Thiel Owners

ronkent - that live album at Stony Mountain is a normally produced remote recording, pretty good as they go. Her studio albums have higher audiophile values. Above I described the first Dancing at the Gate, later Will Ackerman produced Color of Light which has his (as in usual Windham Hill) high production values, but uses 18 mics and lots of gizmos and signal manipulation to get "his sound". That is the album where Dana and I "caught" (on CS2.2 / Classe) numerous, ongoing plugs and other artifacts which Will with his $multimillion studio insisted couldn't be heard. Then Dana produced locally "Above the Fields", which is very carefully and well done and can take you there.

If you like solo piano and have a contemplative streak, I highly recommend Dana's work.

Phase is used to mean different things. The signal reversal that ronkent mentions is actually polarity, where the entire signal is switched plus for minus. That is straightforward to troubleshoot. Put a 4 volt DC signal way up front in your signal chain and your speakers should push forward into the room. (except that some crossover types push some and pull the others. So, use the woofer as your guide.) The "button test" identifies whether the recording is right or backwards. This is also polarity (called absolute phase). Proper polarity will sound focused and reversed polarity will sound diffused. Negative polarity is now generally considered an error, but it happens.
The stuff I am talking about references the phase relationships among the harmonic structure of the signal. That's a real rat's nest which the user can't unscramble. Those ratty problems are generally ameliorated by speakers which scramble phase - higher order networks are already asking your brain to unscramble and there simply isn't enough processing power to further decode what's going on in the actual signal. Higher order networks are in that way forgiving - more recordings with more problems will sound better, or at least their evils will go unnoticed.

Please note that I recognize my opinions as being marginal. On a panel of audio engineering experts, I would be crucified or perhaps kindly tolerated. However, on a panel of aural neuroscientists, I would get at least polite inquiries regarding my observations.

hi Todd,  i may be over my head here but there are two kinds of phase that I know of.  One is absolute phase which is easy to test with the Reference recordings burn in and test cd.  that shows if something is hooked up incorrectly and thus out of phase.  the other is much tougher as the only way to know is to have a button on the preamp or DAC (my PS DAC has it) where you just test for in phase or out of phase.   this has more to do with the recording than anything in your system. 

Todd - I mis-spoke to a degree. Much of the best modern equipment is phase coherent, but there is plenty of gear that employs global feedback, steep filters, etc. which introduce phase anomalies at super-sonic frequencies, which are known by some to be audible. Also cable can introduce such anomalies. Big discussion with contentious disagreement.  So, I retract my global statement. Note that much modern state of the art gear is paying attention up to perhaps 200kHz. Reading the performance of square waves, impulses and step responses tells the story. Beware when a review makes excuses that include "beyond human hearing". To match the ABrain's discernment in the time domain (a couple milliseconds), you need a couple hundred kHz in the frequency domain. So, old-fashioned brick wall CD upper limit 22kHz filtering will introduce phase distortion that is audible.  The gear that you guys consistently choose is generally very good in its phase performance.

hi TT,  thanks for the recommendation of that album.  the one i got was live at Stone Mountain and it is really lovely.  You are one wise and insightful person as i can tell that from the way you write.

Tom,
Your message to @ronkent mentions the phase coherence of the playback chain. How does one tell if the playback chain is phase coherent?
Todd

Reference Recordings are completely phase correct, as is your playback chain unless there is a wiring error. So the signal at your speakers is phase coherent and if the speakers keep it straight you can hear that proverbial pin drop. Enjoy.

thank you Tom. all though i cannot honestly claim that i understand all you said, i get the main points for sure. When i listen to a well recorded symphony, such as on Reference Recordings, i really get a sense of a complete orchestra and it sounds real and alive  and very coherent, though obviously not at the same scale as the real thing.

Kent - Yes, precisely.

Jitter is timing errors which were believed by many to exist beyond human hearing, because when translated into the frequency / tonal domain, the artifacts are beyond the audible range. The auditory brain must work hard to weed out the temporal artifacts of jitter, causing fatigue or other distancing mechanisms. Dither spreads them toward randomness and therefore more easily ignored.

In higher order slopes, the onset transient arrives in distinctly parsed segments, one for each driver. The ABrain does indeed combine them, using memory, later-arrived reflections and decay parameters to make sense of them - all occurring later in time after brain work. Live music comes all intact. Well recorded and made music played back through single speaker / headphones can preserve that all-intactness. Multi driver / higher order slope speakers cannot preserve it; although they minimize the deleterious effects by creating timing with few or no sharp discontinuities, saying the ear can't tell the difference between single or multiple arrival times. In a manner of thinking, they are of course correct - the ABrain is very skilled - unless you are a listener who appreciates the coherent rightness of unified arrival transients such as heard in real (non-reproduced) music and sound.

That particular component of "realness" appreciation is shared among many Thiel owners.

   From Tom Thiel:  "The odd jujitsu is that the human auditory brain is so good at assembling-synthesizing known tonal sounds from the transient impulse data stream . . . that in an intellectual way, we enjoy the decoding process which we call hearing.
For myself, and the small minority of those who 'get it', there is a direct path to the core being when that sonic analysis-reassembly is not necessary, when the unadulterated musical signal arrives as natural sound. As Andy says, and as the physics supports, and psychoacoustics agrees, there is only one way to accomplish that direct stream in a multiple driver system: first order crossover slopes."
I wonder (just a guess)  if this is in some ways similar to  jitter with regard to  digital.  Digital was fatiguing for so long and now there is a lot of thinking that jitter was the problem and companies like PS and others have addressed that issue and thus digital is less fatiguing.  Perhaps Thiel with their first order crossovers make our brains work less hard at assembling what we hear?

Hi Kent - Dana's music comes from that place we all want to go . . . it goes by names such as life and love, and sweet inspiration.

Her inaugural album "Dancing at the Gate" is in many ways my favorite. One small piano in one small room with one pair of mics recorded to DAT and mastered to CD with no compression, equalization or effects - with the greatest of care. Close your eyes.

Thank you.

hi Tom,  i wanted to let you know i had a nice little correspondence with Dana Cunningham and mentioned that you had recommended her music.  She thinks the world of you.  Kent

Ekohn - They're not bookshelf, but you might consider PowerPoint1.2s. They are wall or ceiling mount, so they take no floor-space. Same driver as the SCS4 in an aluminum wall-mount cabinet. Their configuration minimizes boundary effects for extreme transparency.

Hi folks,
im looking to go from 5.1 to 7.1
currently my hone theater has 3.7 fronts, scs3 center and 2.7 surrounds.

Im looking for a cheap but decent rears but have no idea what would match well. Hate to say I do want to keep it cheap. I considered used scs2 for about $500 but looking for other thoughts.

Thanks.

ps.  Looking for bookshelf’s 

Andy- I sent my response before reading yours. Agreed, lots of competing priorities to juggle.
Tom

The impact of phase coherence is hard to communicate and harder to prove. In fact, the industry at large has proven to its satisfaction that it doesn't matter. I have spoken here about the personal experience and psychoacoustic study surrounding why I judge it to matter deeply.

The odd jujitsu is that the human auditory brain is so good at assembling-synthesizing known tonal sounds from the transient impulse data stream . . . that in an intellectual way, we enjoy the decoding process which we call hearing.
For myself, and the small minority of those who 'get it', there is a direct path to the core being when that sonic analysis-reassembly is not necessary, when the unadulterated musical signal arrives as natural sound. As Andy says, and as the physics supports, and psychoacoustics agrees, there is only one way to accomplish that direct stream in a multiple driver system: first order crossover slopes.

Now, the cat's meow would be to have drivers with broad enough range of resonance-free operation that the phase coherent wave-front could be coupled with a ripple-free frequency domain response. By the way, a larger budget would permit additional driver resonance control and more fine-tuned frequency response to get the best of both worlds. I believe that Jim's 0.7 drivers have that potential - the midrange goes beyond 20K without breakup and so forth and so on. It would take a visionary designer with youth on his side to continue Jim's work to get those results.
Magico and others at the expensive high end get various aspects very right. But as you say, for those who have tuned in to the joys of phase coherence, there is always still something missing in non-coherent designs.

andy2,

In my personal experience, my emotional engagement with a speaker is not based on whether it's first order or not.   I have several speakers using high order topologies that I find very emotionally engaging.  (In fact, I was partially driven back in to high end audio by how smitten I was with my old pair of Thiel 02s, which are not time/phase coherent).

I was listening to my Waveform Mach MC monitors over the last week.  Waveform, when in business, made a pretty explicit rejection of the case for time/phase coherence claiming even frequency response/even power/dispersion and other characteristics were more important for accuracy and believability.   Just as I find the Thiels make a good case for the Thiel approach, I find the Waveforms make a good case for that approach.  The Waveforms sound to my ears warm, open, extremely natural in instrumental timbre, and particularly uncolored and "alive" sounding.   I almost bought a pair of the larger Mach Solos that were for sale recently and I'm kicking myself that I didn't as they are super rare and gone now.  (I would not sell my Thiels to buy them, though).

I would go back and forth between the Waveform and the Thiels.  The Waveforms are imaging monsters, and the Thiels are great too.  In some ways I found the Waveforms a bit more neutral than my 2.7s, and a bit more revealing of exact differences between instruments, and more revealing of dynamics to a degree.  So they really communicated a "live" sense of musicians playing instruments, with amazing imaging.

On the other hand:  The Thiel 2.7s - certainly having an advantage of being more full range and not just monitors like the Mach Mcs - had that special Thiel thing of organizing the sound even more precisely so instruments and voices have a depth, dimension, solidity and body that the Waveforms did not have.  There were more subtle advantages the Thiels gave in the richness - so a flute would have more body and airy texture vs a clarinet, where on the Waveforms both those instruments had a more similar "hardened" quality.

But my point is, I found that the two design philosophies were fairly neck-in-neck in terms of pleasing and impressive results.  Which is why I love having different speakers.

For me the Magico A3 were very impressive on a number of audiophile score-card characteristics, but they ultimately failed to really engage me.

I was wondering if this has to do with Thiel usage of first order design.  I mean if you're already bought in Thiel first order philosophy, any other speakers with higher order filters will fail you in term of "emotional engagement".  

Personally I already made my own conclusion based on my own designs that first order results in the most musical reproduction of music, so I am sort of in the same camp as well.

pwhinson

When I was seeking a possible replacement for my Thiel 3.7s (only due to the size/depth of the 3.7s causing me a little ergonomic problem in my room) I auditioned the Magico A3 at length.   I wrote about my impressions in another thread, but in a nutshell I found them highly transparent and detailed, not bright but a tad bit fatiquing over time.  I found the bass to be not as precise and controlled as the Thiels, and even though powered by a decent solid state amp, I found them dynamically a bit limp compared to my Thiels.  I also preferred the timbral quality of voices and instruments through the  Thiels.

For me the Magico A3 were very impressive on a number of audiophile score-card characteristics, but they ultimately failed to really engage me.

I have very limited experience with any other Magicos. I heard larger Magicos for a couple of test tracks a while back and they were very impressive, but didn't have time to gauge the "emotional involvement" factor - they were way beyond my price bracket in any case.

@thosb they did not have the PS Audio speaker prototypes and I definitely asked. It sounds like they are keeping those a secret until Axpona. I did get to see the Arnie Nudell prototype speakers(I think they were prototype speakers) that they were using as their reference speakers when designing the PS Audio speakers. 

@pwhinson Thank you for that generous offer. It just further illustrates my point about how wonderful this community is.

I would absolutely like to take you up on your offer! However, one thing I did not mention in my previous post is that my wife is extremely pregnant with our third child and she is about 2 weeks away from her due date. My audio journey is on hold for the next 12-14 weeks or so. I will shoot you a message when I start my travels back up again. Thank you!

Easy.  I use the cable provided by REL and run it to the speaker connections on the back of the amp.  REL sounds much better this way, and is their preferred hookup,  over going to the low level inputs. If you have a PS amp,  you will need an extra connector to prevent hum when the amp goes into standby.   Todd it is money well spent as my friend Bob just wrote me and thanked me for talking him into pairing a REL with his 3.7's

@ronkent,
How do you handle the crossovers with the REL/3.7 combo?  I own the 3.7 and have been thinking of the same thing.
Todd

I will add my two cents here:  A good friend and I both own 3.7's, and found they improved a lot with the addition of a good sub (we both got REL S/5 SHO).  the comment above "The one thing the Thiel’s do wrong is I believe they compress and distort a tiny bit on full scale orchestral recordings at high volumes" is something i too experienced with 2.4's, 2.7's. and even 3.7's. However the addition of a great sub should really change that. A properly set up sub does more than just add deep bass notes,  it really fills out a system and allows the full power of the orchestra to come through.  If i had the space and the $$$   I would have two but not now.

pwhinson
Thank You for the update. I am hoping the Paradigm Persona 9H fares well in your system too. I can tell you that something along upper Magico, Vandersteen or Von Schweikert lines will better a Thiel. Keep us posted on your Audio journey.

Happy Listening!

beetlemania
Me as well. The DX-5 was in stock (non DSD upgrade) form. The extra musical details were amazing. Speakers- Monitor Audio PL 100 II ( 2-way monitor on stands. $5795).  I am sure hoping that the SACD playback is a minor fix, minor issue. I will reach out to Ayre for a consultation. If only Charles (RIP) were still here.  Happy Listening!

Continuing saga on whether to replace my aging but spectacular Thiel 2.4's with something else:  Magicos?  Vandersteen? Von Scweikert?  I dunno, but this decision is going to be made very methodically and carefully.  So one of the more serious audio salons in town received a pair of Magico A3’s last Friday and I went to hear them today. Unfortunately they were in a small crowded room, placed about one foot from the rear wall and directly beside them were a pair of Focals. Tiny room. No way to properly audition these speakers and certainly no way to get any idea of how they image. Driven with good amplification they sounded good but I’ll second one other poster that they sounded slightly dark and I felt there was a relative bit too much lower midrange/upper bass for my taste and in this little room they sounded boomy at times. When the guys learned that I was entertaining speakers that cost several times the price of the A3s they seemed to push the A3s aside. If what I heard was representative of what the A3s can do (I don’t think it is)...they are not the speakers for me. I did think the timbre of instruments was very true to the sound of the real thing. It did whet my appetite for the S3 and the S5, neither of which they had on hand for demo unfortunately. I DID hear a pair of Von Schweikert E5’s which were frankly fairly breathtaking with regard to some of the things those speakers did (driven by a Constellation integrated). I still think I "might" like the Magico’s better...I get the impression (I may be wrong) that some people might find the Magico’s a little clinical but I like that relative high level of detail and texture...its why I like the Thiels. At this point this is really just one old guy’s attempt to my "last speaker." The one thing the Thiel’s do wrong is I believe they compress and distort a tiny bit on full scale orchestral recordings at high volumes. I’m a little curious what the Paradigm Persona 9H’s will sound like on good amplification (I’ve heard them several times now but both times on McIntosh integrated amps...not exactly the kind of amplification you’re likely to use on speakers of that caliber, although I’m hoping they sound fantastic on my Pass/Aesthetix gear. I think I’m probably bound to start going to some of the shows before any final decisions are made. The shop I visited today does have a pair of S3’s on order but my guess is that the S5’s are more likely to be the speaker for me but the proof is in the pudding. No indication when (if ever) they’ll be getting another pair of S5’s in. They do seem think that Von Schweikert and VAC are the two product lines they seem to want to really sell the hell out of at the higher end of the market.  

I’ve not heard a DX-5 but am surprised you preferred it to the newer QX-5. Remind me what speakers are in that system? AX-5 has plenty of headroom for my CS2.4s.

beetlemania
Today I had a second audition with AYRE featuring the DX-5 universal player matched to the AX-5 Twenty integrated amp. Only the DX-5 and QX-5 Twenty were changed out- all other gear and cabling remained the same as my first audition. CD and SACD were evaluated as I do not have prior experience with this company's disc spinners.
As always, I begin my session with my long time reference CD Jamie Cullum "Twentysomething". I also end my session with this CD. Comparing selections against the QX-5 Twenty, the DX-5, provided even greater micro detail, subtle and sublime. I have owned this disc since 2004, listened to it hundreds of times (at least) yet there were nuances never heard previously.  Next were my Rock preferences for evaluating systems- Pearl Jam "Ten". Favorite track for such conditions, Oceans.
Listen for the dynamic timpani strikes (clean, clear, musical, sharp contrast). Nirvana "Unplugged- Live in New York" Favorite track, All Apologies. The DX-5 need not apologize for anything here. The cello is perfect and sublime in presentation. I felt a strong sense of Dave Grohl holding back his hard hitting drummer skills for a more delicate approach via Hot Rod Stix in hand. Tracy Chapman "S/T" favorite track, Fast Car.
The beauty of an acoustic guitar was enjoyed without any distortion. The Bass pluck at the end of this song, sublime, not boomy. Natalie Merchant "Tigerlily" favorite track, Carnival. All songs on her debut album are well crafted and recorded. Excellent instrumental separation yet delicate voice and percussion undertones heard. The ending was perfectly clear and cross talk discernable without congestion.
Onto SACD- Alan and myself experienced a hiccup here. He does not own any SACD discs so today was the first time the player had a disc in play. I was able to enjoy (1) disc, Journey greatest hits single-layer (not a hybrid). Kind of Blue single layer, The Police single layer (entire catalog) and Twentysomething would not engage?  The player scrolled the word, unknown, followed by stop in the led display. I did enjoy the Journey disc from start to finish without any glitches. I have always enjoyed the sharp contrast in playing styles from Anysley Dunbar and Steve Smith on songs "Don't stop Believin'" , "Wheel in the Sky". The drums and percussion were very well recorded on these tracks the PRaT is perfect. It is easy to pick up on Smith's jazz drumming undertones built into a Rock structured song.  I must agreed with Beetle regarding the AX-5 Twenty, musical, is the correct descriptor. Extremely musical is a better descriptor. 
This duo is neutral with a touch of warmth. Cold, forward, hot, laid back,
was not appreciated with the DX-5. More to follow on the SACD playback issue.  Happy Listening!

jacksky
Thank You for citing your serial numbers (S/N).  Good to read that your experimenting with speaker placement is going well. Keep dialing in those CS5i loudspeakers. 

Happy Listening!

Tomthiel;
i little more about my CS5’s: serial numbers 183/184 probably make them fairly early production.
previous owner informed they were sent to a Maryland authorized Thiel tech for upgrades, namely woofers and internal wiring for what he termed “converting them to the CS5i option”.  There is no exterior evidence and no paperwork to back this up.
When I had them at 8’ apart, 2’ from front wall pointed straight there was no cohesion/distinguishing sources to the imaging
Toeing them in focused the image but only to the extent that I seemingly got 3 very point sources of  sound.  For the left/right, I would say it was the opposite of speakers disappearing .
moving them 4’ out from front wall 8’ apart with toe in changed the center image and gave it depth but the left/right were still very point sourced.
tonight I bridge the amps and try a wider stance with more toe in.
i am going to be at this for a while...till I get it right.
positive side effect is the muscles are getting a workout, these are REALLY that heavy!

hi guys,  it was great having bighemp here and really introducing him to what a properly set up home system can do.  thanks Jafant for your kind words.   so much of the thread has been about the updates that TT and others are working on,  and truthfully a lot of it was over my head and i also know that the .7 speakers will not be seeing any mods anytime soon.  I am so blessed to have been able to get the 3.7's from Rob last April and they have continued to improve.  Of course in my opinion,  a big part of the improved sound is the addition of the P15 and then P20 power plants.  gosh those are indispensable to a good system.   Thosb asked about what i will do when the new PS speakers come out.  They are probably the only things that would make me give up my 3.7's,  but i hating changing speakers versus amps, preamps, etc.  my whole system is dialed in for Thiel and has been for 35 years.  The only reason i would consider the new PS speakers is that they will be matched with my all PS system.

Jafant asked about  cd recommendations (I do not stream at home or play vinyl as cds are so great through the now sadly out of production PS player).  i would suggest Raising Sand by Robert Plant and Allison Krause.   Have had it for years and when i played it last week i was knocked over.   it was like it had been remastered the sound was so much better.  same for Old Kit Bag by Richard Thompson.  a killer album for sure.  the truth is that with the improvements i have made over the last year or so (MG Audio speaker cable among others) that many  cds that used to be good sounding now sound great.  what a wonderful hobby.  may we all live long and prosper and enjoy our wonderful audio systems.

bighempin2 - forgot to ask, did PS Audio have their speaker prototypes in the listening room when you were there, as Paul mentioned in one of his videos?  I was out there in October and no such luck but they had just moved.

ronkent - welcome back!  Very curious about what you will do when Paul releases his speakers.  If you move on, can you put me on your short list for the 3.7s?  How does one obtain a pair of these anyway, outside of watching all the normal sites?  Not in the market now, but someday....

jacksky and bighempin2 - welcome, you probably know this, but you have found a gem of a thread.  bighempin2 I am impressed you are jumping in with both feet!

All - I rarely see MCS1s for sale, and came across one at Audio Solutions in Indy, for $700, catch is both woofers don't work, nor does the midrange, and they are unsure (!?!) about the tweeter, so lots more $$$ to rebuild this thing.  Question is, are these so rare that it could be worth it for the person determined to put together a five channel Thiel system?

ronkent

Great to see you in this New Year. I have missed your comments and contributions. Good to read that you are still enjoying the PS Audio/Thiel Audio combination. Those BHK amps are really catching on to Audiophiles across various forums. Agreed, PS Audio Power Plants are highly regarded in the 2-channel and home theater arenas.
As your schedule allows, post some of your fave albums or musical passages/selections, that demonstrate your system's sonic capabilities.


Happy Listening!

hi Bighempin,   it was great seeing you and i am so glad you enjoyed your visit.   I am honored and pleased that my system sounded so good to you.   I  am such a huge fan of the PS gear and think the BHK amps are fantastic with Thiel speakers (at least with the 2.7and 3.7 as i have not tried others with the PS amp).  However i think that most people who have not experienced what one of the PS power plants can do are missing out on getting the best from their systems.   I have owned numerous iterations of them and the P15 and P20 will transform your system for sure.  Even the older and smaller models are great and are critical for a system to perform at its best.  I sure hope you can get the speakers you want especially the 3.7's as they are like mini IRS speakers.

Some Bryston’s are compatible with some Thiel’s.

jacksky

Thank You for citing your system- especially the cables! 
Keep us posted as you massage those Thiel speakers into your room/system.  Bryston is a sonic match.

Happy Listening!

Andy -  the circuits control the drivers for a net 6dB / octave slope all the way down, including the interaction with the top end of the port where another pole is added to the top end of the woofer xo. Various conjugate circuits are applied to counteract bare driver anomalies. Since the usable driver range extends more than 3 octaves beyond the crosspoint, drastic measures can be called for.

As I said, I doubt that Jim would have tried to cross that midrange with that woofer, requring so much attenuation. He would have developed a smaller midrange with a higher natural bass roll out, to better match the 8" woofer with less brute force required.

Hi Tom,

Thanks for the info.  I was actually very surprised to find that large a value for the cap at 400uF+.  Is it because the intrinsic impedance of the driver is somewhat low?  Or is more has to do with the time-phase aligned nature of the xover?

Thanks.

Your 7b have plenty of current at normal listening levels. In parallel, they can handle 1- 3 ohm speakers effectively. In my testing, I never could tell the advantage of the parallel setting, as my SPL is modest, rarely exceeding 80 DB.

Andy - same coax but higher crosspoint to the 8" 2.7 woofer requiring 416uF series blocks. 400uF electro + 15 PP + 1uF styrene / tin foil. The lower 3.7 crosspoint needs 226uF as 3x75uF PPs plus the 1uF S/T. ( no Es in the 3.7 signal path.)

As I've mentioned before, Jim wasn't alive to apply his typical methodology, which would have been using the coax he was developing for the 7.3 to feed the 2.5 just as the 2.4 had been fed by the 7.2 and the 2.3 and CS7 were co-developed.
That jujitsu of dropping the 3.7 coax into an 8"model 2 and calling it the 2.7 is not Jim Thiel methodology, but rather a way to use an extant driver in a fall-down product, creating a model 2 more similar to the 3 in performance and cost.

You are right, big film caps are expensive. Note that the 2.4 upgrade requires only 42uF series feed caps.

The 2.7 has a huge electrolytic cap bank to roll off the bottom of the midrange where the 8" woofer wants to cross in.

Hi Tom,

Out of curiosity, since the 3.7 and 2.7 share the same midrange/tweeter driver, wouldn't the 3.7 should also has a large capacitor bank as well?  My guess is the need for a large cap bank because the xover freq. is rather low - probably aroud 200 - 300Hz to the bass driver on both speakers.

In a typical speaker if crossing over at 200Hz is required, the amount of cap is probably around 80uF to 100uF depending on various parameters.
I could see the use of electrolytic since using poly cap could be expensive if 100uF is needed.

Jack, my first thought was what Beetle suggested, but turning the room around is a very big deal, and listening from the dining room is probably a goal . . . 5' is a lot, and somewhat more than necessary, but more is better to separate the direct from reflected wavefront. But 2' is not enough. The auditory brain tries to integrate sources separated by less than a few milliseconds. We are testing.

Your equipment is great and as you say, should not be the problem. However, bridged amps are less comfortable driving low impedance loads. The 7b has huge power, so matching impedance is probably more critical than power. I don't know the circuit of that amp to make a recommendation. Experiment and let us know.

I do know that my first approach to upgrading the CS5 would be to separate the bass drivers (3x 8" on 2 bass circuits) from the uppers with 4 identical amp channels running the pair of speakers. At the 400 Hz lower midrange crossing, the impedance is 4 ohms and rising slowly, which presents a sweet resistive load for the upper amp. The bass current draw would be sequestered in its own channel.

Your problem is the core problem that limited the life and acceptance of the CS5. Both at the time and more so in hindsight, I believe a 4 channel setup for the CS5 might have made it a success.

Tomthiel,
thanks for your advice.
I am using Bryston 7b monoblocks.
i don’t think power is the problem but I will change the Parallel/series mode setting so they double down in the 2ohm loads.  will let you know if that changes anything. Then I’ll pull them out when my wife is not home just to hear what happens. You are asking for a lot - 5ft!! 
Jafant,
rest of my system is OPPO 105d, Technics SL-1600MKII with Shure V15 cartridge, Bryston BP20 preamp, Monster HTS3600 power center, Grover Huffman Empress silver speaker cables and Siltech connects.  Most of my listening is streaming through Tidal.

i will say this: I am pleased the speakers sound great even at low volume. That was one of the glaring shortcomings in my previous speakers, Egglestonworks Andra.

@bighempin:  If you are ever in Atlanta you are more than welcome to listen to my 2.4's on my Pass Labs (power amp) / Aesthetix Calypso/Janus preamp system.  Amplification is tremendously important especially with the Thiels which are a bit finicky.  I also like the PS Audio gear (I have their Directstream as my dac).  Let me know if you're in town and interested and we'll set it up.

See what happens when you pull them out to 5' behind them.

Yeah, I was thinking it would be interesting to have that dining room as the front wall.

jacksky

Welcome! the party here never ends.  Good to read that we have another CS5i owner. Tom offers excellent advice on this speaker's proper placement. What other gear including cabling is in your system?
I look forward in reading more about you and your Audio journey.

Happy Listening!

bighempin
Welcome! it is good to see you here. I know that you have been reading this thread and will continue to enjoy the plethora, wealth, of information therein. The Panel is here to assist and help you along on your Audio journey. From my end, it is a pleasure to find a budding Audiophile that is interested in our wonderful hobby. You have covered much ground in a very short period of time. Traveling to the various dealers/retailers is key to discovering the brands of gear that peaks interest.  Thank You for jumping in as a contributor.  I look forward in reading more about your musical tastes as we build your next system.

Happy Listening!

Jack - I'll jump right in since I have set up many rooms with CS5s. I suspect the root of your problem is having them too close to the wall behind them. The 5 goes down below 20Hz as a point source, so you are getting lots of back-bounce reflection for your aural brain to try to conflate into the direct wave-front. See what happens when you pull them out to 5' behind them.
Also, you probably know that they present a potentially challenging sub 2-ohm load at their lowest reach. If your amp is running out of current, that wreaks havoc on imaging.

Hang in there, when you get them right, they can be marvelous.
The folks here have good ideas on amplification and placement.