tomthiel
Thank you for your contributions and hard work here. Jim is smiling on this thread.
Happy Listening!
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!
13,494 responses Add your response
CS3.5 update As you know, I've been investigating internal hookup wire this spring and summer. It's been quite a long and winding ride. Among the twists and turns has been learning how some wire configurations interface with other wire configurations - for better or worse. Backing up, I wasn't convinced I was sending a neutral signal to the 3.5s, especially with the equalizer in between the pre and power amp. I took a detour with Dick Hardesty's 'series-bypass' method where a wire (in this case) is added then removed from the feed stream. The result was that some 'upstream' cables just don't like driving a particular 'downstream' cable. I propose that just such a condition occurs when a speaker cable feeds an internal wiring harness. Mismatches abound. The bright side is that this test shone light on which cables are more tolerant of their downstream load, and those cables move higher on my interest list. I'll have some final results to report within a short while. Let's just say what many other commentators have said: excellence doesn't necessarily track price. Today I received a second batch of cable from Iconoclast, which interests me greatly. I will reiterate what I reported recently. Belden's 4694A is a surprisingly good cable for short money ($30s) . It is sold as a 75 ohm digital coax for ultra high definition video with a 12GigaHertz rating. Indeed it shines in that digital role. But, it also shines very brightly as an analog interconnect. I invite anyone to compare it with whatever you're using, and please report your findings here. Now, back to the 3.5. I settled on driving the 3.5s with that 4694A Belden digital S/P-DIF, plus StraightWire Rhapsody 3 analog interconnects and StraightWire Octave II speaker cables – single wired. The StraightWire cables hold up very well to competition and I have known them intimately for decades. Now another tangent. A couple years ago, my first crossover experiments were on the CS2.2. Again, I know it very well, using it for listening and musician / mix / master evaluations for decades. I had reported that removing the crossover from the cabinet, optimizing the layout without the EMF of the woofer, and upgrading many critical components – all combined to produce substantial qualitative upgrade in performance. That 2.2 workhorse is back-burnered via for greater ease and lower expense of using the model 1 with its two-way configuration and shorter wire runs. My report today regards the unexpectedly large improvement in the 3.5 by simply moving the crossover. No new parts, no new layout, still inside the cabinet. The move is from behind the woofer (very bad environment) to shock-mounted on the bottom of the cabinet. Over the years, the consensus about the 3.5 (among other Jim Thiel designs) is that it gets 'confused' or 'compressed' when the volume gets high or the score complex. Fair enough. There also are reports of an over-analytic, electronic presentation. Fair enough. The equalizer contributes some of those attributes. But I am using a Jim Williams / Audio Upgrade replacement which rivals most amps that would be used with the 3.5. The test uses signal from the Philips CD80 through the Benchmark stack with a vetted cable chain (with or without the EQ). That stock 3.5 and its mate with the XO on the bottom are side-by-side, both fed the same mono signal. The modified 3.5 takes on a more lively, vivid, sweeter musicality. Surprisingly so. The differences got real in the measurements; there have been persistent anomalies in the frequency and phase measurements of the 3.5. Specifically there is a suck-out (15dB @ 80 to 100Hz) and the top octave droops nearly 10dB. The FuzzMeasure sweeps are taken near full scale – just under clipping. Nearfield single driver measurements are taken at far lower levels. They showed no such anomalies. I assumed the 'problems' were in the room. But no. The 'problems' vanish when the XO is moved to the bottom of the cabinet. Flash back to the 1982 development of the CS3. This very issue was discussed in the hypothetical. We had noted how much purer the sound was before consolidating the XO into the cabinet. But the XO bottom mount was dismissed due to slightly higher labor cost. Hindsight sadly shows that decision to be significant. That 'behind the woofer' mounting persisted until the removable passive radiator in 1995s CS1.5. (The earlier passive in the CS2.2 was built into the baffle.) That particular 'electronic crunch' follows models with the XO close behind the woofer. Short of all the labor and expense of a full-blown redesigned outboard crossover, there is a lot to gain by simply moving the XO. Very soon, I anticipate having some firm recommendations for hookup wire upgrade. Those wire and XO position modifications provide significant improvement that is accessible to the DIY owner.
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Adcom power amp comparisons The two Adcom GFA555s arrived yesterday and I compared them to each other, to the GFA555 II, to Sennheiser HD800S headphones, and to the Benchmark AHB2. Brief report to follow. A fair prior question is ’why’. My present odyssey includes long-standing riddles among which is why some users experience classic Jim Thiel products as some combination of hard or harsh, up-front, analytical, etc. while others hear little of these issues and love them. Among myriad interacting potential causes are: • Room, listener position • Inferior signal chain and/or recordings • Cable/wire with time-domain problems exposed by phase coherent presentation • Crossover location behind the woofer. Later progressed to behind passive radiator, cabinet bottom • Less than best diffraction and wavelaunch control • Other including high-frequency balance, driver and floor coupling, etc. Today we’re examining Amplification. These Adcom amps were well-regarded and popular in Thiel’s mid-cycle product development. If some amps don’t like some cables or speakers (such as low impedance). Let’s say those issues are settled with the amps presently under consideration. Historically, Thiel graduated to top-tier amps because we got excellent dealers who used those amps. We never tested our speakers with anything less than the Krell-Levinson league. Even Audio Research and Classe washed out due to Jim’s assessment of off-neutral (AR) or less-than-best (Classé.) Bryston was our 'entry level' recommendation. My present rack: Reference: All Benchmark stack with AHB2 power amp driven by HPA4 by DAC3B from Philips CD80. Benchmark interconnects. StraightWire Octave II speaker cables. Known amp: Adcom GFA555 II New amps: Adcom GFA555 (original) (2) All amps bridged mono Speakers: Thiel CS1.5 stock MO: Patty Griffin – Impossible Dream skipped through full album for 10-15 minutes total per amp under test. Album is pop vocal with simple to orchestrated instrumentation, and various pop production effects. Without apology, the Benchmark has become my reference. Adcom 555A is early production. Somewhat up-front, simple, direct, ’no mic windscreen’ sound Adcom 555B is late production. Slightly more ’refined’, ’mic windscreen’ sound. Adcom 555 II. More controlled, safe, less ultimate detail and dynamics. Differences are fairly subtle. Family resemblance is the over-riding quality. Family sound is very similar to HD800S headphones. Benchmark AHB2. Solid, quiet, clean. Studio reference quality both technically and aurally. Note, the original 555 sounded closer to the AHB2 in their shared direct liveliness, than the MkII. I am sending 555B to Jim Williams for upgrade. Another comparison will ensue on its return. I support with Harry Lavo’s recommendation. The 555 II is the safer bet for unknown upstream components and source material, and within its power capabilities, should drive any Thiel speaker well. |
The Adcom / Benchmark comparison was a response to trickeydude’s call for a good, inexpensive amp for Thiels. Plus, I have a personal interest in the journey of that GFA555 moniker from a Nelson Pass, simple, low parts count design to a different designer's complex, high parts count design. There’s a lot to learn there including the nature of the ’improvements’, what may have been sacrificed, and different solutions applied to that original amp. At Jim Williams’ suggestion, I am exploring his solution of upgrading Nelson’s original design and comparing and contrasting outcomes between the three iterations, plus the AHB2 as reference. I'll keep you posted. |
harrylavo - from page 235. I spent a couple hours this afternoon comparing the Benchmark AHB-2 to your recommended Adcom GFA555 II. Both amps are bridged, running the same CS1.5 (stock) in mono. I must say that the Adcom acquits itself nicely. The sonic signature of the two amps is quite similar as is the bass / treble balance. The Adcom presents slightly more upper end and a rounder low end. The AHB has a smoother texture. For the short money these used Adcoms command, it would indeed be hard to beat. I’ll report on the 555 II vs the 555 (straight) in a day or two. The reviewers loved them both and they sold boatloads in the 1990s. |
JA - Here in New Hampshire we have different seasons than the USA. Winter starts in earnest in late December and through January and February we can get 10' of snow (12' in 2015.) Winter transitions to 'sap season' in late February / early March as the Maple sap runs and the sugar shacks boil it down to syrup. Temperatures can still be below zero at night. As daytime temps rise, we enter 'mud season' where a car can be mired to the axles on our gravel town roads, and roads are closed to vehicles over 6K#. Then comes 'black fly season' - biting insects that didn't exist in Kentucky > merging into 'mosquito season' in May. We say that spring weather keeps the riffraff at bay. Then comes 4th of July when it turns to heaven and the 'summer people' come to fill their camps and lakes and villages. Varieties of glorious weather without appreciable insects continue into Autumn, sometimes 'till Thanksgiving. Even in the heat of August, night-time temperatures often drop into the 50s, and regularly the 60s, making the heat of the day more of a joy than a burden. September / October provide a glorious Autumn with forest canopy colors to rival anywhere and the arrival of the 'leaf peepers' bringing appreciation and tourism. Around Halloween to Thanksgiving, things turn rough and 'the bottom of November' can be quite deep. Christmas is more often fairy-book than not, and many older folks head south when snow starts piling up in earnest in January. Summer cars are stored and locals (year-rounders) hunker down for the very short days and long nights of winter. For us, August is high summer, all month long. It shifts hard when school starts and families migrate to that reality. I came here in 1996, related to work, and feel fortunate to have found this village in this region. Northern New England seems more like England than the USA in its traditions and frame of mind. |
tomthiel
Wonderful! Take all of the side-trip(s) you want. I am a big fan of the DMP label. Excellent recordings there. Good to read that the Amp(s) arrived and 1 is headed to JW for upgrade. Exciting times indeed. Our hobby can benefit from all of the "modders" possible. Especially, CD and SACD players. I hope that you are well this August evening. Summer starts to wind down now. Happy Listening! |
JA - Things got complicated. I now have 2 matching amps coming this Thursday. I plan to send one to Jim Williams and keep the other for comparison when JW’s comes back. Both can be compared to the GFAII which I have in my stable. JW’s approach is to identify weak links in fundamentally great designs and upgrade those weaknesses to new strengths. The upgraded GFA555s will have bandwith of 1Hz to 300kHz with decidedly lower noise and faster slew rate. Jim works in the pro world and doesn’t use ’audiophile’ parts, but rather best-of-form ’normal’, high-performance parts to achieve his results at minimal cost. His GFA555 upgrade costs $225 plus freight. May I take a little side-trip here? I met Jim when I got two mic preamps from Tom Jung, founder of DMP. Tom used CS5s as his mastering reference speakers in his ground-breaking early digital label, and passed his STs along to me for my recording work. The Studio Technologies Mic-PreEminence was 1980s state of the art, but were a little noisy and had become less than best-of-form in some areas. Tom told me about Jim, who re-worked one of my STs with stellar results. I sold the other ST to a fellow audiophile recordist who had it upgraded. Subsequent upgrades included a reel-to-reel and recently the CS3.5 EQ. Jim doesn’t normally ’do’ power amps, but he uses GFA555 as his own amps, and has tweaked them to their best performance. I’m looking forward to his work on mine!
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sdl4 - stock Blue Jeans This cable was sent to me by Iconoclast for evaluation as their best offering from the BAV line, short of Iconoclast. I don't believe it shows up in their stock offerings with RCA terminations. The cable shows up in BJ's SDI section, but the connectors look like their stock audio RCA's which are Canare RCAPs.
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@tomthiel What connectors are you using with the Belden 4694R cable? |
As many of you know, I've been on a wire odyssey this spring and summer. The goal is finalizing internal wire upgrade options. But prior to those trials I have compared my various component and speaker cables to assure myself that I have a neutral and articulate signal feeding the speakers. More on that as things progress. Tonight I'd like to report on the digital S/PDIF from the CD player (Philips CD80 gone through by Bill Thalmann) to the DAC (Benchmark DAC3B). My digital cable stable includes Audioquest, BAV, Benchmark, StraightWire and Morrow. I consider the Morrow a cut above, and the rest basically equivalents with subtly different sonic shadings. The good news is a sample which Iconoclast sent to me which ups the ante. The cable costs around $30 and appreciably outperforms the others in my trials, which are admittedly less than the league of many of you. The winner is Belden 4694R cable made for ultra high definition (12GHz) video, using high purity copper clad in silver. It's available from Blue Jeans cable. I'd love to hear from any of you who know it and are willing to share your opinions about it. |
thieliste - while you’re waiting for hands-on experience to chime in, I can provide some history. Early-on (1978 model 03) we discovered the deleterious effects of eddy currents, first in steel driver baskets and later in aluminum voice coil formers. Part of that exploration over the years included binding posts. Either in direct power transmission or the secondary effects of changing magnetic fields, back-currents are generated from reflections and discontinuities along and near the signal path. Best practice is to keep cross-sectional geometry and resistances as even and smooth as possible to avoid distortion. Thiel kept its plastic-capped binding posts a very long time, and reviewers consistently took pot-shots for their ’RadioShack cheapness’. Fact is they weren’t cheap, and they outperformed most bigger, bulkier, brass rigs. Somewhere around the CS1.6, Thiel converted to big, brass, gold-plated posts to praise from reviewers. I haven’t directly compared their sound quality to the ’old style’, but I will. I did hear that Kathy deemed the change as more politically expedient than trying to educate reviewers, dealers and customers. Note that some of the high end posts have plastic caps. Danny Richie of GR-Research invented and sells a tube connector for the reasons outlined above. Some amp companies tried and rejected big metal posts. My recommendation is something with approximately similar cross-section and conductivity to your cables and/or internal speaker wiring to avoid electrical reflections and resulting eddy currents. Copper would be a plus. A disadvantage to gold is the typical nickel under-plating which many consider to sound bad. Simple, small and high conductivity are pluses of course. |
roxy - regarding speaker cables. I've been out of the flow and the shows and the budgets to audition or live with 'serious' cables for some decades. But the first generation predecessors of those 'Black Pearls' from an 80s CES rings clear in my memory 40 years on. Also, I heard real Black Pearls in 2012 at the Thiel Listening Room when comparing CS3.7s to the newly finalized CS2.7s. The sound was the best that I've ever heard. I didn't peruse the gear, but I have found out that the Black Pearls were the speaker cables in use. |
JA - during my 20 years I don't remember any silver in the mix. For one thing, 'wire' wasn't really a thing yet in the early years. And also, we had very little spare cash, and 'wire' seemed over-priced for our sensibilities. The price of silver was a bridge too far. We were exposed and traded for those Kimber super expensive and magnificent speaker cables, but at that time those were copper. I've been told the later ("Black Swan"?) version, which became one of Jim's staples, may be silver, but that was in the 2000s. The Goertz that he used to develop the 3.7 was (I think) a copper version. (Someone on this forum may know for sure.) Short answer is that from the mid 70s to mid 90s, silver wasn't in the picture. At that time we had found the 6-9s / aerospace wire which we brought to AcoustaCoil and Straightwire, which defined our approach to wire. |
tomthiel - they sound great in bad rooms. I put my 2 2s in a reflective living room in a townhouse. It was a second system, not something I put effort into. Yeah, if you stand a foot away and change elevation you can hear dramatic changes. Other than that they're great. Resolution is limited by the room but that was taken into account and they still sound great in low rez rooms despite the limited detail. Compared to other brands I've owned they're so clearly better, the imperfections are there, but completely overwhelmed by the strengths. |
Also, btw, the L speaker is closer to the reflective fire-place wall, so I have a thick brown velvet (same material as the curtains) cover I hang over that surface for listening. Balances out the upper frequencies perfectly with the R speaker, where I have a velvet curtain on that side cutting down higher frequency hash from the sidewalls. |
jazzman, I'm usually between 6 1/2 - 7 1/2 feet from the speakers. Closer usually if I've set up any of my stand mounted speakers (e.g. Thiel 02 or Spendor s3/5). Those Thiels are 7' 8" from my listening position at the moment. I have the sofa on sliders so I can actually move it back which I do sometimes. The normal listening distance is super immersive, but even a few inches back snaps the imaging and tone in to more solid form. I like both. |
Now that it's easier to post photos here... Here are some photos of my Thiel 2.7 speakers set up in my listening/AV room. The room used to be a single use 2 channel listening room. However in 2009 I got bit by the Home Theater bug and renovated the room in to dual duty: my 2 channel speakers now share the room with a projection based home theater, a large screen that has automated 4-way masking so it can change shape and size for the movie as required. The home theater surround speaker system is separate: Hales Transcendence speakers for L/C/R flanking the screen,Monitor Audio speakers for surrounds and rears. The room was re-done with the input of an acoustician and my architect friend. The ceiling is a drop down build that is actually stretched fabric (but looks solid) of brown felt. This is useful both for absorbing ceiling reflections from the screen so the image doesn't wash out. But also because all sorts of acoustic treatment/traps are hidden in there, and hidden elsewhere. It's a gorgeous sounding room and it's funny, even guests often remark when we are just sitting in the room talking "it sounds so good in here!" I built out a bit of black velvet-covered "stage" area below the screen, and covered all the HT speakers in very dark black velvet. The result is that, unless the room is very bright as in the photo, you often can't even see those speakers against the velvet backdrop behind them, so you just see the Thiels, making for a less cluttered look. Best I could do given how much I was trying to fit in to the room! But it worked quite well. All source and amps are down the hall in a separate room. I prefer a neat, tidy look that way. (In fact, the shag rug actually helps hide even the speaker cables to the Thiels. Horrors for those who use cable risers!) If anyone remembers my long-ago posts on looking to replace the bigger Thiel 3.7s in this photo you can see my problem. The 2 channel speakers have to be pulled well out from the back wall. That's good for sonics, but also puts the right speaker out in to the entranceway path in to the room. The 3.7s were just a bit too deep making it a bit awkward walking in and out of the room. The 2.7s were just smaller enough so that they can go in the same spot, but they don't impede walking in and out of the room at all. My Joseph Audio Perspectives are even smaller and less deep, so they work great too. Pictures: From the hallway just outside the listening/HT room :
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Prof - the little critter has become a different animal. I began experimenting with the CS2.2 and 3.6 but migrated toward smaller models for practical reasons. I collected a few pairs of 02s to further simplify my learning experiments. I soon learned that I didn't want to live with the 2nd order XO due to higher reactivity and difficulty time-aligning the wavefronts. Jim had always (in every product from the start) kept onset transients arriving in same polarity. (Whereas most 2-ways flip polarity for one or the other driver.) Your stock tweeter signal arrives a full cycle before the woofer (which sounds 'normal' due to its ubiquity.) That's very non-Thiel to my ear and sensibilities, so I ended up using CS.5 drivers and a first order crossover, moving the woofer forward on a standoff and the tweeter backwards behind a waveguide for . . . Phase Coherence. Now, of course, diffraction and so forth become much more audible (you know my hypothesis) - not just to me, but to collaborators as well. So the cabinet edges are eased in an elliptical cross-section to meet the new (forward) super-baffle plane. Rear edge easing is also in the mix. Internal bracing (not visible) beefs up the panels. The diffraction-causing grille is gone, replaced by (most probably) a CS2.4 / 1.6 type arrangement, except I have no magnetic metals in my enclosure systems. The crossover of the stock 02 is built on the rear input panel, right behind the woofer magnet, with audible and measurable distortion. In a portable speaker an outboard XO cabinet is a bit much, so I've mounted the XO on the exterior bottom of the cabinet in a plinth with ventilation holes. A chimney is under consideration to take heat through the cabinet and out a flared outlet in the top. A big area of experimentation has been laminar wave-launch technology. It's not particularly visible, but no front or edge surfaces will be smooth or hard. Similarly the port looks like a 2" port, but it now contains patented and proprietary technologies that impart an uncanny realism. The increase in clarity, dimensionality and musicality are hard to describe and harder to explain, so let's not for now. So, what's left of the 02 is the cabinet, the driver sizes and port, but everything is subtly to radically upgraded. I won't have a 'fix kit' for a normal 02. I know you love yours, but it is an ordinary if well-done second order 6.5" ported two way. My mission is to develop ways and means to improve performance beyond stock Thiel levels. The 02 emerged as my baseline platform due to its simplicity, flexibility and accessibility. My vision is for the Renaissance 02 to be a uniquely high-performance stand mount speaker with discrete drivers. It is fiction-ware in that no such product actually existed. I envision a limited edition inaugural run and that all this learning and solutions will be applied next to the CS3/3.5 which has gotten the bulk of my attention of late. Stay tuned, sorry to be so slow . . . Pictures aren't appropriate. They change constantly and aren't yet very pretty. |
