Thiel Owners


Guys-

I just scored a sweet pair of CS 2.4SE loudspeakers. Anyone else currently or previously owned this model?
Owners of the CS 2.4 or CS 2.7 are free to chime in as well. Thiel are excellent w/ both tubed or solid-state gear!

Keep me posted & Happy Listening!
128x128jafant
I've been quiet on this forum but had started to follow this thread lately. I got to say that I am very happy to see people like tomethiel here sharing lots information about the brand history and products. My experience with CS3.5 ( back in 2001? ) turned me into a Thiel believer, and had since added pair of CS 3.6, and moved 3.5 into bedroom :) They are just fabulous :) So just greetings to all, i think we are a group of happy people here.
I'll be happy to consider supporting an affinity group that might obtain the property and other rights of Thiel llc. Anyone else?
Ah, Bose! *Now* we know the rest of the story.

The CS2 2 is dead. Long live the CS2.2!
tomthiel

Nice! score on the 3.6 loudspeakers.  There are a few owners here that will benefit from your XO project. Across other Audio forums the 3.6 model is quite popular as well.  Hope you are well and enjoying Fall.

Happy Listening!
harrylavo

That is quite a collection of speakers- you are certainly a Thiel Man at heart.  Several of the guys here own the CS 2.2 as well as the 3.5 model.
If you have not done so, read this thread from post #1 to the present. There is a plethora of good, solid information in this thread.

Happy Listening!
jasx67

Welcome! Glad you found us. Thank You for posting your SN on the 3.6 loudspeakers.  Looking forward in reading more about your system and musical tastes.  Happy Listening!
prof - Ted Green runs a technology consulting company. His interest in Thiel is as a former performing musician / bandleader with an inherent interest in David rather than Goliath. He seems to know brands and nuances very well, but has never said he was an audiophile or Thiel owner. He does admire what we did.

I am in direct contact with the bankruptcy court as well as some recommendations from this forum. It seems there is a streamlined process whereby an "affinity group" can form an expedited company to purchase assets such as the intellectual property of the bankrupted Thiel LLC. Hmmm
Tom,

Thanks for the link to that strata-gee article.

Your previous post is now making some sense ;-)

I'd followed all those strata-gee articles documenting the decline of Thiel as it happened.   It was great that there was a writer interested in following the story.  The strata-gee writer seemed to have quite an interest in the Thiel company.  Any particular reason?  Was he a high end audo fan? 

Those articles always make me want to give my Thiel speakers a hug :)
jon - all the Thiel aluminum drivers are annodized which deposits a coating which is often marketed as "ceramic". Your 2.3 driver is an early example of Thiel aluminum diaphragms. When gotten right, those metal drivers have far better resolution than paper, but paper can be pretty good and is very forgiving. I think the 2.2 midrange was Thiel's last paper cone, which was actually augmented with polypropylene fibers for greater stiffness and consistency than plain paper.
I have an MCS-1 and 2 2s.  I believe the MCS-1 has the same mid/tweeter as the 2.3.  I used to use the MCS-1 when I had room for a 5.1 home theater in my basement.  My impression after having lived with both for a while is that I preferred the sound of the 2 2.  I never did a careful comparison or anything so don't take this too seriously.  I would guess this is due to the driver material.  I believe the MCS1 uses some kind of ceramic coat on aluminum.  I had a couple of pairs of infinity speakers in the past that used the same basic thing I think and I never thought they had low level resolution like paper does.  I'm guessing that this problem was solved on the 2.4s or they wouldn't have so many fans.  
Guys - Ted Green / strata-gee.com has published his article on Thiel,LLC recent bankruptcy filing. https://www.strata-gee.com/
harry - I can address part of your query. The 2.2s were very well developed / mature and had a long run. Lots of fans. The 2.3s were the first application of the mechanical / crossover-less coax concept. I hear that there were improvements on the table pretty early, and not many 2.3s were sold, perhaps the shortest run ever. The 2.4 was a big uptick in performance and sales and has been an audiophile darling, possibly more so than any other Thiel product. That's some market mechanics.

Some folks here can address the sonic differences. I have and love my 2.2s and am working on a hotrod kit for them.

PS: I am calling the 2.2s by their proper name. The decimal was dropped under threat of lawsuit by Bose. But the product has been out of manufacture for way long, Mr. Bose is no longer with us, his legal staff was embarrassed . . . so let's pretend they don't care anymore.
I own a pair of 2 2's as well as four 3.5's.  I am wondering, from those who have had 2.2's, 2.3's, and 2.4's what the sonic differences were as you go up the line.  But even more importantly, what the problem is with the 2.3's that keeps their used value closer to the 2.2's than to 2.4's.  Is it reliability, and if so, what?   Thank you in advance for your help.
I am looking forward to the 3.6 XO upgrade/revision too. Please keep us CS3.6 owners updated.

jasx67...I don't consider myself having audiophile knowledge, but I do consider myself having audiophile ears. I am acquiring quite a bit of knowledge on this forum, though.

Jon
Well done Tom buying the 3.6s!....can't wait for your XO upgrade/revision project.
jasx - your other speaker is 1785, always odd low as in 1,2. They were made approximately late 90s, model was introduced in 1992.

I just bought a pair of 3.6s for our upgrade project. Soon I will document the XO revision status / serial numbers for our benchmark timeline. 
I bought a pair of CR 3.6 speakers so long ago I can't even remember when I got them. I run them through JRDG model 6 SS monoblocks and a Krell KRC-3 pre-amp. Its a pretty sweet sounding combination. 
the s/n for the speakers are 1786 and I can only assume 1785 or 1787 for the other( I cant read it anymore)
I am by no means an ""audiophile" so I wont pretend
I bought a pair of CR 3.6 speakers so long ago I can't even remember when I got them. I run them through JRDG model 6 SS monoblocks and a Krell KRC-3 pre-amp. Its a pretty sweet sounding combination. I know Theil is no longer in business so grab it while you can
pwhinson

Thank You for the update on room correction. Looking forward in reading more about your Pass Labs amp.  Happy Listening!
tomthiel

Thank You for being a valuable team member, contributor, here on this thread. Fascinating information on Hales and baffle design structure.
Hope one of the men here can assist you on Patent, Trademark Law.

Happy Listening!
All - Are any of you proficient in patent and trademark law? If so I would like to confer about Thiel intellectual property. Send PM or email tomthiel@worldpath.net
prof - I have not heard the Alexandra. I moved to New Hampshire and by the late 90s I was focused on things other than audio.

pw - The room is so often the major culprit in the mix. Thiels are point source emulation and therefore wide dispersion, so room reflections matter more. Also the coherent wavefront tends to stimulate room modes more readily than the slurred wavefronts of higher order speakers. I am a fan of physical room treatment as much as possible. Tell us about REW.
I finally got around to measuring my room/speaker interactions on my Thiel 2.4s using REW and uploading a convolution filter to roon.  ITS AMAZING!  TIGHTENING UP EVERYTHING.  Imaging if far superior now to what it was before.  Frighteningly good.  Suggest you try it.
Tom,

Also...after the Hale Transcendence 8's Paul built a new interesting looking flagship speaker, the Alexandra (or Alexandria), which can be seen down the page in this old CES 99 report:

http://www.enjoythemusic.com/wces99/speakers.htm

The few people who heard it absolutely raved about it.  But since it never went in to production due to Hales folding soon afterward, it became something of a unicorn. Did you ever hear it?


Wow Tom, you've been around!

I thought the bass on my Hales T5s was excellent, but thought the bass of the CD6 even better (more dense, focused, punchy) as well as the 3.7 and 2.7.

All, is anyone here bidding on that 3.5 EQ? If not, I'll try to snag it for the lab. (Remember the idea of fully balanced EQ with better caps and resistors?)
jon - the fiber is to increase impact and stress resistance and add some damping. It does not reduce shrinkage. Concrete is Portland Cement based, which shrinks. Gypsum cements expand. USG Hydrostone is a combination of the two and can be admixed with acrylic, etc. plasticizers to increase damping at the expense of lowering resonance frequency. Paul added some plasticizer. I chose to run straight but added two different fibers which serves to suppress resonance & increase stiffness. I like grown solutions, and used hemp and rice awn fibers, but most folks would choose polypropylene or glass, etc. USG has zero, expansive and contractive products. I suggest you look there. I investigated air entrainment in the baffle core for lower mass & higher resonance frequency. These were follow-on developments after the CS5 cast marble baffle, which worked well, but cost and weighed a lot.
@tomthiel, my understanding is that the reduction in shrinkage is mainly due to the fiber.  Is that correct?  I've been wanting to build a madisound kit and make the baffle out of concrete.  I have the concrete, a bag of glass fiber and some plasticizer.  I went so far as to create the cutouts for the drivers.  I've got little kids so what would take a normal person a weekend will take me a year if I'm lucky.  I've been buying most of the tools I'll need slowly.  Main problem is when I have the time I don't have the energy and vice versa.  
ish - I know those Hales speakers very well. I consulted for Hales during their development and compared 1st vs 4th order XOs. Paul is very bright and competent and pragmatic. The development time / cost / benefit and all adds up to 4th being "good enough because people can't hear the difference". Note from these impulse responses that the speaker is neither time nor phase correct. Paul didn't think it necessary. https://www.stereophile.com/content/hales-design-group-transcendence-five-loudspeaker-measurements

The sealed bass is awesome and Paul thought it embarrassed Thiel's reflex bass. OK. The sloped baffle was for the purpose of what your salesman executed in the store. The German who had resurrected Hales Design Group from the ashes of Hales Audio wanted SALES. By the way, the baffle was not concrete, but Hydrostone a fiber reinforced combination of portland and gypsum cements which I had developed for the CS6, but Jim substituted concrete after I left. Jim thought of "concrete" as the optimum enclosure material and Walter Kling who replaced me had an architectural/ builder background. Concrete lasted a very short time because it shrinks for 7 years and cracked at stress points. I doubt that Hales baffles ever cracked. Nevermind.

Hales frequency response is exceedingly flat and its component and build quality is very good. But it is a horse of a different color.
prof

over on the other Audio forums, there are Thiel owners enjoying tube amps from ARC and Rogue Audio.  Happy Listening!

One of my favourite sounds are the times I used my little Eico HF81 14/w side classic tube amp on my big Thiel 3.7s!

It was utterly glorious - rich, open, detailed, sparkly transients - they sounded even bigger than they ever had before.

Really the only negative...if it was a negative...was that the bass became a bit "bigger." (I'm presuming from less damping).  I say "bigger" not "looser" because the bass didn't really become loose or flubby so much as just...bigger and richer...a bigger bass booty ;-)

Ultimately my CJ Premier 12s and pre-amp make for a bit more even sound top to bottom and allow for easier control of the system (e.g. my pre-amp has remote control which I need as my amps are in a separate room from my speakers).  But if that weren't the case, I would have used that little eico on the big Thiels more often.

I still have to get around to trying it on the 2.7s!  (But..well...that project is now delayed...)




stevecham

Good to read that you still own the CS 2.4 loudspeaker. I know that those CS6s will find the next home.  Happy Listening!
@prof, that is fun reading.  I definitely agree that the 3.7s are not exceptionally hard to drive.  They appreciate some power but I don't believe you need a megabuck amp to get a lot out of them.  Maybe a huge solid state amp would make a little difference but I'd be surprised if it was big.  My pedestrian amps sound great to me.  The punch is great, bass has great texture, they seem extremely transparent top to bottom.  The transients are so sharp that on some recordings they're jarring and exhausting.  I've been thinking about digging out my Musical Fidelity tube buffer to soften things a little bit on recordings that shouldn't be heard too clearly.
Anyone interested in a near mint pair of amberwood CS6s? If so let me know and I'll post the ad.

I have 2.4s and the 6s are too large for my room since I moved a little over a year ago. Time for them to have a good home elsewhere.

As I've recently posted on another similar thread, I have my doubts about a 65 Watt Single Ended Triode being able to properly handle the 3.7's 2.5 Ohm impedance and it's accompanying phase angle. They might be better suited to their own 101dB horns (horns are not my cup of tea).

At $35,000 the pair, or about three times the price of a pair of the more expensive Thiel's, I suspect they will have limited appeal to Thiel owners.


samzx12

I am looking forward to your power amp comparison, shoot-out.

Happy Listening!
thieliste

Good to see you and read that you enjoyed a fruitful trip.
Tube amp lovers should take your audition advice.

Happy Listening!
Hi guys, just got back from my Swiss trip and finally was able to audition the Aries Cerat pre-power Impera ll Ref + Concero 65 monos driving Thiel CS 3.7s.Guys you cannot imagine how far the 3.7s can go when driven by Aries Cerat separates, this is a totally different league compared to the usual Krell, Bryston, PS Audio, Pass and other McIntosh amps that have always been used with Thiel speakers.The speakers bring you directly at a live concert with a very refined sound, full body, super transparent but never anlytical, extremely fast and dynamic.The bass is very punchy uber stable and resolving.Soundstage is just phenomenal and very engaging.I can now say that Aries Cerat pre-power outperforms the aleardy awsome Ypsilon separates that i have home demoed in 2016.IMO Aries Cerat is today the absolute best tube amps at any price and most likely the most powerful tube amps capable of driving Thiels to their max.Each Concero 65 monos weigh 100 Kg.Cheers




Anyone ever used to visit the old Thiel Web Blog? Hearteningly, it’s still actually accessible. It’s sort of fun...and melancholy...visiting some of those old posts. E.g.:

http://thielaudio.blogspot.com/2006/09/

http://thielaudio.blogspot.com/2006/10/

And especially all the comments, from many industry pros and writers etc, on Jim's passing:

http://thielaudio.blogspot.com/2009/09/please-share-your-memories-of-jim-thiel.html#comment-form
Hi Tom,

To the point of Seas, Vifa etc. could do "it". We tried for years without success working with the best. It’s not so easy as it might appear.

That is very interesting. Seas and Vifa were some of the very best at the time indeed. I have no doubt at all that is not easy, but I just thought if someone like Seas or ScanSpeak (since Vifa was taken over by SS) were serious enough about it, maybe they could make some very good concentric drivers. The challenge is in the motor design as well as doppler affect of each driver modulating each other. Based on what I read online and what are available off the shelf parts, it seems like the speaker design industry more or less has given up on time-coherent design. With exception for some very few drivers, most drivers has to be designed with at least 12db roll off. For example, Accuton is a very reputable driver makers, but if you use their drivers, you almost have to go with 12db or 24 db roll off. As for Seas and ScanSpeak, with their portfolio of products, only a few drivers can be implemented with first order.

Another things I found interesting is that almost all of Thiel designs use aluminum drivers. To the best of my knowledge, there is no off the shelf aluminum drivers on the market today can be implemented using first order filter because of their inherent break up at high frequency. So you pretty much have to use higher order filter to suppress the break up. So how Thiel did it with first order using their aluminum drivers must require some unique engineering. I think the "wavy mid range" driver of the CS2.7 is one way to minimize the break up. As for the CS2.4, I am just guessing but the mechanical of the rubber surround was meant to solve the break up problem, and whatever it is, it really works.

Hm..., this whole big planet that there is nothing like Thiel? To borrow a phrase from the movie "Contact" which was based on Carl Sagan book, "this whole big universe and our planet is the only source of life?  What a waste of space."



samzx12
Nice score! The CS 2.7 is a fine speaker indeed. Keep me posted as you massage them with the Mark Levinson or B.A.T. power amp. Happy Listening!

Thank you. I am excited.  Curious to find out which amp will work best. As far as overall sound quality I'd be willing to bet the BAT VK55.  
iambenbryant
Nice catch! Good to see you again. How are you enjoying your CS 2.7 loudspeakers?  Happy Listening!
ish_mail,

As I've mentioned somewhere earlier on the thread, I owned the Hales Transcendence 5 speakers, and still own a the Hales Transcendence 1 monitors and center channel, which do duty in my home theater and for occasional music listening.  In fact, I own an extra double of each of those speakers just in case I blow a driver, which tells you I'm quite a fan.

The Hales speakers, to my ears, are excellent for midrange/tweeter coherence, smoothness, timbral warmth and accuracy, with a very low sense of "grain" to the sound, and really spectacular soundstaging.

What they miss for me is the density and solidity of the Thiel sound and imaging, and the sense of texture I hear from the Thiels.  (Hales sounding just a tad smoothed over).

But I absolutely adore the Hales in home theater duty because they combined clarity, timbral warmth and transient precision, with a very relaxed presentation.  Good for me since I often come to movie viewing in my home theater after a long day of doing sound effects, so I don't really want to be beaten around by an aggressively dynamic sound. 

@tomthiel Thanks for the counter narrative on the TAD reference speakers. Very interesting.

The Hales line was perhaps(?) another example of a faux coherent speaker line. Their cabinets featured concrete baffles that were sloped similarly to Thiel's. I auditioned a pair at the other audiophile store in town before deciding to buy my 2.2s. When I told the salesman I was impressed with Thiel speakers, he brought out the Hales, pointed out the sloped design, and told me they were like Thiel speakers except the concrete baffles made them better. They completely lacked the realism that sold me on the 2.2s, so I moved on.

Maybe it was the salesman more than Hales that misrepresented them as being similar to Thiels –– I never bothered to look at the Hales sales literature. Apparently, Hales used a sealed cabinet for tighter bass and touted flat frequency response as their main selling point. They used fourth-order Linkwitz-Riley crossover networks.

There's a (mostly) enthusiastic thread on Hales speakers here: https://forum.audiogon.com/discussions/hales-design-group-speakers-how-good-were-they. But it's much shorter than this thread; so there!
This discussion makes me feel nostalgic of the younger years.  Oh well time has to move on.  
unsound - you are right. Measurement distance of 50" and closer earlier in time, does not allow the proper triangulation for the drivers' travel path. 8' was Thiel's stated minimum. The limit was Stereophile's set up, but the results looks like speaker design failures. The closer the drivers to each other and the lower the crosspoints, the less the incorrect distance matters. But it does mislead the reading public. Andy makes a proper point that lower crosspoints give the upper driver a much harder time, requiring long excursions and sophisticated cooling.
To the point of Seas, Vifa etc. could do "it". We tried for years without success working with the best. It's not so easy as it might appear. And if someone did, the wire routing factors, etc. are so precise that high failure rates can occur and then who points fingers at whom. Taking it in-house was a huge challenge for us, but it was the only way we could get what we decided we needed.

Coincident drivers solve the lobing problem between the upper concentric drivers and the woofer crossover is at such long wavelengths that its lobing is not very consequental. Sit with your ears at 3' and back at least 8' and you are in the design target.
tomthiel
Outstanding! insight on the factors and forms that make Thiel Audio head-and-shoulders above the competition. Your memory and recollection is impeccable. You are spot on, in that, most of the population are not forward thinkers. Moreover, the same population cannot think outside of the box neither. This is a very good thing for those of us that can do, succeed at it.
Happy Listening!
jon - regarding bright 2 2s. You are correct that there is a slight propensity toward warmth. The mid-bass centered at 100Hz is almost full when the speaker is optimized 5' from walls. When moved closer to walls, that zone and below gets stronger. There is also some roughness in the low treble, from 5 to 10K which can be problematic.

A huge source of the "bright" complaint is that most recordings are made to emphasize the brightness range for air-play appeal. Also, that range is where microphones and recording gear are likely to misbehave and recording effects such as the Aphex Oral Exciter do their job of adding tooth and sizzle to recordings. And playback systems also contribute anomalies, and all signal including compromises is under a microscope with a coherent transducer. A big part of the problem is cat and mouse and whom to blame.

It is impolite for a manufacturer to point fingers elsewhere, but those times are past with us here. You all have done the homework to find good associated gear and choose well-made recordings. You are in the 1%. In my 2 2 upgrade work I am looking at tweaking the series resistor feeding the midrange to add up to a half dB between the woofer and tweeter. Too early to know how it will work out, I'm still developing my measurement tools.