Get the 3.6
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!
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!
13,807 responses Add your response
Hello Jafant, On 1-27 you asked about products from Starsound. With a host of new people, the Company name will change along with the current product roster. The new company is scheduled to go online shortly and will feature Audio Points™ that were introduced thirty-two years ago, Rhythm Platforms™ and Energy Rooms™. Two new lines of equipment racking systems will be featured titled Rhythm Junior Platforms - a more affordable version of the multiple Award-Winning Rhythm Platforms and Timbre Platforms™ which is our initial venture into the world of wood shelving now infused with Live-Vibe Technology™. We will be back in the compact monitor stand business and are currently prototyping new products based on the Energy Room mechanical grounding methodologies designed to compete with the current oversized acoustic panels, pillows and bass trap products. In the musical instrument industry, we remain active and plan to expand the cello end pins while prototyping mechanical grounding products for the violin of which I am nearing completion. Tom Audiogon member Dale Humphrey has his Virtual System on display on these pages. Dale is located outside of Madison and if you would like to hear the Energy Room which is hidden behind the drywall.. drop him a PM..Dale is a member of our corporate group. https://systems.audiogon.com/systems/8168 As for amps most of the Krell amps that are class A/B will operate fine with a 15 amp circuit. The best Adcom amp is the GFA 5802 and Nelson Pass did have design input on this piece as he also had input on GFP 750 and the GCD 750..these pieces stand up very well even today. The Ayre power amps are also a great match with Thiel. Never a dealer for Ayre. I worked for 2 dealers in the past and we sold Krell, Adcom and Forte as well as Thiel. The Forte seemed gassed easily.. The big Krells and that Adcom 5802 were excellent. Tom |
The GFA 5802 is a highly regarded Adcom amp. I owned one at one point (prior to my Thiels though), and it drove a pair of Aerial Acoustic 10T’s nicely. However, I understood that it would be very difficult to repair if any issues arose with the output hexfets (NLA?). I ended up selling mine partially because of this concern, but I don't know how valid of a concern it was. FWIW, I am running Levinson 436’s (CS5) and Aragon Palladiums (CS7.2) currently. I have thought about buying one of the big Krells to compare, but haven’t pulled the trigger. |
Hey all, hope you're well as can be expected! I posted in September 2019 about a pair of CS 1.2's I received, with one of the tweeters not working at all. Well it took me this long to get around to doing something about it, but I finally received a (new) replacement diaphragm / voice coil from SEAS, but I still can't get it to work. I already switched the tweeters back and forth when I first got them and the functioning one works on both speakers, so I think it's safe to assume the issue must be something with that defective tweeter, correct? I've just measured the impedance on both tweeters (removed from the circuit, with the magnets detached. The functioning one reads between 4 and 5 ohm, and the new one doesn't register anything. When using the multimeter's current detection function (or whatever it's called; the one which emits a beep-tone when a circuit is closed), I don't get any signal on the new diaphragm, whereas I do when I measure on the positive and negative terminals of the old (functioning) one. Does this probably mean the new diaphragm (which I spent months waiting for) is defective? I can't detect any breaks in the wires leading to the voice coil, but also don't get any signal-beeps when I hold the multimeter to these wires. What do y'all think? |
Hey Jafant, good to "be back"! ;-) Aside from the Thiel speakers which I hope will one day be restored to their full glory, I have an old Kenwood amp from my father, which must be about as old as the Thiels. At some point I'd like to get more into DIY electronics and try my luck at making my own amplifier using some valve tubes, but I think I've still got a long way to go until then! During the lockdown I've actually gotten into building my own (mobile) 12v sound system - geared more towards bass-heavy music i.e. dub, roots, jungle - which has been quite a nice experience and learning curve. I began with a 12v AGM battery and 1200w Pioneer amp, and then built a "Cubo 15" and some custom enclosures for 2x 8" mids and 2x 1" tweeters in a mono stack. I've since crafted some separate (and nicer looking) horns for the tweeters and some "mini-scoops" for the mids - now stereo - for home and studio use, until I can take the system for a ride in warmer weather. |
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Is there a recap kit available for the 3.6? Also my thiels aren’t bright like many keep saying the 3.6’s are. Very smooth. Yes the tweeter works I tested that with my hearing aids. Anyways my amp search may be pushed back yet again due to my car having exposed metal on the rocker panel that I only noticed after I took it to a car wash. (Dried Salt spray and bare metal/primer hide each other well). So more time to look for amps. Still trying to find out what the adcom has. 60+ amperes and more than 300 watts is the recommendation right? I wish there weren’t so many possibilities. More than a few people on Facebook are recommending class d amps. Will those have the power to drive thiels current wise and headroom wise? Trying to stick to class a/b personally |
Thoft - I've been messing with the 3.6s for the past few months. I consider their stock components highly optimized and am therefore investigating other upgrades in priority over component upgrades. That said, there are ongoing DIY upgrades happening behind the curtain on this forum - perhaps someone might comment. I can recommend the fruits of our research, which lands on replacing series feed caps with ClarityCap CSAs in the highest voltage you can fit or afford. Swap resistors to Mills MRA-12s, especially in feed stations. As background, I have bragged about those yellow caps as state of the art, and they were in their day - tin foil on styrene film, they measure and sound quite good. However CC's CSA invention replaces the normal zinc spluttered end caps with a copper-containing matrix, and updates the geometry to wider and shorter, for a significant performance upgrade. BTW, I've compared the CSAs and CMRs to many of the sexy caps out there, and I believe the CCs are as good as it gets in terms of truth and accuracy, especially at their affordable prices. Another nearly free upgrade you can DIY is to re-mount the crossover panels on rubber standoffs to reduce vibration in the crossovers. |
Myself and others have applied an opposite or different method to the mounting of crossovers internal to the cabinet.. We do secure the individual components to the board using rope caulk or other soft adhesives as well as zip ties. Instead of slowing down and storing some of the vibration inside we direct couple the slowed and misdirected energy to the floor or wall of the cabinet. I use small brass Audiopoints and the brass coupling discs. The board rests on these devices and the board can be secured with brass screws to the cabinet base. We have an extended method that allows for resonance tuning from outside the cabinet. This method while more invasive the improvement can clearly be heard by using a hex tool..To provide a continuum of thoughts on this mechanical conduit we set the speakers on our Audiopoints or our Sistrum Platforms and speaker stands. We use the same materials and geometry to maintain the capture and redirect direct the exit speed of resonance to the largest mechanical ground plane..the floor. There is also a similar method that can be applied to bass and midrange drivers which also allows for resonance tuning outside the box. Tom |
I had a discussion with Rob G. several weeks ago about replacing caps in my 3.7s. He basically said don't bother, it won't be worth the effort. He sent me a couple pictures of designs he has tried with the 3.7 and maintained the sonic improvement was minimal compared to cost. If anyone else here has modded the 3.7, it would be nice to chime in at this point! |
Tmsrdg - I can add a general perspective comment. The level and extent of exploration and custom development that went into passive components at Thiel was considerable. Many folks may consider Thiel's choices as strictly budget driven, but scores of hours were spent on each product to optimize and match the components both for sound and for cost balance. The biggest exception might be the resistors. Swapping in Mills MRA12s costs very little and has produced noticeable improvement in the several builds we've done recently. I have no direct experience with the 3.7, I'm merely extrapolating from general experience. |
Ayre power amps are also a great match with Thiel100 My AX-5 Twenty and CS2.4s are singing. Years ago I ran a pair of CS1.6 with the AX-7. Also nice other than I yearned for more bass. And my only experience with the CS7.2 was paired with, I think, the V-1. That system was just short of the very best I’ve heard. |
I have bragged about those yellow caps as state of the art, and they were in their dayOh, no! Time to remove the radiator again? Lol I do occasionally wonder about different bypass caps on the CSA coax feeds. We went with Multicaps but, in hindsight, I’m curious to hear something like the Audyn True Copper Max or Jupiter. Likewise, wonder how the Path Audio resistors better the Mills MRAs, if at all. Then again, that was a lot of work to make one change in one channel, wait for it to burn in, and carefully compare in mono. Maybe I’ll just listen to music and be happy rather than compulsive? :) With the 3.7, I wonder if Rob Gillum’s experience is related to those massive ELs which cannot practically be upgraded due to size and cost. But, yeah, the Mills seems like low hanging fruit that is likely to make a nice sonic upgrade and for not much money. |
beetlemania Good to see you, as always. I really must hear your upgraded 2.4s sometime for a sonic comparison. In the Spring, I will send my AX-5 to AYRE for the full Twenty Series upgrade. I believe the previous AX-5/20 was a 2017 model. It is going to be interesting to compare mine against the previous Amp auditioned. Happy Listening! |
Resistor upgrades have been discussed and revealed on these pages for years. The greatest upgrade for me over 20 years ago was to replace all the resistors in my speakers with Vishay resistor bridges. This portion of the upgrade was larger than the cap and inductor upgrade..only thing of equal was to seal the interior of the cabinet with Cascade Vbloc..a cement like product that is drawn into the pores of the wood seals the wood and greatly reduces energy storage of the cabinet.also strengthens the corner joints that are the weakest. A speaker cabinet itself is a passive radiator..not only do the drivers move and play but also the cabinet. Poor quality speaker resistors become part of the feedback loop of the amplifier and become part of the signal. Upgrade the resistors. Tom |
@tomthiel I think I've brought this up before but... One of the differences I heard between my 3.7 and 2.7s was a finer, more subtle sense of detail on the 3.7s and the 3.7s "disappeared" a bit better.So even if an instrument or voice was panned hard right to the speaker location, the voice would float around the speaker. Whereas the 2.7s have a teeny bit more problem getting the sound "out" of the speaker in the same situations. Apparently the baffle of the 3.7 was metal (aluminum?) where there was a bit of cost-cutting in the 2.7 so it was a less stiff material (wood? MDF?). I presume that could be responsible for the observation. It makes me wonder about a tweak for the 2.7s of re-enforcing the baffle from behind within the cabinet, say with metal or something that makes it comparable to the 3.7's baffle. Is that something Rob could pull off? I have no idea how difficult that would be. Thanks |
Prof - I’ve only heard the 3.7 and 2.7 once, when auditioning the final prototype 2.7 at the Thiel factory in 2012. We all heard what you are hearing. There’s probably more to it than the baffle. A few years and $six figures were spent optimizing the 2.7 within its budget parameters. The aluminum baffle is a contributing element, but any upgrade would have to be from outside, since the interior has multiple shelf braces in the way. A person might route a pocket into the MDF baffle front to seat a custom aluminum plate. Serious undertaking that I doubt Rob would take on - but ask him. You would get significant improvement using counter-top laminate (Formica, etc.) rather than aluminum. An effective and feasible upgrade addresses the 2.7 midrange xo feed which goes through a 400uF electrolytic cap as well as a series 20 gauge feed coil, without any shunt to ground. Jim never used electrolytics in series feed stations (after the 02 in 1976). That "caught in the box" effect is something that big E caps do. I have developed some substitutes from Clarity Cap 100uF x 160 volt CSAs. I doubt you have room in the enclosure for them plus they’re fairly expensive. Note that Jim’s solution for the 3.7 is a cap bridge with multiple 75uF PPs. The feed coil in that station in the 3.7 is 18 gauge for about double the current / resistance performance. If I were in your shoes I’d consider the following: Baffle treatment: remove the drivers and the threaded inserts (if any).Mount 1/2" (or larger) birch dowels into holes drilled into the edge of the driver openings, at least an inch and preferably farther behind the front surface. Wood screws into that side grain of the dowels will couple the drivers more tightly to a greater cross section of the baffle. Use viscous gasket goop behind the drivers (Permatex type 2 non hardening) to damp the natural interface resonance. That mounting on a formica face gets you pretty far up the performance ladder. Crossover: replace that 400uF E-cap with 4 @ 100uF in parallel. Consider replacing the bypass caps with ClarityCap CSAs. While you’re in there I’d swap in some Mills MRA-12 resistors in that series midrange feed. Same for the series feed in the tweeter. That’s some low hanging fruit and something that a good bench tech could handle if it’s more than you want to tackle. Rob may have suitable parts or advice, or you may contact me for specs and sources. The 2.7 is a very nice speaker and in some ways easier to take on a broader range of material and amplification than the 3.7. But immediacy and detail are relatively compromised. |
Tom, Thanks very much for the detail. I'm not a handy-man type so wouldn't do that myself, but I'm saving that info and maybe some day I can get a local speaker repair shop to do it for me (if not send them to Rob). BTW, speaking of getting the 2.7s to "disappear": I just tried a fascinating tweak with the 2.7s. To backtrack, I spent a month several years ago putting together an isolation platform for my turntable. I bought tons and tons of footers and various isolation material (hard and soft), testing most of them with vibrometer apps etc. By far the most effective were the Townshend "seismic isolation pods." They are a spring-based design that holds up the heavy turntable and layered platform. Without the springs if you stomp around the equipment rack with a hand on the top shelf, you can feel tons of vibration. Also a Seismometer app measures plenty of big vibration spikes with ringing. But with the spring pods under the platform, stomping around you can't feel anything getting to the platform, and almost nothing registers on the vibration app! So quite objective verification that at least some register of vibration is not getting through. That experience made me curious about the spring-based speaker isolation platforms sold by Townshend, which get great reviews (what doesn't?). But those are pricey so I thought I'd try an experiment with some cheap spring-based footers on amazon. I placed them under the Thiels and just finished listening for over an hour.Wow, they work! The effect was very similar to when you get a subwoofer dialed in really well - not extended bass but a perception of clearing up and tightening of the entire frequency range, starting in the low bass. Bass instruments were tighter, floating better in their own space, every thing had a bit more clarity top to bottom, and the speakers disappeared better, the soundstage taking on more of that wide CinemaScope width of the 3.7s, instruments to the side less stuck in the speaker! I certainly wouldn't say they suddenly sounded just like the 3.7s, but it sure was fascinating for a cheap tweak! The problem is the speakers get a bit tippy on the spring footers so I don't think I'll stick with that particular solution (because I have a lot of foot traffic in that room right past the speakers to get in and out). I'm sure with a bit of ingenuity one could make some outriggers using the footers for greater stability. But I have a feeling I may pick up the Townshend speaker bars in the future. |
jon - you're on it. When developing the CS5 cabinet I explored custom ceramic tiles for the interior, attached with a researched mastic adhesive - it worked extremely well. There were two big problems. 1: it was too heavy to ship and handle. Dealer home delivery was the deal breaker. 2: the tiles were not always flat and the ratio and durometer of the adhesive layer would change the tuning of the enclosure depending on adhesive thickness variability, thereby changing the final tweak voicing of the system. For your in-place situation, #1 may not matter. #2 is a small issue (and no, I don't remember adhesives options or winner 30+ years on.) It's worth exploring. Also, you will change the acoustic volume of the enclosure, but it won't matter a lot. I suggest finding the most active surfaces with your fingers or stethoscope and treating those. High likelihood includes the top and halfway up the sides. Please let us know what you do and how it works. |
A friend of mine has a patent on the selection of travertine stone to be used as an acoustic sink for the endpin of cellos. The right tile removes the wolf tones present in almost every cello..You may research travertine stones and cut as Tom suggested. Debbie’s website is Cellostone.com With the absence of the original Cascade Vbloc. I will experiment with quick set cement and mix in a quart or more of Micro Bearing steel and trough on like thin set. Careful to measure and match the amount laid out so the stereo pair have the same volume. Let thoroughly dry for a few days and then carefully vacuum out what may have fallen. Tom . |
The most interesting German Physiks speaker line (I'd love to hear a pair!) use interesting cabinets, damping and drivers(!). German Physiks Carbon Mk IV Loudspeakers — German Physiks (german-physiks.com) |
