Thiel Owners
"The vertical bi-amp will not work with the Thiel CS3.7 since it only has 1 set of speaker inputs."Yes it's very easy to do, "if" the owner or a friend has a little knowledge. Once again do not bridge into these CS3.7's, you'll gain loudness at the expense of sound quality and reliability. This is stretching it, but bridging turns what was a good quality amp into a more powerfull P.A. amp. Cheers George |
This new video From Ayre Acoustics and John Atkinson of Stereophile is just in time to explain why the CS3.7 won’t be liked by many amps, "especially bridged ones." And not only because it's closer to 2ohm rather than 4ohm It’s got the discussed "equivalent peak dissipation resistance" (EPDR) which I mentioned a page back, which is the combination of -phase angle and resistance at a given frequency, in this CS3.7 case at 60hz where much power is needed. https://youtu.be/TRGrvd_cTHI?t=555 Cheers George |
| Post removed |
@jafant Congrats. I was going back and reading this thread starting where I join in with my drama. I had remembered that someone who actually owned the 3.7 and 2 x AHB2's AND was a classical musician said that the single AHB2 was preferred over 2. I always like to hear what a musician thinks of gear because they have more experience in real music than me. Here is some comments emailed to me from John Siau on the compatibility in relation to Stereophiles comments. 3.8 Ohms at -40 deg is not a problem. You will not hit over-current shut down, even in mono mode.Anyways, there is enough info now in this thread on the 3.7 + 2 x AHB2 synergy that we can put it to bed. People can make up their mid based on the great comments here. I am sure people would like to get back to regular scheduled programming. |
Hi, y'all. Been away from the thread for awhile, but not from the subject. I'll explain in a minute. About a year ago, warjarrett ("Sandy") wrote back to Tom and myself about both the Amber amp I had suggested for Thiels, and on the subject of tubes vs transistors in general. Sandy said as the conclusion of the note: " So my advice is that just about any stereo tube amp, with at least 60 wpc, into the CS3.5 is pure heaven. With solid state, you need to be more careful to audition in advance, and don’t go lower than 100 wpc in power." I now find myself concurring completely. At the time of Sandy's note I had been thinking about returning to tubes. I had previously driven my first pair of 3.5's with an ARC D90 and later a VTL ST-85. But after many changes to the system I ended up with solid state, and still later substitued the Amber Series 70 amplifiers that both Sandy and I think are well suited for Thiels. Just after the first of this year, a pristine ST-85 came on the market at a good price and I snapped it up. It sounded great (again) with the 3.5's, but even better with my 2.2's. So eventually the 85 ended up with the 2.2's in my second system, and I started looking for ST-150's, which are VTL's "Big Brother" to the ST-85s. The 150 is a brute-force amp powered by two quad's of 6550 or KT88 tubes and massive VTL transformers. The thing weighs over 65 pounds out of the box and puts out 150wpc into 5 ohms, which happens to be the Thiel 3.5's actual impedance for a perfect match. But the aspect that really enticed me is it's ability to be switched to Triode mode, where it puts out 65wpc of pure tube bliss. My system has now reached a state of musical finesse never before experienced. So Sandy was right in claiming that his Triode tube amp used with the 3.5's took him to a new place. The moral: if you want to try tubes with Thiels, don't be shy .... but make sure you have 60 or 90wpc, and if it is triode, even better. And I can highly recommend these two VTL amps for the purpose. |
Hi All, I have a couple of questions. 1. regarding Thiel CS 5 versus CS 5i speakers. My pair of Thiels say CS5 on the bottom of the cabinet and I've posted pictures to sell them. One of the responses to my ad was to tell me that the speakers look like CS 5is because the middle woofer looks different (it has a smaller dust cap) compared to the upper and lower woofers. Does anyone know if this difference in woofers indicates that they are CS 5is? 2. I am also looking for advice on what else to try with my Thiels to make them disappear in the room. I was active on this forum about a year of two ago as I fought my way through amplifiers and DACs to make the Thiels sound good. My McCormack DNA-500 drives them effortless and my Theta ProBasic III DAC got the treble to my liking. I also used room treatments to improve the bass response and absorption to further manage the treble. However, I could never make them disappear in my room. Logistics force them to be about three feet from the front walls, ten feet from the listening position, ten feet between the speakers, one speaker is within three feet of one sidewall, and there is 15 feet of open space behind me. By contrast I recently placed a pair of Tyler Acoustics MM5X's, a much smaller speaker, with a 60 WPC CJ tube amp in the same space and they disappeared in the room and have better dynamics. Its like magic compared to the Thiels. I know the Thiels are a great speaker but want to know if there are any other ideas to try before I complete a sale of them.... Thanks, for listening, Dsper |
dspr - Rob at Coherent Source Service could check your serial numbers for whether yours were upgraded to the "i" status. The difference was upgraded woofers and possibly an XO tweak to compensate. For the room bit, I recommend moving them away from the side walls and back wall as far as practical. Just for input, try 5' behind and 3-4' to the sides. |
Rules - that's listening position. Peak capture might register 100dB, unless I'm driving hard to cause distress on purpose. My listening is almost entirely for data-gathering. My chair is on wheels and my spl meter is velcroed to my thigh. 2' square carpet tiles tell me where I am and where the speakers are. Listening distance is generally 10' to 12' out (10' was design distance.) I find more value in terms of speaker distances from walls, rather than between them. Thiel polar pattern is optimized away from boundaries, and many problems result from early reflections. In a 15' wide space, I would rather have 6' between speakers with 4.5' to side walls, than to have 8' between and only 3.5 aside. |
jafant ...How far are your Thiel speakers from back wall? Side walls? Apart from chair position?... The fronts of the speakers are 3.5 feet from the front wall. One is 2 feet from the right sidewall. The other one is 7 feet from the left sidewall. The speakers are ten feet apart and ten feet from the listening position. Due to a supporting column in the middle of the room, it is not possible to move the speakers further from the front wall. Dsper |
I'm with bluetone. The first time I heard the 3.5 demo-ed at a local emporium my jaw dropped. I finally picked up a pair in excellent condition seven years ago. Recently I upgraded my amp and preamp with more nice vintage gear. A Classe CA300 amp and Superphon Revelation preamp. My jaw dropped again. The palpability and power are still astounding. The foam surround on one of the mids has finally given out though - and I am in the same boat as bluetone and many others. I stupidly had only one of the mids rebuilt by Thiel back in o4 and that one is still good. I’ll be trying the scan-speak 10F/8424G form Madison soon. I’ll first compare it with pink noise, other listening tests and some simple measurements, to the original in the other speaker. If it’s close I’ll put the 10F/8424G in both and work on getting the original 13M 8521 re-foamed. The tough thing about that is finding the right foam surround for it. Re. harshness etc. As many have noted. These need the right room and the right electronics or they can sound very annoying indeed. Satisfy their requirements and and they are still capable of astounding I will post again after experimenting and would very much like to hear how bluetone and others have faired in this endeavor. |
In case anyone is interested, TMR just listed a maple pair of CS 2.4 speakers with outriggers for $1849 + $249 for shipping in the continental US. Condition is listed as 8 out of 10. Serial#
2727, 2728. https://tmraudio.com/speakers/floorstanding-speakers/thiel-cs2-4-floorstanding-speakers-maple-pair-w... |
JAFant - Nothing very fancy, but chosen for neutrality and high value.I did indeed buy the Thiel Audio Sony ES SCD-1 at auction. It played a few discs beautifully and then failed. Long story shortened, I want to sell it with its upgraded internals and a back-up NOS laser to someone who can deal with it. PMs welcome. My workhorse is a PS Audio Stellar Gain Cell DAC/Preamp which accepts digital and analog inputs, with balanced, RCA or headphone output. Nice, flexible, affordable unit. My CD player is Thiel's original Philips CD-80 which was their flagship in the (1985?) day. I use both analog and digital output. It holds its own in comparison with some newer, pricier stuff - and it's what I have and have known since 1985. My turntable is a Rotel LP900 with a decent Ortophon MM cartridge. The Classé DR6 has a decent MC/MM phono preamp. I store downloads on a SS memory card and play through iTunes or Audacity on my MacBook Pro using USB out to the PS Stellar. Audacity supports up to PCM 24/192kHz. These days most of my production session evaluation takes arrive in the form of emailed files or on a USB stick at 24/96. The lion's share of my everyday source material is RedBook 16x44.1 CDs. Part of that is because I track producers, recordists, mixers and mastering houses to have a better idea what I'm listening to. I make notes on the jacket. And the CD-80 has good remote control and time code for easy A/B and recall. I know this old-school and entry level stuff is less than impressive to most audiophiles. But it works for me, and I've never been embarrassed when comparing against other gear. But of course, there is something in the works. PS Audio is introducing a PerfectWave SACD player that plays everything listed above plus SACD as raw DSD out via their I2S cable to the Stellar converter. That will give me universal high resolution capability, which I have wanted for years. |
Thieliste - I don't have 3.7s, but can speak in general to your listening angle question. I believe the biggest factor is the room. Jim designed all the floor-stranders to be fired straight ahead if the room can support that. Their cross points are unusually low to better balance the in-room power response with the on-axis direct response. Add the fact that drivers usually have some hot-spot beaming directly on axis - their smoothest response is around 15° off axis. That said, nearly everyone uses them with the focal point somewhere behind your head, perhaps 5 to 10° off axis. Notable exceptions include the Thiel listening room and Tom Jung's mastering room with CS5s. Thiel speakers with their long, slow roll-offs exhibit less than perfect FR graphs, which are decidedly smoother and flatter at 15 to 20° off axis. I believe the discrepancy is that most rooms have side walls too close and too reflective to properly support Thiel's wide polar pattern. Those reflections are more onerous than the FR hot-spots on axis. I suggest that you might try bringing the speakers closer together, perhaps 7' or even 6' C to C, and fire straight or nearly straight ahead. A 10' from baseline listening distance puts your listening angle at the 15 to 20° sweet spot. If the sound is less harsh when toed in, try instead putting some absorptive or diffractive material on the mirror-spot on the side wall. At best you can get greater image width, solid center fill, and smoother frequency response with no down-sides. I realize I'm going against common wisdom that the wider the stance the better. In a large room like Thiel or DMP, you can get both. 9-10' spread and straight ahead with 12' listening distance approaches ideal in my experience. But smaller rooms reduce possibilities. In my opinion, most people toe in when the might be better served by narrowing the stance. |
| Post removed |
@tomthiel I also have a Sony SCD-1. I had it modified by this guy, https://sublimelistening.com/ His work is amazing and I think he could be a great person to contact for you to see about repairing your SCD-1. The Vacuum State Mods he also does take this unit to an amazing level. I still use my player and it is great. I am planning on using my player until it dies. I was considering buying some spare parts but then you do not know who will be round to fix it. The main issue with this player is usually the sled motor. You may have a backup of that part. I suggest you give Warren G a call and see if you can get your machine up and running. It is really worth it even after all these years, especially with the mods. The mods are described in this review. https://www.dagogo.com/vacuum-state-electronics-sacd-modification-and-sony-scd-777es-cd-player-revie... I have the original packaging still but the foam is no longer functional so packing it for shipping will be a chore. I imagine this would be the same for all of us with the original packaging. |
Thank you thoft for your taker on the 10f, jafant thanks for the welcome. tomthiel Thank you for your input. FWIW I have pulled the drivers and they are labled "scan-sperak 13M Thiel code: 8521" . When I sent one back to Thiel years back they Those are what most everyone says are the original spec mids. The surrounds sure look like foam to me - and gave out with tears like old foam. Not black rubber but gray foam. I examined the rear after pulling drivers and it also looked like foam glued to the paper cone. |
@thoft "Bone dog my thiel 3.5 have the scanspeak 10f in them I think they sound great" Do your 10f mids have the waveguide (shallow horn?) flange on top of the 10f's. I thought I had read that Rob of Coherent Source had assembled mids complete with that flange for a premium price - but I have not been able to reach him. The Madisound '13M Replacement" has a flat flange that brings the diameter to the original's I believe, but does not include the waveguide. Does anyone know if/ how that waveguide - which appears to be epoxied or bonded to the original driver, can be removed? It would be nice to bond it to the Madisound 13m replacement. |
Interesting, FWIW, as of today TMR now has two pairs of maple CS 2.4 speakers listed for sale (having just listed the first pair yesterday, see my previous post). For this pair they are asking $1799 + $299 shipping, with condition listed as 7 out of 10. serial#
3601, 3602
https://tmraudio.com/speakers/floorstanding-speakers/thiel-cs2-4-floorstanding-speakers-maple-black-... |
My own take on using tubes with 3.5s (I’ve used a VPI 299D integrated with mine for about three or four years now), is that component quality is as important as lots of power. There were only 100 299Ds ever made (it was a vanity project around the time of Harry Weisfeld’s retirement) so it’s a fair bet that I’m the only guy out there who has ever used one on 3.5s. However, Steve Leung, who hand built the 299D and designed it in collaboration with Harry, used a lot of the same internals as Primaluna deploys, including the same transformers, resistors, capacitors, point to point wiring, triode/ultra linear switching etc, so a Primaluna amp would be the easier comparative audition. The 3.5s are great at exposing any weakness in the system, of course, but even with four EL34s in the 299D, there’s more than enough power to control these speakers really effectively. In fact I nowadays much prefer the 34s to the optional KT150s that I occasionally install for kicks and giggles. The 150s are, of course, about as powerful as audio tubes get, but the 34s are way more musical and I find there’s no shortage of clout when using them. I have Adcom and B&K solid state amps waiting in the wings for the most part and neither of them bests the tubes. In fact it’s really not even close. The point of writing this is to reinforce recent comments made about how well 3.5s work with tubes. I do believe, however, that a reasonably modern design with robust wide bandwidth output/toroidal transformers is probably critical. |
tomthiel Excellent gear! The Philips CD-80 is still coveted by Audiophiles. Some older, vintage pieces hold up well in 2020 moving forward. PS Audio has a beta-tester program. Perhaps you could contact Paul for the new PerfectWave SACD player? Did Jim and Paul have any business relationship? I am looking forward in reading about your next high resolution spinner! Have fun! Happy Listening! |
Interesting discussion re. tube amps driving the 3.5s. I just upgraded my solid state amp from and Adcom 555II to a Classe CA300 and havre been luxuriating in the power and glory. The 3D palpability approaching tube magic - but . . . . I keep waiting for that crazy garage sale find of a 200 wpc Manley or VTL at a price I can justify to 'She Who Must Be Obeyed' - but luck so far. I do have a Jolida integrated tube amp on the shelf that needs service- and now I'm wondering what that'd be like on the 3.5's at lower volumes, perhaps with the bass eq removed to lessen power demand. Meanwhile I'm crossing my fingers that my rubber dope temporary fix on my bad mid surround will hold until A more permanent fix is installed. |
@thoft "I wasn’t able to free mine and gave up. They’re just in as flat" Got it - I figured separating it would not be easy. I am not certain about wave guided being available from Coherent Source. I had read somewhere that he sold complete driver assemblies for $250-$300 apiece and just assumed those included the waveguide. Unless I hear from him soon I may just order those Madisound M13 replacements and perhaps at some point, have a wood-turning buddy try and lathe - carve some wave guides out of hardwood that matches the cabinets. |
