Thiel Owners
vm1
Welcome! Good to see you here. The Panel has a few fans and owners of the CS 2.3 loudspeaker. Stay tuned until one of our experts chimes in to address your query. Thank You for citing Rob at CSS. He is a 1-Man Operation and has a pretty quick turnaround overall. I look forward in reading more about your Musical tastes and System. Keep me posted on the Repair process.
Happy Listening! |
Hello, I’m new to this forum but not to Thiel. My first set of CS 2.3 were purchased in 1999 which I still have. I recently got a second set of CS 2.3 - used - but the first version coax drivers are bad. I sent them to Coherent Source Service for rebuilding. Rob there quoted 3 days for the work but 2 weeks later they are still not done. When I asked for a realistic completion date, he did not reply. By luck I found updated 2.3 coax drivers on eBay couple days ago and bought them. The install instructions posted in the listing do not cover how to update the crossovers. If anyone has the instructions for the crossover update, I would really appreciate a photo of it. |
thoft, Its not really the watts as it is the current to handle a load. A Pass X260.8 is right at that 1000 watts into 2 ohm load. Switching it out to the X600.8 is a very noticable difference especially in the bottom end. The best test is to see if you can get a loaner amp to try and compare it to the Classe’. If that does not show improvement then you know you need to look elsewhere in the chain. I'd hang onto the Classe' until you work out whats the solution.
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Yes as Tom mentined the room at Thiel was a big room. The amps were the Krell FPB 700CX. A room of that size the bass had plenty of weight with the big Krells. I was going to go to the "something being wrong with the speakers" as Tom mentioned but you ruled that out. I've played around with a few of the large Class A amps known to drive the Thiel's. When I tried a smaller amp in that same series, it did not deliver like their larger brothers. Take the time to work it out and you will be rewarded ten fold. |
thoft - let's consider possibilities. Your 18'x 25' room with a non-flat ceiling sounds pretty ideal to me for a pair of 3.6s. The Thiel room where duramax heard the 7.2s probably had the Krell FPB 600. That room is 14'x 22'x 35' for 10,780 cubic feet. Your 18'x 25' room has significantly less volume, depending on the particulars of the vaulted ceiling. As stated, a major design attribute of bigger speakers is to provide more bass into larger rooms. However, the 3.6 bass fills the Thiel listening room very well. I would never call it bass-shy, much less 'extremely weak'. Your room is significantly smaller. I imagine you explored speaker and listener placement to minimize room modes. I don't know whether your Classe 25 amp delivers current into a 2ohm load. I read reports of it delivering to 2 ohms, but its specifications rate to 4 ohms (minimum). Your amp running out of current at Thiel's 3 ohm load is under suspicion. The 7.2 and 3.6 are in the same league for impedance brutality, rarely climbing to 4 ohms. Another thought is something being wrong with the speakers. Your symptoms could be caused by one woofer being disabled in some way. Do you have any test equipment to compare the 2 speakers? Tone generator, REQ, etc. If not a momentary connection to a 6 volt (9 volt with greater care) battery can show the polarity and vigor of the woofer response. Listen as well as watch what happens.
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thoft, Your amp will power the larger Thiel's but will run out of gas in a larger room especially if your wanting that bass slam. A used Krell FPB will deliver what your looking for.
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thoft, Thiel's are not know to be shy in the bass department. If you are limited to the larger room you will need up the Thiel line to the bigger brothers. With them you will need to invest in amps worthy of the load they will carry to drive those speakers and give you the bottom end you are looking for.
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Thoft I upgraded from 3.6 to cs 7 a few years ago I’m in the Chicagoland area they fit in my minivan.fwiw I previously had a Bryston 4nrb for the 3.6s which was fine (but underpowered for the cs 7) so I upgraded to a krell fpb 600 which was a major upgrade. I also just added a ayre cx7emp cd player (which I love) In my opinion the cs 7 is better in every way than the 3.6 ( which I was the original owner for 25 yrs) but demands higher quality components but also rewards you when doing so. My room is 14x35 with 8 foot ceiling sloped up to 14 feet. Just my 2 cents. David |
What Bill is doing with the DR9s is to take out the 'balancing' circuitry at the inputs which is op amp based. Its only practical function is to allow XLR to reduce noise in long interconnect runs. Otherwise, that circuitry is of lower quality than the rest of the amp. We gain room for better (very good) caps. CSA / CMR / PURITY. He's upgrading some storage caps and some critical resistors too. He can optimize bias, etc, by committing to bridged-only operation. When bridged the DR9 delivers 400 / 800 / 1100 watts into 8/4/2 ohms. Bill can get the noise better than new. And so forth and so on. I ordered the relevant ClarityCaps with the recent sample order. The sample order so long in the making has finally been confirmed. |
duramax - thank you for the base offer. One of these days I hope to get that far; for now there is so much work to update geriatric products. It doesn't get much if any better than Pass in my book. Presently beyond my reach. Bill Thalmann of Music Technology, and formerly Conrad Johnson, is souping up my pair of Class´ DR9s to a performance level far beyond their stock form. That's still months coming, but considering his previous work, reputation and what I heard last week that he did with my Class´ DR6 preamp - I have high hopes and expectations. |
Tom, Now that you have the CS7.2 I’m on board with xover upgrades, especially with an outboard if you find the time or desire to take on such an endeavor. Out of the entire Thiel line up this is my go to speaker. Yours in Birdseye maple must look beautiful. If you ever decide to make a platform or outriggers for them let me know as I will share the cost with you and get some CAD models to for you to review before it goes to production. Excuse me if you mentioned this but what amps are you using to drive those beasts? I use a Pass XA 200.5 or Pass Labs X600.5 with very good results.
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I just found a pair of CS1.2s at the Salvation Army. I was not even looking for audio equipment, but I was waiting for my car to be washed and wandered over during the wait. It was my girlfriend who found them and pointed them out to me as “cool” and possibly high-end given the piano black finish. She did not hesitate to suggest that I buy them even though she did not know the brand and is not an audio geek. hadn’t even seen them there. I myself had heard of Thiel but never even heard them demoed. $175 dollars later I am now part of this fraternity.
I got them home and hooked them up to my old Marantz SR-8000 A/V receiver to check if they were actually working and they seem fine. I have been listening to them every night for about a month now and I enjoy them.
I noticed a few things I would like to ask about:
1. They are pretty weak at the low end. I want to add a subwoofer/subwoofers. Any good suggestions? I use the receiver for stereo only (music). I have been scouring the used marketplace for old M&K, MartinLogan, and REL subwoofers. Someone suggested Hsu, which I thought is more of a home theater brand. Any suggestions in the $300-400 (used) range?
2. While they excel at instrumental music, classical especially, they aren’t the best for playing rock, pop, and so on. i noticed that the difference is like night and day between when a DJ is talking (radio) and the music starts. I often can’t even make out what the DJ says as it is so muffled, although singing voices sound fine. Part of it is the character of these speakers from what I have read, but to not make out a classical DJ’s banter (yes, they do mumble) is unusual for any speaker I have ever owned, especially when they sound so great with music. Could something be amiss?
3. These suckers get loud in a hurry, probably because they are low impedance. I have to run the receiver at very low volumes or I am blown out of the room. The louder it is (within reason) the better they sound. Is that typical for these speakers?
Thanks in advance!
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Am not entirely sure if this owner is in this forum, but I share the same enthusiasm when I got my pair of Thiel speakers.
https://www.reddit.com/r/audiophile/comments/y6xhn3/welp_i_pretty_much_modded_everything_i_can/
It also warms my heart to see that there are other Thiel speaker owners in this subreddit. |
halifax If you decide to use the original boards and replace the resistors use this site for parallel pairing sengpielaudio.com/calculator-parallel.htm . I would also recommend replacing the electrolytic caps with Mundorf electrolytic caps . If you measure your film caps you might be able to upgrade them with the new Clarity Purity caps . Good Luck |
There is a set of new 2.3 coax drivers on ebay if anyone is looking
Tom, jafant and beetle thanks for the input, you all have been super helpful. After all this input I feel like the best option would be to take my time on any upgrades, the speakers work really well and I love what they do with well recorded albums. My reference album lately has been Goldfrapp - Felt Mountain, I would recommend anyone pick this album up up to hear what these speakers can do, I have both the vinyl and CD both are very well done. It is a very revealing album. Probably one of the best female vocalist albums of the early 2000s. It's haunting mix of real and electronic sounds really allows these speakers to make some magic happen. If anyone is a fan of portishead this would be a really good addition to your collection. With the factory crossovers I am tempted to just replace the resistors, but I think I will slowly build some completely new boards so I can more easily accommodate the larger size of upgraded caps and not have to worry about cramming everything on to the factory boards. I dont want to get into the factory boards and mess them up. |
I'm guessing that your 2.4s (#s 2093, 2094) were built around 2005. My guess is based on the fact that when I purchased my pre-owned 2.4s (#s 2951, 2952) in April of 2011 from Audio Consultants, based on the provenance (they had been originally sold by Audio Consultants, and then taken back in trade for 3.7s) they had 5 years remaining on their original 10 year warranty). So that dates production of my pair to most likely 2006.
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halifax - your #s 293/4 are the highest #s of old LEX boards I have seen. Rob G had estimated around # 250 was changeover to FST / China. If and as you consider new boards, it would be best to layout new boards to accommodate larger parts. All of the upgrade caps are larger than stock caps. I suggest sitting with what you have for now and keep in touch about further refinements later. I have a hunch there's plenty to love with what you have now. |
Whoa Tom, you are a huge fountain of knowledge, thank you for sharing that information!!! Its very cool to know these are the older crossovers from the factory. I guess I should have trusted my ears over my eyes for these.I saw all the various bypass and parallels and made the assumption these were modded, there is a noticeable difference in crossover build quality from one speaker to the next. I will see if I can shift things around in the one crossover to clean things up. I am going to read the thread starting where Jafant linked to catch up to what has been posted, hopefully that will help me decide what path to take with these, the board in one speaker looks like it will be tough to upgrade with very tight fit and some funky wire routing in some areas, sort of leaning towards new boards so I can just keep these as they are and also to retain some history a bit. I dunno, what do you all think? Thanks all for your help! |
My response crossed yours in space. These speakers were not modded. A resistor lead touching a coil does not make electrical contact since the coil wire is insulated with varnish. I suggest you do some manual housekeeping so that nothing touches anything else and get to know your new speakers. We have considerable experience in upgrading 2.4s which we can apply either with these boards or with new boards. See if you can find beetlemania's report(s) earlier in this thread. He or jafant might guide you to the pages - this is a very long thread . . . |
