on among you guys? Happy Listening! |
Rules - my concern is to thoroughly investigate the parameters and then compensate as necessary. I will develop the Thiele-Small parameters of the old and new drivers to judge how the changes interact with the crossover. Furthermore, since first-order crossovers utilize the midrange over a very broad range, the exact placement and shape of the response anomalies are important. The new crossover must match the response profile of the new driver. All that said, Rob has been shopping for a drop-in replacement and this driver has been recommended to him by knowledgeable sources. Power disparity would matter - 30 watts raises questions, but the 10F is our best present solution. My job is to subject it to further scrutiny. |
I am modeling the old drivers for comparison and compensation in the replacement drivers for their Renaissance-life. bluetone - the 3.5 drivers and crossovers would be helpful for my modeling efforts. I would offer them for further use once I am finished with them. I also snagged some CS3 drivers and EQ on ebay, and intend to create an update strategy for all versions of CS3 and 3.5 to better than new functioning. If applicable, please PM me to arrange shipping. Thanks. |
Another tidbit of information. As I mentioned, Rob told me this was the last pair of 3.5 mids he can do. Moving forward, here is his response. " From
this point going forward, I will be replacing the CS3.5 mid with the Scan Speak
10F-8424G. Along with a custom adapter plate, and trim ring, it will be
available soon." He said this Scan Speak has the closest specs to the original Scan Speak |
Hello all, I've been out for a while but I wanted to give you an update on my 3.5 mids. Rob has completed the rebuild (he says the last he is able to do) and has shipped them off to Tom Thiel for analysis. Hopefully this effort will yield a suitable solution for aging 3.5s. BTW, due to the generosity of a fellow Audiogon'r, I have the woofers, tweeters and crossovers from a parted out 3.5. I'm using the mids to replace the Scanspeak mids that came with my 3.5s. In the spirit of the generosity bestowed upon me, I'm willing to help other 3.5 owners that need a replacement driver (woofer or tweeter) for the cost of shipping only. The crossover is available as well, I might want to see if it would be of any use to Tom T as he analyzes the 3.5 for possible upgrades. |
Perhaps things have changed, but when a dear friend had Thiel CS 2 driver repaired, there were no such caveats. Only prompt, courteous, professional service. Needless to say, he was very pleased with the transaction. The current websites packing instructions seem to suggest mailing as a viable course of action. |
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Rob is a sole proprietor with no employees. Make sure you are using his new phone number (859) 554-9790. When I checked with Miller sound to have my mid-range repaired they warned me that they accepted only if it was personally dropped off as they had bad experiences with mail service and would not warrant the repair if it was mailed. |
tomthiel To your knowledge, does Rob employ an assistant or under-study?It would be very cool if he is teaching his expertise/trade to a future Thiel generation. If I lived closer to Lexington, KY., I would certainly take interest.Hope you are well and having fun in the hot rod garage. Happy Listening! |
unsound, Did you follow up that call? Especially if we are talking about a small outfit run by one, or few people, it can be tough juggling the communication part. It's certainly taken some follow up reminders when I've communicated with a number of smaller companies, especially the almost one-man-show type. |
Unsound & Tomthiel, Thank you. Tom, glad to hear you will eventually be working on the CS3.5 R, so it leaves to me no chance but then repair my gears. So, If unable to fix locally, I will definetively reach out Rob for a preliminary opinion. I am pretty sure something went wrong but it was not intentional. |
Dino - I suggest that you contact Rob. Note that if he neglected your prior request, it was not intentional. Rob has the best chance of supplying relevant information for your decision. Regarding option 3 above: My present work is all preliminary, and I am making parallel progress on various models, measurement models and lab protocols. But a CS3.5R is hypothetical, with no meaningful timing. When it does issue, it will include some valid driver solution such as replacement drivers and/or repair potential. |
Hope everybody enjoyed Easter. Just a new chapter of my Thiel 3.5 Odyssey. For those who did not read the previous thread I burned one tweeter and one midrange of my left cs3.5. Today after one month I finally checked with a new midrange (different model, borrowed) and luckily the speaker works,so the xover is safe! Now I need to change both or get them repaired. ( I am stubborn, I am not going on to YG, Kharma or B&W...) On ebay I found this guy selling a working tweeter ( https://www.ebay.com/itm/254177357767?ul_noapp=true) for 110 Euros which I do not know if it's worth it, but still it leaves out the question: how to fix the midrange? Also I noticed that this midrange was already repaired, by comparing this and the other there are clearly some traces of glue surrounding the dome.... ( I cannot enclose pics). Any advise advise is welcome, options I am thinking are:
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About a year ago when I was re-exposing myself to the State of Thiel, I called the guy offering this filter. I judged that he is seeking to smooth out the measured upper midrange squiggles without understanding the nature of those squiggles as low-level reflections from the driver geometries, and therefore in the time domain. I agree with Rob that the "fix" would harm the sonic presentation in Thiel terms of fidelity to the input, even though his frequency response graph would look smoother. |
Regarding the outboard filter: i have not tried it but i did write Rob about it around a year ago and this was his response: Hi Kent,
This is very interesting. It is my belief that the crossover has been tweaked by Jim Thiel, to maximize the frequency response of the coaxial driver. These additional parts would change the impedance, as well as the intended phase and time coherence of the speaker. This sounds like a fluke. I think this is just someone trying to benefit from the closing of THIEL Audio. I am guessing that for $95, the parts are of low quality, not to mention, the effects that it would have on the amp and speaker.
Rob Gillum
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I've had the little Thiel 02s in my system for quite a while and they continued to enthrall me. I still think they somehow get a sense of the exact differences in materials, and the way an instrument produces it's sound, than maybe anything else I've owned. But I just switched back to the 2.7s which are of course overall more sophisticated and enveloping. Among the most satisfying differences is the sheer sense of ease a bigger floor stander gives. The small two way 02s quickly give a sense of becoming strained when asked to produce more rousing music at higher volumes (though, within a comfortable volume limit, they still seem to convey more liveliness and enthusiasm in some sense). But the ease and dynamics of the 2.7s seem almost unrestricted in comparison. Strings swell, horns blast, drums pound, the sound breathes dynamically in more convincing and unrestrained manner. Which is why I've never been able to stick just to smaller stand mounted speakers for the long haul. |
pgastone I know exactly what you mean about re-hooking the 3.7s up and realizing you can't do without them. I went through something like 2 years thinking I had to replace my 3.7s due to decor and ergonomic issues in my room (a bit too big). But every time I hooked them up I realized they outdid everything else I heard, including speakers I bought to try as replacements. I was only "saved" by finding the slightly smaller Thiel 2.7s which gave me that Thiel sound and did enough of what the 3.7s did to let me finally sell my 3.7s. On the same "proof is in the pudding" level, despite what I'd heard about Thiels being super current hungry and necessitating beefy solid state amps, I found my conrad johnson tube amps drove them beautifully, as they do for my 2.7s. It all depends on the demands any particular person puts on the speakers, and what sonic characteristics are most important to us. |
Hello Thiel owners- jafant asked me to join the thread as I am a Thiel 3.7 owner and I have been on a quest to get the most out of them at my budget- right now looking to maybe replace my current preamp or possibly the dac. You can see my original post from the amplifier/preamplifier section regarding this issue. By way of introduction you should know that my 1st serious speaker ever was the Thiel 1.2 that I bought from Innovative Audio in NY in the late 80's- which I STILL own. In fact I own a total of 9 pairs of Thiels: my house is wired with 6 pairs of in-ceiling Thiels for general listening, 3 pairs in my home theater fronted by 3.6's and an MSC 1 center. And now my main 2 channel rig has the 3.7's. I came to these after I was using a pair of Focal Micro Utopia Be's but decided to try a more full range speaker. I found a pair of 3.7's at a good price in my area about 3yrs ago- the owner had barely used them after he got them. I wasn't sure they would look right in the context of the room decor but I thought I would try to swing it. Honestly, it didn't really work. SO i decided to get a smaller floor stander and sell the Thiels- I went with a pair Magico's S1Mk1. After about 6 to 8 months with Magico's I decided I didn't love but I would stick with them- for the size and used price they are really an outstanding speaker. I finally got around to being serious about selling the Thiels and for fun I hooked them up again- well, they have never left the rig since. They are simply in another league in terms of presence, imaging, texture etc. And the "decor" was just going to have to suffer. So now the Magico's will be on the selling block (although I am notoriously bad at just accumulating- I have to get my sh!t together and get rid of some stuff). Sorry, I have rambled on enough. The post below explains what I am trying to do now. The other matter that interests me is if there are ways to improve the crossover- I have been reading tomthiel's posts and when it might be possible to try an upgrade I think I will go for it. Btw, I saw that on ebay there is a person selling an added external crossover for Thiel 3.7's- anyone have any experience with that? I ask because if I were to nitpick a defect in the 3.7 sound I would say that maybe they can be a little "hot"in upper frequencies which can remove a bit of the organic quality of the musical performance. Anyway, it is a pleasure to meet you all. Here is my other post: Thiel 3.7's and Pass Labs xa60.5's- now looking for the next upgrade I finally took the plunge and bought a pair xa60.5's mono's to drive my Thiels- and the upgrade has brought my system to a whole new level. I was looking to get a deeper, more developed soundstage and with the Pass mono's I got more than I was expecting: the speakers virtually disappear, and you can see into the performance- the sound has a much more refined texture and everything is more fleshed out. So now I am wondering what should be the next step up. What I am looking to do is to get more spatial cues, and I suppose detail, to have a better sense of the recording venue and bring me closer to that sense of a live performance. My intention is to stay with Pass Labs and the Thiel's so I am thinking more of a preamp or dac upgrade. The preamp is a Primaluna Dialogue Premium with Telefunken Nos tubes and the dac is a Moon 280d. Cabling is Nordost except for the power cords to the amps which I built myself and which really did make a very marked difference- more bass and presence than before with stock cords. Both the dac and preamp are very good in their own right so changing either to get a significant upgrade along the lines I described above rather than a sideways step isn't going to be easy. So I am interested in any advice and thoughts from fellow audiogoners. Here is a brief description of how my system evolved. I was originally driving the Thiels with Mac MA7000 integrated- the power amp section is basically a hot-rodded ma252. The first upgrade I decided to try was to bypass the preamp section with the Prima Luna and that was a revelation. The sound was transformed. Then I started doing research on a replacement for the Mac altogether. It took me a long time and I considered a lot of options. What put me on the path to the Pass Labs was the suggestion from a friend, an electrical engineer that is also passionate about audio, that I take a look at a Luxman class A amp. I had never really considered this option as the Thiels are not easy to drive but as my friend pointed out the issue would not be the watts as the Thiels are 90db but the power supply which needs to feed an impedance load that does dip below 3 Ohms across a significant portion of the frequency spectrum. Anyway, I wasn't able to find a Luxman at my budget and it was than I got the suggestion to consider Pass- the xa30.8. I was intrigued and called Pass and had a long conversation with them and they indeed are very familiar with the Thiels- and they too confirmed that their amps would have no problem driving them. Anyway, just as I was mullling this over a pair of xa60.5's came up at a good price from a great a'goner and so I went ahead with that. And btw, I have heard some suggest that Pass does not deal well with low impedance loads- it is simply not the case- not at all in fact and the proof is in the pudding: the Thiels sound GREAT. Anyway, any suggestions and advice would be great. Many thx as always! |