Thiel Owners

Used Google translate to write this so hope it's all clear to you guys.

The diameter of the Supra Ply 3.4/S cable outer sheath is 8mm, I have removed the plastic tube that contained the coax wire and the existing holes are then drilled to 8.5mm with an angle screwdriver, where the cable enters the coax chamber I glued it with a PU TIX Express from Bostik, first I have the cable extended further then glued and then retracted the cable thru the hole again so that the hole itself is also provided with glue, immediately afterwards I sprayed some water with a plant spray to accelerate the drying process, later I tested the closure by pressing the passive woofer with a good result, totally no movement at the coax, the remaining holes are also drilled to 8.5mm so that the wires are supported there too, this time without glue.

The Ply 3.4 / S cable has two 3,4mm2 (OFC) cores, these cores are far too thick to fit into the holes of the coax and woofer terminals, these are soldered neatly direct on the plus and min terminals, the terminal supports of the coax and the woofer are attached to the units with a bolt, the earthed wires are secured to them so the frames are also grounded.

I have placed the gold plated earth terminal airtight through a 3mm hole between the two +/- connections, at the rear is a thin gold plated solder plate fixed to the m3 bolt.


https://www1.picturepush.com/photo/a/16102252/1024/Thiel-CS-2.4/Supra-Ply-3.4%3AS.jpeg

https://www1.picturepush.com/photo/a/16102259/1024/Thiel-CS-2.4/earth-post-gold-350-0.jpg

https://www1.picturepush.com/photo/a/16102263/1024/Thiel-CS-2.4/20190203-195500.jpg

https://www1.picturepush.com/photo/a/16102262/1024/Thiel-CS-2.4/20190203-162605.jpg

Finally, what gauge is your new wire and did you have any problems fitting it into the hole on the driver tab?

It looks either to be 14AWG
https://www.madisoundspeakerstore.com/speaker-wire/supra-ply2.0-speaker-wire-per-foot-14-awg/

or 12AWG:
https://www.madisoundspeakerstore.com/speaker-wire/supra-ply3.4-speaker-wire-per-foot-12-awg/

But I am not sure how he run the ground wire.  Speaker wires usually do not have any grounding terminal so I would guess it has to be modified afterward.

How did you seal the new wire at the hole where it enters the coax chamber?

That would be a challenge since I assume the coax chamber has to be sealed from the bass compartment.  If there is any leakage, it will affect the sound of the coax driver.

My guess is you have to cut the existing wire, then run your own wire through the existing opening, then seal it with some type of weather sealant from Home Depot. 

@holco 
Impressive! Curious to know what difficulties you encountered replacing the hookup wire. The run from the coax board to the coax looks problematic to me. Some questions:

Was your OEM wire in a tube, sealed with hot melt?

How did you guide the new coax wire from the coax chamber through the fiberglass and around the brace above the woofer?  

How did you seal the new wire at the hole where it enters the coax chamber?

Finally, what gauge is your new wire and did you have any problems fitting it into the hole on the driver tab?

Thanks andy2

Yes all have been removed. 

Hi holco,

Very nice job.  I am curious that if you had to remove the woofer and mid/tweeter from the front baffle in order to connect the new wire?

Tomthiel, 

I planned that when my brother is here again and will post the outcome here.

Holco - since you performed multiple changes at the same time, I wish to ask a favor. Can you compare SQ with / without the drain wire?

Thanks, Tom

Upgraded the internal wirering with Supra Ply 3.4/s cable's and also grounded the coax crossover backside, coax and woofer frames, crossovers are placed on the side wall's to gain more distance between them and shorter wirering, low mid and high details and imaging are improved and got more air overall, bass is clearly tighter.

https://www.diyaudio.com/forums/multi-way/332679-thiel-cs2-4-xover-schematics-2.html

ekohn00 : corrected.

ekohn00

Welcome! good to see you here. You have quite a collection of Thiel Audio speakers. Besides the Denon POA A1HDC, what other gear including cabling is in your system? Can you give the dimensions of your basement listening space?  There are a few members here using a home theater set-up. Guys chime in for suggestions.
I look forward in reading more about your system and musical tastes.

Happy Listening!

holco
Very nice- I am glad that you found at least (1) serial number. Describing the sound of any component can be challenging. Best advice is to talk about your fave piece of musical passage, at the least. Talk about the before upgrade characteristics then add after upgrade factors. Did imaging get better? Soundstage is deeper or wider? Musician(s) are solidly placed? Instrument texture or tone become cleaner/clearer.
Give it a shot!  Again, it is good to have you here as a DIY member of the Panel.

Happy Listening!

Hey folks, 

i could use some recommendations for optimizing my home theater.  
Mom running 5.1 with Thiel 3.7 as my Fronts, an SCS3 center and 2.3s for my rear.  
I have then connected to a Denon POA-A1HDC on bridge mode which provides 500w to 4 ohms. 

Running audyssey has some problems maxing out my fronts.  

I was was wondering if I should forgo the bridge mode and drop to 300w. Vs the recommendation to use attenuators to get audyssey to balance.  

I know the 3.7s are known to be power hungry, but the area in the basement is not very large.  (I sit 8 feet away from center).  

Any my thoughts are appreciated.  

gwgjr31

A very nice combination of gear as well. I have heard an ARC pre-amp w/ Mark Levinson power amps previously and enjoyed the synergy.
No doubt that your 7.2 loudspeakers are high current monsters!
Good to read about a cd player being in the mix.

Happy Listening!

vegasears
Very nice combination of gear. I do not believe that I have seen another Audiophile use McIntosh and VTL together? The B&W 801S3 is a fine speaker indeed.  Happy Listening!

As we speak, I am now working on the internal Supra wirering with grounding, hopefully with a positive result.

I am curious what type of Supra cables you plan to use?  I bought them from Madisound which has reasonably good price.  They are available in various gauge size, but the larger gauge such as 9AWG has an odd resonance issue, but I had good experience with the smaller gauge wires.

beetlemania, 

As you can see I had no problem to upload some pictures,  but it's time consuming compared to what I normally have to do on other forums, it's also unfortunately that there is no option to share pictures on the topics itself. 

Regarding your upgraded crossovers, I totally understand what you are going thru, like I said before the 2.4 is performing out of this world so good!! after the crossover upgrade.

As we speak, I am now working on the internal Supra wirering with grounding, hopefully with a positive result. 

Tomthiel,
At least for one loudspeaker I found out the serial number, it's 1446

https://www1.picturepush.com/photo/a/16101822/1024/Thiel-CS-2.4/20190203-194532.jpg

Thanks for the extra pics, holco. I tried unsuccessfully to add pics on Audiogon systems a couple of months ago. Not sure what the problem was.

An update on my upgrade impressions . . .

There have times over the past couple of weeks when I wondered whether the new boards were fully settled. Regardless, I’ve noticed more than ever the differences in recording and mastering quality among albums, so it could be that’s some or all of what I’m hearing. Michael Fremer, among others, has commented on speakers that are “too” revealing. I don’t agree with his conclusion but now appreciate what he is referring to.

While listening a few days ago I recalled Shane Buettner’s review of the 2.4. He generally raved about it but one complaint was that he heard “slightly on the cool side of neutral sound”. He caulked it up to the aluminum diaphragms (he’s a huge fan of Vandersteen). I ran this past Tom Thiel and he pointed out that aluminum drivers can sound bright or tizzy if poorly implemented but not “cool”. Anyhow, vocals on some songs do sound a bit thin or cool. I suspect this reflects the recording quality because vocals on other songs sound dead neutral. Something like the Norah Jones debut album or recent Keb Mo sound superb but something like Shawn Colvin’s debut not so much. Tom also mentioned that John Atkinson would find flaws in his recordings while reviewing Thiels.

To be clear, I have zero regrets about the upgrade. The textures and spacious sound are intoxicating. The resolution and transparency are pretty much SOTA. This is easily the best sound I’ve had in my room and, in most ways, rivals the best systems I’ve heard. Although recording and mastering foibles become apparent on some albums I wouldn’t go back. And the well recorded music is just so freaking good. I listen to my system almost every evening and I can now bliss out more than ever.

But, this might be a warning to those who share Fremer’s point of view if you are considering the XO upgrade. Curious to hear responses from the community.

My upgrade is not finished. I still need to replace the hookup wire with Cardas and replace the binding posts. I’m also toying with the idea of trying a Jupiter copper foil 0.01 uF bypass cap on one of the coax feeds.

Jafant,
My current system is SAM reference TT+Audia Flight phono pre/Raysonic 168 CD player/Bluenode streamer feeding an ARC Reference 3 driving a pair of Levinson 436 amps for this system. As for cables, I am firmly in the budget cable camp, so I use a mix of Blue Jean, Monoprice, and custom made cables. I have more gear than I can use at any one time, so things get swapped in and out periodically though:)

-Gary

Jafant,

Thanks :)

I am not a guy who can write a good description about how something sounds, I can tell you that my Thiel's sounds best ever out of this world good to me IMHO, and it does!!, but this is for sure no reference to others, it's the same for me when I read sound descriptions from others, there is simple no reference for me to compare.

My brother is also a audio freak like me and we know from each other how our systems sounds, he knows directly what I mean when I say how something has improved because he has a reference ;)

holco
Your system looks very elegant. Those cross-over networks are beautiful- you have really raised the DIY bar, outdone yourself.  As your schedule allows, talk about the improvements in sound quality per musical tastes.
Sonic improvements for a certain test track or two, album titles...etc.
Bravo!

gwgjr31

Outstanding! Thank You for the follow up regarding your CS 7.2 loudspeakers. Good to read that Rob was in a position to rebuild the damaged driver(s) and make your speakers operational again.
What other gear including cabling is in your system?

Happy Listening!

imhififan,

Thanks :)

Just added a compilation to my profile

For the visually inclined among you I have posted some photos on the diy audio forum.

https://www.diyaudio.com/forums/multi-way/332679-thiel-cs2-4-xover-schematics.html#post5683434

@holco 
Very nice! thanks for sharing, would you please upload your photos on your system page so all audiogon members can see it too?

Following up on one of my earlier posts, the CS7.2 woofers that seemed hopelessly damaged have been repaired by Coherent Source Services (Rob Gillum).  He had to completely rebuild them (shipping damage prior to me purchasing them), but they are now back, installed, and playing music.  I don't know how much burn in time they might need, but the speakers already sound fantastic (first I've heard them since purchasing them).  Rob was extremely helpful throughout this process, and I unconditionally recommend his services.

Rew room equalizer wizard.

FWIW, I measured freq response of a tone sweep pre and post on axis and from the listening position. Now, the microphone was simply my iPad but both channels had the same handicap. All good. Well, there was a detour but not worth typing out the story :)

Tom has more sophisticated tools but his upgrade is not as far along as mine.

what is Rew?

A pre and post measurement with Rew is not that much work and could give something tangible to support the subjective improvement or lack of deterioration. As I gain experience and understanding of this powerful tool, I'm less reluctant to pair my observations with measurements.

tomthiel
Good to see you. Hope you are well and like beetle, having fun in your Hot Rod garage/studio, with your XO projects.  Keep up the outstanding work!

Happy Listening!

beetlemania
Thank You for posting the CS 2.4SE review by Jeff Fritz.
It serves as a reminder on my decision to purchase the SE above all other loudspeakers I auditioned from 2011 to 2014. To my ears, nuance, was the deciding factor. Hope you are having fun today with the XO project. Keep up the outstanding work.

Happy Listening!

Beetle -  the measurement that would likely reflect on what you are hearing is a radical zoom-in on the onset transient impetus. The shoulder will be cleaner / sharper. Similarly the top shoulder before decay will be cleaner and simpler. Deep knowledge of the interactions between capacitance, inductance and impedance reactenances and reflectances might predict what measurements might reveal - thereby guiding measurement and evaluation strategies. But when a company is developing products on less than a one per year cycle, such measurement luxuries must be budgeted. Over the course of tens of thousands of hearing / measuring cycles, we learned what to trust and what required further verification. Note that such engineering verification was directed toward analysis for future projects and products more so than optimizing the present product. Note the systematic thematic progress from 1976 to 2009. Lots of learning, standing on one's own shoulders, so to speak.

@tomthiel 
Not that I’m an expert or professional but that approach sounds “right”. Measurements are useful for identifying problems but not necessarily helpful for indicating superior SQ. How is it that amps, for example, with similar measurements sound so different? The improvements I’m hearing in terms of resolution and transparency are undeniable but I’m doubtful there would be any meaningful difference on a frequency response or waterfall plot.

Rules - if an engineer with today's tools put his chops to it, the differences could probably be verified. It takes a lot of doing and my experience is that measurements only verify what we already learn through listening. I suspect the Klippel analysis system could show some relevant information. I don't know who might be working at such a fine level of analysis.

For the record, what Thiel would do is discern the improvement by ear, then subject the change to objective measurement. If anything could be determined to be harmed then it's "back to work". If no objective change could be measured, then it's down to cost / benefit discussion among the team.

From Jim Thiel in Soundstage review of 2.4SE
http://www.soundstageultra.com/equipment/thiel_cs24se.htm


How were the improvements measured? Jim Thiel again: "The improved resolution is not the kind of thing that shows up well in measurements; the magnitude of the difference between the CS2.4 and the CS2.4SE is more easily heard than discerned from graphs. The new capacitors allow more nuance, air, detail, and decay to be reproduced by the coaxial drive unit. This was especially evident to us when listening to recordings that contained realistic reverberation, as well as recordings where the instruments were not processed heavily."

Great that there are subjective improvements noted with the upgrade. Can we agree on objective measurements that would capture such an audible improvements and continue the Thiel tradition of both objective and subjective substantiation of improvements?

Holco - thank you for the report.
Regarding leakage - ideally you want none, but practically a small woofer enclosure leak doesn't do much. Are both channels the same? Of serious concern is if the woofer enclosure leaks into the midrange sub-enclosure. Push both the woofer and passive and see if the midrange moves. If so, troubleshoot.

Regarding foil coils. I await your comments on that change. News from the research front: foil alloy is considerably purer than wire alloy. As I've mentioned, Thiel used 6-9s ultra aerospace wire from 1978 onward. By 1995 that wire was no longer available and we used 4-9s specified as C10100plus. That seems to be the best wire currently in use, except for specialty boutique producers such as Cardas. I have learned that ERSE, Jantzen and other high-end suppliers now top out at 3-9s C11000 @99.9% with higher oxygen allowances. Jantzen specifically disclaims audible benefits beyond this C11000 grade, etc. etc.
My personal experience is to the contrary, having spent the summer of '78 comparing wire. Some auditory brains hear the difference. I am currently exploring a solution strategy.

Beetle - your FST coils and hookup wire meet the C11000 spec. But your FST coil winding was less than best. I await your experience with Cardas hookup wire.

Audio inductor foil meets better than C10100. It is as good as the original ITT 6-9s aerospace wire that I secured in 1978. So the generally accepted higher performance of foil coils might be attributable to some combination of  foil skin effect reduction, tighter wrap and purity of alloy.

Lotta mystery.

what strikes me is that if you press the passive woofer the active woofer (of course) comes out but then almost immediately it will slowly return to its neutral position, so there is some air leakage, is that intentionally also the intention or do I have to look for the leak?

beetlemania,

There are still questions about the Wax coils values, my LCR meter indicates that they are too high in value, they are sent to Jantzen and according to them they are within the specs, next week I get them back and can tell more.

For the time being they have not been in the woofer crossovers yet.     

Regarding the Jantzen foil coils on the coax board (which were part of the last total upgrade), I can not say anything specifically about what only the foil coils do in the whole picture, but the entire upgrade gives a significant improvement in SQ!! the key points that I hear are even more air than before, now it is as if the space embraces you and takes you to the room where the music actually plays out, also the width of the spatial image is now more outside the speakers and also more forward , the naturalness is also very impressive !!

All in all, I was already very happy with the CS2.4 but after the upgrades I now have speakers that I never thought I could own :-)

@jafant I did try the Bryston cubed series with my 2.4's and wasn't pleased with how the played together.  The build quality was superb on that amp...it really was like audio jewelry if you will.  But in my room I needed to warm up the Thiels and fill out the midrange and lower midrange and the Pass Labs amp (X series, not the XA or XS series - I was specifically told by Pass that the X series would mate better with the Thiels than the XS).  I had the 7bcubed in my house for about a week.  Couldn't get it to work well with the 2.4's at all.

I've gone thru a few really good amps over the years and felt something was always lacking

I am not sure there is a perfect component.  You could spend a lot of money on something but it won't be perfect.  Every design is a compromise.  I like the CS2.4 very much but I always feel like there's something it could do better, but of course this is also true for any speakers in the world regardless of cost.

Thanks Steve, very insightful. I gave up on my CS6's years ago.  I've gone thru a few really good amps over the years and felt something was always lacking. I still have the 6's w/ss1 but only use them maybe a week every year or so.  Class D may be in my future or get off my rear end sell them.

@holco thanks for the pics. Looks like you still have the stock 0.72 mH coil on the woofer board. Is that the one too far out of spec?

Were you able to compare SQ with and without the foil coil on the coax board?

I really enjoyed my years with the CS1.6. I had them well away from the rear wall and there was no meaningful output below 50 cycles. I gave serious consideration to adding Vandy or Thiel subs but ended up moving on. Outside of the lack of bass, my only complaint was an irritating distortion with a subset of songs from certain female vocalists. Had me reaching for the volume control. But the overall transparency and resolution was exceptional at that price point.

For the visually inclined among you I have posted some photos on the diy audio forum.

https://www.diyaudio.com/forums/multi-way/332679-thiel-cs2-4-xover-schematics.html#post5683434

the Vandersteen aerodynamic driver patent has expired, reflections do matter
Bryston has a unique port shape also....at least in the mini-A

happy Friday to all !!!!!