Thiel Owners

Thanks @tomthiel, I appreciate your words.  I do want to keep the 3.5s, and I would hate to see them fall out of favor because of lack of replacement components.  I have the curves of the common replacements, and maybe the original (see my post above).  I'll publish them on my website at some point.  I'm also working with Oblgny to retrieve the components he so graciously offered, and I have an email out to Rob to inquire as to if he can rebuild them (assume he can).  Maybe what I could also offer is that once the original mids from Oblgny are rebuilt, I could divert them to either you or whoever could analyze them for a week or two.  That might be a start, no?  

Bluetone - I would like to add some perspective for  your 3.5s.
As Ketchup alludes, the design is dated in the sense that each product builds on and improves the groundwork laid be its predecessor. Add the problems of replacement drivers, and there is a pretty big pickle. For this conversation I am going to assume that the 3.5s are your speakers which you would like to keep.

One of these days I will get access to a 3.5 midrange or two, perhaps I  might borrow Oblgny's or similar to take measurements. Perhaps Thielrules and I with guidance from this community can zoom in on a best replacement. Rob needs one for just such circumstances. Perhaps between our resident DIYs and myself, we can tweak the XO well enough. If such a team were working on the problem, I suspect we could find a solution better than abandoning your 3.5s. There are probably still over 3000 pair out there which could benefit.

I also want to address Ketchup's assessment of "shouty and harsh". My experience with 3.5s in scores of rooms and shows and studios is that those adjectives do not apply when the system is right. Large excursions of the midrange do come with the first order territory; indeed Thiel midranges have always carried that load - still do in all models. Indeed they eventually fatigue. But within the past year, I have heard stories of people still 'blown away' by 3.5s even when compared with some highly regarded current speakers.

Perhaps you guys on this forum could take on various parts of the task and we might develop a pretty good 3.5 solution.

after 35 years of having Thiel,  I agree with Tom that the best sound is pretty much straight ahead,  or maybe a tiny bit of toe in.   i have my 3.7's set up with a distance of  9'  between the coaxes and 8' from my ears to the coaxes.   i got a lot of good info from MapleShade plus i really like their Sampson rack and brass feet.  http://www.mapleshadestore.com/freeupgrades.php

Happy Friday - All.

Bluetone,
Unless you really really really really love the 3.5s, like a lot, the smartest thing to do is to get something else, keep an eye out for some drivers that will work in the 3.5s, put them in, and sell them.  They're a finicky speaker that's what, 30 years old?  The EQs need constant attention (at least mine did) and the mids are asked to reproduce too much bandwidth and blow frequently.  They are simply overworked.  On top of that, they're shouty and harsh.  I've been there!  There's a pair of 2.3s on usaudiomart for $625 right now.

Still futzing....built a set of non bi-wire speaker cables w Canare wire, silver aQ spades and silver solder today...  I . was running zippy do dah test bench speaker wire extensions as all I ever seem to have is biwire stuff... anyway sounding even better.... they the 2.3 are good for sure

Andy2, I understand that.  My point is how close is close enough?  Do we know there is absolutely nothing out there that will be close to the original mid, so much so that using the closest aftermarket driver will be obnoxious?  I know it won't be exact.  But I don't know if a replacement driver will be 1) totally wrong for the speaker, impacting the sound in a harsh or muted way, or 2) close enough that certain nuances are noticeable, but acceptable.  That's all I'm saying here.  Short of finding an original mid and having it rebuilt, what is the next best option?  I currently enjoy my 3.5s with a Scanspeak aftermarket mid, I just want to know how close I can come to the factory mid, that's all (because I am likely missing out on the full capability of the speaker).  Chances are good that any direction I go towards the original specs will be an improvement that I'm willing to live with, or without.  

Will I find the exact replacement I need that will bring harmony to the existing crossover? Not likely, but chances are good that I'll find something 'good enough'.

The thing is it's not like replacing a Mazda 6 with a Toyota Camry.  If you have a different midrange driver, the sound balance may be too off that it would make the sound unlistenable and since our hearing is most sensitive to the midrange, the problem is exacerbated.  For example, if the new midrange driver causes the midrange level to about 2-3db higher than it should be, then sound may actually hurt your hearing.  Or if the new midrange driver ends up to have the region around 6-8khz to be elevated, you'll have excessive sibilance ... well I think you understand my reasons.

Oblgny,  pm sent. I'm close enough to swing by!

Bluestone, I concur. Last time I talked to Rob, he showed me how many more mid-range he could rebuild and it was the last batch of cones. So, we will need to find a suitable replacement even if we have to compromise. I don't agree with the criticism of the 3.5 and I still have 2 pairs in daily use and the bass is fantastic. The mid-range is an essential part in this. Will be happy to do some measurements and see what could be a good replacement. Is the dayton audio dats v2 adequate to measure the specs of my current 3.5 midrange? Would a digital xo filter with 3 amps per channel (still have some decent ht amps I could use) be an alternative??

oblgny

Good to see you-  as our resident CS3.5 expert I have been waiting for you to chime in to assist bluetone. I know that you have owned this particular model several times, within several different systems over the years.   Hope you are well and staying warm there in NY.  Happy Listening!

Re:  3.5’s

I have a complete pair of CS 3.5 drivers and crossovers available for FREE to anyone here living close enough to zip 11755 to pick them up. I can’t/won’t ship them. I’ve put this offer up in this thread before. Sequential serials on the crossovers. 

The mids are non-functioning but the tweeters and woofers are 100% functional.  I yanked them from the last pair I purchased from a fellow member a while back. They’ve been stored in my garage in a vacuum bag since.  The cabinets were shot, so I decided to pull the guts out.  Sorry, but the EQ went to a fellow member here who needed it.  

I ain’t kidding - free for pickup!

bluetone

it may be worth considering to watch the web daily to score any/all remaining pairs of CS 3.5 loudspeakers. The other 3.5 owners  of the Panel could form a pool of stock for this model. Besides Audiogon, Audio Asylum, eBay and U.S. Audiomart, do not overlook Craigslist, Estate sales, Goodwill, Salvation Army/Salvage shops, Thrift stores, Yard sales. Just a thought to help you guys procure drivers/parts.

Happy Listening!

My room is not quite 19.5’ wide. But setup is not centered. Left channel only 3’ from wall, right wall has a wood stove and walkway to an exit. Kinda funky, and FR measuremnts during my XO build did reveal some room mode issues worse than I imagined. Conditions ameliorated by vertical houseplants, wall coverings, a bookcase, and especially, two large openings on rear wall.

 I have experimented with speaker position, including toe-in, several times but keep coming back to pretty much where they now sit.

ok, guess I should just relegate the 3.5s with non-original drivers to my garage.  Seriously?  I'm looking to find the best replacement drivers (if the Scanspeak pair I have are not the closest).  Will I find the exact replacement I need that will bring harmony to the existing crossover?  Not likely, but chances are good that I'll find something 'good enough'.  And that's good enough for me.  How many other factors (room dynamics, amplifier, individual hearing) actually have more of an impact than nuances of a midrange curve compared to another?  Maybe, maybe not, but I'm not going to throw the 3.5s out, so why shouldn't I find the closest replacement mid I can?  And again, having the originals rebuilt is not an option as the original mids were long gone when I bought these.

Chaning any of the origial drivers almost ensure the need of a new xover and since the Thiel is time-phase coherent, it's not something that can be done by just anybody.  One almost have to use the original driver as replacement.

my room is a mere 12’ 10” but i also have some large cabinets creating constraints......

I
@beatlemania.  yes, normally I would agree...but my room has some constraints on side reflections..so i am trading away a bit....switching to the Grado helped a lot....

i have them 7’ 1” apart, ears are 8’ 4” to coax unit.

thosb

Thank You for sharing this information on the CS 2.3 per Rob. Excellent discussions today guys. Keep up the outstanding work.

Happy Listening!

Unfortunately a rebuild of 3.5 drivers isn't always an option.  Mine came with replacement mids (mentioned above) and the originals are nowhere to be found.  So I would like to find a replacement that is close in spec to the original (which mine may be, hence the effort to confirm).  Simply waiting for a newer model to surface at a good price seems short-sighted to me as long as a suitable replacement can be sourced.  As they say, "it ain't love, but it ain't bad..."

Beetle - the amount of toe-in is highly dependent on the room. How wide is your room? With enough side space and absorption or diffraction at the first side reflection point, Thiel speakers are designed for straight-ahead positioning. Dropping off the direct tweeter axis smooths out the measured and heard tweeter response. In Thiel's 20' wide showroom, straight ahead sounded best for any and all models.

Ketchup makes a very good point. When I reviewed upgradible status for all the models, we nixed the 3.5 due to unavailability of drivers. As long as Rob can rebuild them, that is a safe and effective method of keeping your 3.5s on the air.
A further point of history is that the 3.5 was near the end of Thiel's "normal" driver use. The 3.5 used modified, European, best of form drivers of the day. We had adopted Finite Element Analysis and were developing more sophisticated driver motors, cone geometries and surrounds for greater dynamic range and transient precision.  By the following 3.6 generation, the drivers were completely engineered in-house and custom built to our specs by Vifa. Every driver is qualitatively more sophisticated in every way than those in the 3.5. So, as Ketchup warns, a lot of effort could be wasted trying to find replacement drivers that Thiel was not able to find. The 3.5 has a following. I vote to work with Rob for rebuilds.
I will not be hot-rodding the 3.5, but can recommend upgrade parts for anyone to install themselves.

the Thiel require more toe in than the Apogee Stage, Vandersteen 1ci or the Quad ESL.

My Vandersteen Sig IIs sounded best with a bit of toe-in but I like the sound of my CS2.4s without any toe-in. I have them just under 8’ apart and sit ~9’ away.

@thosb. I will add some updated pictures of the vintage room... like most speakers that reside there, some tweaks and changes required to get best of them...
so far the Thiel require more toe in than the Apogee Stage, Vandersteen 1ci or the Quad ESL. The Nakagoka 110 can be a bit tipped up so I swapped in a Grado Ref Platinum last eve... that fixed that... finally my heavily modified Audionics CC2 solid state amp does a better job on the low end....

all fun

more photos later...

@thosb thanks - I greatly enjoy this thread and the joyful spirit of music lovers helping each other get the most of of the various systems w Thiel speakers often as the centerpiece.

the most excellent and forthcoming person u got the 2.3 from assured me they had the upgraded double magnet drivers and crossover changes - he knew all about it.
that will be one thing I check IF I break them open....

having fun ...

The original 3.5’s mids had paper surrounds.

That is very interesting.  I remember my 3.5 mids having a really thin, flimsy surround that definitely did not appear to be rubber.  They seemed to have permanent krinkles in them.  That does not seem like a very good material for a surround, but what do I know.

I’m worried you guys might be chasing something that doesn’t exist (a replacement 3.5 mid). Thiel told me that those drivers were no longer available years ago, so I had to have mine rebuilt by them. You might be better off looking into rebuilding the original drivers and forgetting about finding a replacement. Even if you find something close, it won’t be right. Even better would be to move to a different model. The 3.5, in my experience, did not sound good in the mids and highs anyway. The 3.5 is very old, and I would like to think that the later Thiel models have surpassed the 3.5 (that’s just a guess as I have only heard the 3.5s.).

Again, how great is it to have Rob and others on out there helping us get the most out of vintage (in my case) gear! 

Speaking of vintage, tomic601, I am digging your vintage system, just need fresh pics with the Thiels!

tomic601 - one thing to check is the coax drivers, be sure your 2.3s have the upgraded drivers - sn#4567 was the first to have been converted to these at the factory per Rob.  I bought my 2.3s used, lower serial number, but luckily the coax (and xover) had already been upgraded.  The upgrade gets you the same coax driver and xover as 2.4s, if I understood Rob correctly.  

Here's Rob's full response to one of my questions re this upgrade - 

    There were two versions of the CS2.3. New style, and old style. The new style began at serial numbers 4567. The new style consisted of having two magnets on each of the coaxial drivers. The old style had only one magnet. Both versions used ceramic magnets, and the CS2.4 incorporates Neo magnets. Much stronger magnet 10x. The CS2.4 coax cannot be used with the CS2.3 properly. The coax rebuild is $250 each, plus shipping, and can be rebuilt in either version. The new style coax had a two part change to the crossover network as well. You can remove your coax for inspection, and tell whether it is a double ceramic magnet or only one, like the old style. If you need to rebuild both coaxes, then the associated crossover parts are free. Let me know how I can help.

Is there a good program that would measure the speaker specifications?

The original 3.5’s mids had paper surrounds.

Tom, will do.  I'll post the analysis on my website, which I will link to once I complete it.  

Bluetone - Please pursue this 3.5 midrange matter. Make a chart of the # and parameters original driver and the various replacements. As ketchup says the original cone was paper. Kevlar is "better", but its resonances would be different plus it gives up 1dB of sensitivity to the 8640. For perspective, we must find something very close to the original because the whole speaker system (enclosure, xo, other drivers, etc.) works together and changing any parameter of the midrange driver requires re-engineering the xo. That is a possibility as long as most of the parameters match and the ones that don't match are friendly.

This investigation would make lots of people happy. It is not on my current list because of its scope and competing priorities.
Keep up the good work. - Tom

They were paper cone, not kevlar.

I think I may have found something here. Maybe someone could take a look and see if this could be the original mid for the 3.5, Scanspeak 13M/8640 . Here is a link to the spec sheet, https://www.scan-speak.dk/datasheet/archive/13m-8640-00.pdf
Or, this version, 13M/8636 with kevlar cone as opposed to paper in the 8640 linked above.  http://www.scan-speak.dk/datasheet/archive/13m-8636-00.pdf

Unfortunately I’m at the beginning of my learning curve, so maybe someone could chime in with an informed perspective. Thanks

Over time I am gradually piecing together bits of information. I hope to eventually find those driver curves, but don't have them yet.

bluetone

Thank You for the follow up regarding the 3.5 loudspeaker. Hopefully, you will find  a curve for the original Scanspeak driver.  Good to see you again.  Happy Listening!

quick follow up on my previous post regarding CS 3.5 midrange replacement drivers.  Perusing the Madisound website, they have this https://www.madisoundspeakerstore.com/approx-5-midrange/scan-speak-13m-midrange-replacement-speaker/ which is probably closer to the original Scanspeak midrange found on the 3.5s, and it has the custom mounting plate.  The 12W/8524G speaker that I have in my 3.5s will fit, but its a 4 screw mount, as opposed to the 3 screw mount with the flange.  From Madisound website regarding the 10F/8424G replacement...." The specifications and response curve of the 10F/8424G is very close to the original and long discontinued Scan-Speak midranges. PBN Audio uses these as replacements for the 13M/8636 in their legacy speakers and speak glowingly of the results."
There seems to be a significant difference in the curves for these speakers.  I guess the thing that makes the 12W/8524G speaker attractive is a price of @$60 vs $220 for the 10F/8424G.  Unfortunately what I don't have is the curve for the original midrange Scanspeak driver.

Now I am looking to buy speakers used that new would be $20k- $30k and hope to pick them up for $10-$15k. I have given up the idea of buying new speakers for $10,000 or less.

It's interesting that speakers cost so much nowaday.  $20K-$30 is about what an average car would cost today!  

My theory is that much of high end speakers still requires manual labor such as veneering, gluing, sanding and so on ...  And human labor cost has inflated so much more than the government would have liked you to believe.  

It will be interesting to know which speakers you end up buying and how they are compared to the CS2.4.  

james63
good guess- $8-10 K depending on finish in 2019 money. I look forward in reading more about your new loudspeaker search. Happy Listening!

@james63Without knowing what new sound you're looking for, I suggest upgrading the crossovers. The CS2.4 cabinet is very good and the drivers are outstanding. There are some *really* nice gains to be had with improved passive parts. This is a huge thread but it might be worth your time to look at posts from Tom Thiel starting January 2018.
That said, if you're looking for more bass you need to add subwoofers or get something entirely different. For myself, the 2.4 bass is good enough for me (~30 Hz) and the modded XO otherwise puts the SQ on par with $$$ designs.

how much do you think the Thiel CS2.4 would be retailed for in today money (if they are built today?)

Using a simple inflation calculator, the standard CS2.4 would retail for ~$5500 today. But that ignores much steeper inflation for copper and magnets, so call it $6000-8000. Adding the passive parts I put in could push retail north of $10K.

Anyd2

I would guess around $8,000. I am speaker shopping now and nothing in the $8,000-$13,000 range has stood out as better. Just different (some worse). 

I have owned the 2.4 for about 10 years and I feel that you need to be shopping in the $15,000 range to better the 2.4s at today’s pricing. 

Now I am looking to buy speakers used that new would be $20k- $30k and hope to pick them up for $10-$15k. I have given up the idea of buying new speakers for $10,000 or less. 

Out of curiosity with some of the discussions on speaker pricing, how much do you think the Thiel CS2.4 would be retailed for in today money (if they are built today?)

Also I know that most speaker manufacturers use CNC machines to cut the panel into shape?  But in term of gluing them today, is it still human manual labors?

jon_5912
I,too, crossed into the light from a B&W 805 model. Richer textures and timbre caught my earbrain instantly. I saw no need to further research other loudspeaker manufacturers. Oh, Happy Day!

Jon - as I've mentioned before, I have made a study of auditory neurology and experimented with who hears what how. I would say that you 'get it' and in a manner that was formative to Thiel taking on the challenge of coherence way back when. We experienced and observed not only your "relaxing", but also emotional, memory and other musical connections in the coherent presentation which were not present in the phase-time-scrambled (normal) presentation. So, as a subject, your experience would have supported our study, even before we knew what we were studying.

One reason "it" is hard to explain is because "it" is not analytical. In fact the analytical brain prides itself at the descrambling task and a different kind of pleasure built around that cognitive success of restructuring a cohesive sound from its parts. I am drifting toward epistemology - how we know what we know - which is via very a broad count of different mechanisms. I say that the phase-time thing connects us to the music in a more direct, primal, whole manner. And you are experiencing that as relaxing. I call it 'coming home'.  

I don't know if I get the time/phase coherence thing or not.  I don't think I could describe it but maybe it's why I find Thiels so relaxing.  When I changed from B&W to Thiel there were some obvious differences that I could describe but also a sense of being able to sit back and relax without being tempted to lean forward or put other effort into listening that I hadn't experienced before.  Maybe that was me getting it without realizing what was going on.  

beetlemania
Thank You for the continued hard work and testimony regarding the XO trials.  Happy Listening!

tomthiel -
as always, thoughtful perspectives. On my first listen to a Thiel, I certainly "got it" or was  "it got me"? As luck played its part, I had heard the Vandy 2 series a few times previously. To my ears, any differences between these (2) brands were not subtle. I found my loudspeaker brand on that Spring day. Not only was the weather beautiful there in Baltimore MD so was the aural experience.  Testimony,  is the highest compliment.
Happy Listening!

After getting the Cardas hookup wire in the second channel, whatever last doubts I had about these 2.4s being my last speakers has evaporated.