@tomthiel,
Regarding raising/spiking Thiel speakers.
I’ve generally had the best success in my room with my 3.7s/2.7s (and other speakers) sitting right on the floor, no spikes. (It’s a wood foor covered in a shag carpet).
However, I’ll probably try spikes or footers again at some point and it makes me wonder about raising the coax driver relative to my ear height. Right now I’m in a nice sweet spot but if I raised the speaker on spikes/footers I may change that. Therefore, I’m wondering about compensating for raising the speakers via altering the angle - that is raising the back of the speaker a bit more to tilt it towards me, to maintain a more precise relationship with the drivers.
As Thiel speakers have a precise slope angle for integrating the arrival time of the woofer with the coax, I’m wondering if altering that angle via tilting the speakers a bit forward would be deleterious or not. (Or even change the floor woofer’s intended relationship with floor bounce, or other parameters I’m not thinking of).
What are your thoughts?
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Right On! beetlemania
Happy Listening!
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Hopefully, Stereophile will include the Coherent Source Service article in the Industry Updates section of the print version. Maybe Rob needs to tell JVS that Thiels will fill your room with the sounds of MQA. That should move him to the top of the queue!
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Absolutely! beetlemania
Much Thanks for sharing your information on mods and hot-rods as well.
Jason Victor Serinus (JVS) really stays up to date on the industry side of Audio, informative too.
Happy Listening!
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Glad to see Stereophile spilling some ink, or pixels, for Rob Gillum!
I'm assuming the "hot-rod" kits are, thus far, limited to the leftovers from the unbuilt CS2.4SEs. Maybe we'll see other options in the future per Tom Thiel's posts upthread?
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I have exchanged a few e-mails with Rob Gillum re: CS2.4 mods. The short of it is he has kits to upgrade CS2.4 crossover to CS2.4SE equivalent but not an upgrade path for CS2.4SE. He did supply me with a schematic, so I will strike out on my own into the wilderness ;^) I will post more details on this thread: https://forum.audiogon.com/discussions/thiel-cs2-4-upgrade-to-cs-2-4-se?highlight=thiel%2Bcs2.4Moreover, he also has the outriggers, including stainless steel spikes, of the SE version. Other than the birdseye maple with vermillion stain, you can upgrade your standard version to a CS2.4SE. Now, I kinda wished I had waited a few weeks - I coulda saved some money. Rob was very helpful - please, everyone, support him as you can. |
If all was there so would the power. |
Alright guys Anthem reported that the integrated does provide 30 A of current at 2 ohms. I am hoping to receive a bit more information on its application- continuous, reserve or peak?
Happy Listening!
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^Jafant, wasn't that with different speakers? |
Never any need to apologize- beetlemania
I tend to concur w/ the quote as above " more power produces an effortless transient attack that really makes music work emotionally."
I am (certainly) in touch with that emotion per the audition last week.
Happy Listening!
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In my opinion amplification and all other elements of the chain are very germane. Thiel speakers reveal upstream misbehavior extremely "well". This battle never ends because only by ultra-resolution can we retrieve the inner detail of music.
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The current behavior of your Ayre is of interest. But, more power
produces an effortless transient attack that really makes music work
emotionally.
To the best of my knowledge, Ayre, Theta and, maybe Dartzeel are the only manufacturers of SS zero-feedback amps. The Ayre VX-5 stereo amp has a bit more power than my AX-5 integrated (rated at 300 W into 4 Ohm). Stereophile measured the MX-R (non Twenty version) at 595 W into 4 Ohms and 720 W into 2 Ohms - but that product is WAY beyond my budget. The Theta Citadel ($12K) is rated at 400 W into 8 Ohm and 800 into 2 Ohms. The Dartzeels are generally more expensive than Ayre or Theta and also less powerful other than the $150K behemoth reviewed by Fremer (1025 W into 2 Ohms!). I wonder how *that* would sound driving a modded pair of CS3.7s! I think there are a handful of tubed zero feedback designs but these are probably less powerful than the above. And with that I apologize for taking the "Thiel owners thread" off topic! |
According to the article cited by beetlemania -
JA measured 220w clipping into (2) Ohms w/ one channel driven.
tomthiel -
Thoughts?
Happy Listening!
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An amp with zero loop feedback must be extraordinarily well designed to work for music. Feedback disturbs phase response. Ayre is addressing design from first principles and I would expect all their products to be very clean, especially in the transient-temporal domain. If it sounds clean it is clean. But, the joys of power should not be underestimated.
I hot-rodded my 1990 Classé DR-9, considered a high voltage / high current amp. In stereo it produces100 wpc > 8 ohms, 200 > 4 and 400 > 2 ohms. Nice muscle and finesse. Strapped to mono it gives 400 wpc > 8 ohms, 800 > 4 and 1100 > 2, which means the power supply runs out of current before voltage. I use them in my studio where they are surprisingly cleaner strapped than in stereo at moderate levels into a moderate sized hard-to-measure space described earlier. Anyhow, I would have thought that the 400 > 2 ohms in stereo would have been plenty, freeing the other amp for other duties. But the improvement was dramatic enough to assign both amps to mono duties.
The current behavior of your Ayre is of interest. But, more power produces an effortless transient attack that really makes music work emotionally.
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Thanks! much- beetlemania
maybe I can find an AX-5 near my locale for an audition?
Happy Listening!
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@jafant The Ayre has plenty of balls for my room (18 x 19 x 8-12) and listening tastes. The "VGT" volume control has 46 1.5 dB steps and I usually listen at a 20-24 when I have the house to myself, maybe 26-28 if I want some rowdy rock. The highest I've pushed with the Thiels is 30-32. No apparent distortion but this level becomes uncomfortably loud. With the Vandys, I had to add about 4 steps to attain similar SPLs (as an aside, I could get my old AX-7 to clip with the Vandys but, again, that was at SPLs too loud for me). Ayre does not give the AX-5 a 2 Ohm rating. Here's what JA said in his measurements:
That the AX-5 was not as comfortable driving 2
ohms as it was higher impedances can be seen in fig.6. This plots the
THD+N percentage against frequency at a level, 8.9V, equivalent to 10W
into 8 ohms, where I could be sure I was looking at actual distortion
rather than noise. Into 8 ohms (blue and red traces) and 4 ohms (cyan
and magenta), the THD+N is very low and hardly changes with frequency,
which again is a tribute to the zero-loop-feedback topology. But into 2
ohms (green), not only is the THD higher, but the level was a little
unstable at the lower frequencies.
Apparently, power is slightly higher with the Twenty version but I have no idea how that might change JA's THD+N measurements. Again, I would be reluctant to drive CS5s (impedance drops to 2 Ohms in the bass) with an AX-5 but I hear no deficiency with the CS2.4SE. |
beetlemania
are you playing the Ayre as loud as you wish? Does the AX-5 measure into 2 ohms?
Happy Listening!
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Excellent points/counterpoints -beetlemania
I concur about the upstream components being easier to detect by listeners. Happy Listening!
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I concur with you- marqmike
Happy Listening!
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I did not view the post as venting- tomthiel
I found the information more informative with additional insight into the speakers. I received a reply to my query from Anthem reporting that an attempt will be made to ask the engineers for current in (A) measurements.
Happy Listening!
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I find my 2.4’s very easy to tune in to my room and equipment. Maybe because their design causes them to be close to a truly neutral piece that you can go many ways and get great sound. I had some 1.2’s. They both are/were easy to make warm and round, or razor edge outlines and very transparent, or anything in between. One thing among other things I like about the Thiel’s I have had and others that I have listened to for some time is they communicate well. I don’t know how to describe it well, but I consider music to be communication of a sort from the musician, the instrumentalist mainly but also the vocalist, and that is what I want from my music, and I get that more over a wider range of music from these speakers than I have from others I have enjoyed listening to over the years.
Anyway like Tom thanks for letting me vent. Just kidding. Hope everyone is enjoying their systems. And thanks to Tom we are enjoying our systems a little more with some insights behind the speakers. |
Thanks for the rant!
There are further involvements and interactions resulting from coherence
that relate to the amplifier discussion above and many more aspects of
sonic performance. In business it is impolite to blame the upstream
signal chain for less than satisfying sonic results. But truth be told, a
coherent speaker doing its (Thiel defined) job of absolutely
representing in all domains the input signal fed to it has an impossible
job. There are thousands of ways that a signal is corrupted from
acoustic (or augmented) event, through the recording, storage and
playback chain to reach the listener's ears.
In this thread and elsewhere, some have opined that Thiels are less forgiving of amps and this lines up well with your comments here. Most Thiels do an excellent job of reproducing the signal fed to them. That is, they are highly resolved, transparent and neutral. But it's a precarious position. Flaws in upstream components (amps, sources, cables, recordings) are more readily heard by listeners. Listeners (and reviewers) with flawed gear might mistakenly blame the speaker as the Thiels reveal the flawed gear. But the flip side is the possibility - with exemplary amps, sources, and cabling - of standout performance; great musical clarity and emotional connection to the performance. And this is what I'm hearing in system :) |
Stereophile's measurement design is an example of what I believe to be a fundamental lack of understanding of the ear-brain and its response to whole-goods: that is sound with its tonal, spatial, transient and dynamic characteristics, to name a few, intact, unadulterated, coherent. Aural intelligence is a profound function of human existence and more closely related to the other senses and, in my opinion, the development of consciousness than is generally appreciated.
Over the years the critics were very supportive of Thiel's designs and products. I believe Thiel products garnered more international design and engineering awards than anyone else in the world. We couldn't have asked for more support. However, most critics didn't really get it. If they had, they would have designed measurements (applicable and informative for ALL audio products) which illustrated performance in all relevant domains. Instead, the tests support the prevailing wisdom which I believe to be partial and flawed.
In this forum and elsewhere I have heard people wondering why Jim didn't prune an heir to carry on his work. The answer is complex but it includes the vicious cycle I site. Engineering candidates dismiss the reality of factors that fail or fall outside the measured paradigm. To summarize a very deep matter, all candidates state with full conviction that phase coherence cannot be implemented along with frequency domain success. (that's a period.) And if they could be co-implemented, then it still wouldn't matter because the brain doesn't care about it; ask anybody from the Canadian Research Council or any other proper institution of research or learning. And since it (fully coherent reproduced sound) can't be accomplished and wouldn't matter anyhow, then why would I (the candidate) risk my career and standing in the professional community to swim upstream against prevailing wisdom. Short story: Thiel Audio DID search long and hard for many years without success. The Tennessee Buyers committed to carrying on the work; and no small part of their reversal was based on their research which supported the conclusion I stated: forget it, get with the times, hire Mark Mason and get on with the prevailing paradigm.
I suppose I'm ranting. I do really appreciate you guys for getting it. Very few people do. There are further involvements and interactions resulting from coherence that relate to the amplifier discussion above and many more aspects of sonic performance. In business it is impolite to blame the upstream signal chain for less than satisfying sonic results. But truth be told, a coherent speaker doing its (Thiel defined) job of absolutely representing in all domains the input signal fed to it has an impossible job. There are thousands of ways that a signal is corrupted from acoustic (or augmented) event, through the recording, storage and playback chain to reach the listener's ears. Almost all practitioners along the way default toward euphonic engineering, trading off against the non-important aspects, which muddles the mess nearly beyond redemption. I think that any, perhaps all, of you Thiel aficionados would love to have witnessed the thousands of hours spent ferreting out the contributing factors involved in creating an honest transducer. When the speaker is coherent then EVERYTHING matters. That's how we identified wire, magnet eddys, diaphragm propagation moires, diffraction and so forth and so on from the O3 development and onward year after year making progress toward an impossible goal of authenticity and integrity, knowing we (the speaker) would be blamed for exposing problems not of its making. Since the history is ancient, you may not be aware that Thiel put those elements (wire, etc.) on the table before they were acknowledged in the audiophile community. Many elements are still contested all these years later in the pro and academic communities.
Back to Stereophile's tests. The 50" (etc.) standard could be circumvented for very little investment. Outdoor measurements are anechoic. Tilting the speaker to a ground-plane microphone eliminates floor bounce, And so on. The problem isn't about accomplishing the test, it's about ignoring the importance of all of the outcomes. Aiding and abetting falsehood is an entirely invisible and unintended consequence.
I should get back to work. I hate end of year bookkeeping. Thank you for the opportunity to vent.
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popularly-held fallacy that phase and time information don't matter or
can be misrepresented in test design is that such measurement techniques
are given undue validity by most
Hi Tom, are you referring specifically to Stereophile's step response measurement or something broader? |
I believe that a major factor in the popularly-held fallacy that phase and time information don't matter or can be misrepresented in test design is that such measurement techniques are given undue validity by most, leading to most manufacturers implementing designs that will test well against a fundamentally flawed standard . . . supporting a vicious cycle that justifies and validates the fallacy. This statement is philosophy-speak for don't eat everything you're fed.
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I’ll defend them, they do more than most others.
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It's all he can do with his limitations and budget. He used to acknowledge the extra problems for measuring Thiels, Vandersteens, et al. but not for many years.
BTW, I'm NOT defending Stereophile!
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Still not enough. Who listens to floorstanders at home from 50"? Buy or rent anechoic space. |
Stereophile can't or won't measure Thiel's at the appropriate 3 meters.
It makes sense that JA measures from the same distance (ie, standard) for everything but he has to be close (50") using his "quasi-anechoic" conditions to avoid early reflections. Definitively puts first order designs at big disadvantage. Soundstage has a real anechoic chamber and measures at 2 m. |
I heard the Ayre integrated with the 3.7s
Curious if this was the AX-7 (60 W at 8 Ohm) or AX-5 (125 W at 8 Ohm)? |
Stereophile can't or won't measure Thiel's at the appropriate 3 meters. |
I heard the Ayre integrated with the 3.7s when I was auditioning them and I definitely wouldn't recommend that combination. It'd be fine at low volumes but lost definition when you cranked it up a little bit. I was surprised at the difference I heard when I went from a single 200 watt at 8 ohms power amp to 2 running bridged mono. There was a definite improvement in low end torque. |
Stereophile's measurements suggest that the AX-5 prefers to work above 4 Ohms.
Hmm, must be all that Cardas wiring ;^) Looks to me that it behaves very well into a 4 Ohm load. These would be good measurements for an amp *with* negative feedback hiding its problems, never mind a naked zero feedback design. At 2 Ohms, it does start to become "stressed" mostly below 200 Hz. I would probably hesitate to pair an AX-5 with, say, Thiel CS5 or Magnepan 20. Lining the AX-5 measurements up with the impedance/phase traces for the CS2.4, it appears the most demanding frequencies for the Thiel are a bit higher up in the midrange. Nevertheless, one might wonder how these two might pair. As always in these matters, the proof is in the listening. My ears tell me they work together just fine, thanks. I detect no distortions or other unpleasantness at any frequency or SPL I've tried. YMMV. If I were to audition and purchase based only on Stereophile's measurements I would not even give Thiels a second look, never mind own them! That upper midrange/lower treble suckout looks fatal! And look at all the hash in the waterfall plot! I'd probably own Revels and Halcros . . . and wonder why I wasn't enjoying my favorite music. [OTOH, Soundstage's measurements of the CS2.4 taken from 28" further away are among the the very best in their database in terms of flat frequency response and low distortion.] Welp, I at least we can agree that Thiels are great sounding speakers . . . |
May I offer the advice that: one should not necessarily assume that because a marque gains a reputation for robust separates that the same badge on a smaller scale integrated will perform the same as those separates. And visa versa, the performance of an integrated does not necessarily reflect what the same manufacturers separates
are capable of. It might, but more likely does not.
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^I have no knowledge of it's prowess, but a power only amp with a larger power supply and higher voltage rails would appear more promising.
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Good to see you again- drrsutliff
there are certainly many owners of Ayre gear reporting excellent results.
In fact, I do not believe that I have ever read a poor review. A fellow audiophile and CS 2.4 owner, over on a different audio forum, used the Ayre AX-7e in his system.
Happy Listening!
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Good to see you- oblgny
you are my "go to" guy for all things integrated amp(s). Factually speaking, I was thinking about you during my STR audition. Agreed, the demo was excellent and did not have me wanting more outside of this amp's capability. Hopefully Anthem will provde us with an answer regarding current(A) ratings soon.
Happy Listening!
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I have not heard the AX-5 but I use the Ayre VX-5 Twenty with my 2.4s with exceptional results. Cables are Audience AU24SE. Recently did a speaker repositioning using the instructions for the “master set” and the system has never sounded better. I highly recommend reading the instructions and give it a try. Strongly recommend Ayre and IMHO the measurements in Stereophile may be worth revisiting. |
Frankly, I’ve thrown a lot of different amp/preamp combinations at my Thiels over the past few years, none of which sounded bad through them. Class d amps mated as well as class a/b amps managed; every combo offered something different but to say I could tell class d from a/b would be something of a stretch.
Through it all I always had a tubed preamp, just a holdover thing and my fondness for tubes in general.
While I’m again currently pondering a return to separates, my integrated hasn’t had me missing anything I could readily detect. The BAT is pretty sweet. |
Frankly, I’ve thrown a lot of different amp/preamp combinations at my Thiels over the past few years, none of which sounded bad through them. Class d amps mated as well as class a/b amps managed; every combo offered something different but to say I could tell class d from a/b would be something of a stretch.
Through it all I always had a tubed preamp, just a holdover thing and my fondness for tubes in general.
While I’m again currently pondering a return to separates, my integrated hasn’t had me missing anything I could readily detect. The BAT is pretty sweet. |
Stereophile's measurements suggest that the AX-5 prefers to work above 4 Ohms. |
Much Thanks! beetlemania
the Ayre is on my list- not a local dealer/retailer for audition though.
I will reach out and touch Anthem to inquire about the amp's current reserves/peak current ratings. I did not spot those figures per website.
Happy Listening!
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IME there are very few integrated amps that are really ideal for most Thiel’s.
I'm getting superb results with my Ayre AX-5. On one hand, it is the only amp I've heard with the CS2.4SE. But on the other, I'm getting most of the SQ of the very best systems I've heard, eg, ARC Ref 250 driving Vandersteen Seven and Ayre R-series driving TAD Ref Ones. There are only a few systems I've heard that I would swap for mine straight across and all of them are considerably more $$$. |
I can’t speak for the Class D offerings, but of most else, IME there are very few integrated amps that are really ideal for most Thiel’s. There are a lot of very good reasons to go with separates.
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unsound-
can you suggest another integrated amp?
Happy Listening!
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Much Thanks! tomthiel
can you suggest another integrated amp?
Happy Listening!
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J, the hidden problem that arises with an amp that doesn't double-down to 2 ohm loads is that the distortion increases dramatically when driven into overload. That dirty signal is what toasts drivers, especially the delicate tweeter voice coil which is still in the circuit below 200 hz in a first-order XO. Unless you have a small room and quiet listening habits, I suggest holding out for more beef.
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Thanks! for the specs- unsound.
those thoughts did cross my mind of course. I am working on a connection
with the Anthem rep for my area/district whom uses this integrated in his system featuring CS 3.7 loudspeakers. I will take the 138w doubling down into 2 ohms, so long as, the current is engaging.
Happy Listening!
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