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!
I can tell, that already from the first tests, the sound obtained is magnificent.
I have had a lot of problems with Jatzen inductors. @tomthiel , in one of his precious speeches, had suggested to me, that I could solve the problem by calculating a resistance for it. Unfortunately, not having the suitable tools to make measurements, I preferred to put the original inductances back.
So, the magic of Thiel sound is back but with more performance.
Thanks to your advice, the cabinets and the rest of the upgrade. 😎
improvedsound - that's a nice piece of work you have done. You capture the Thiel Essence with the sloped, sculpted contours and the elegance of the base.
will post some of what I have learned on this journey through my own experiments and coaching some of you on this forum and behind the curtain. There's plenty of room for improvement, while containing costs is always a desirable constraint. I am pleased that you and some others have invested in upgrading your Thiel loudspeakers.
sdl4 - TPC was normally called Electrolytic Tough Pitch (copper), which is motor / magnet wire. The others are more refined in their impurity, crystal and surface parameters. There is a case to be made that ETP is good enough as long as the other parameters are executed with care. I would have to be convinced due to my personal experience - but it is practically impossible to sort out all the various components of what makes a wire 'better'. My present Iconoclast sample is ETP/TPC.
@tomthiel I'll look forward to your take on the Iconoclast cables. I haven't tried any of their speaker cables, but I have tried the Gen 2 XLR interconnects in the TPC and OFE copper versions. Even though those two cables measured virtually identically in terms of inductance, capacitance, and resistance, they each sounded different in my system. The TPC sounded more lively and a bit more forward and "in your face," while the OFE sounded more closed in, less forward, and kind of uninvolving. I wish I had tried the OCC copper instead, but I resisted due to the higher cost. Most listeners seem to rave about the OCC, although I think Galen (the designer) considers the TPC to be the best value.
I moved the low frequency inductance by turning the board. I can't do better. 😃
As for the two resistors and their cooling, maybe, your problem is caused by the contact between the resistor and the aluminum heatsink. As you can see in the picture, I used a high efficience thermal pad, which also damping from vibrations and isolates from direct contact with the aluminum heat sinks.I listened for several hours and didn't notice anything. Anyway, I'll do, more critical listening.
The binding posts are the genuine Thiel, recovered from the plastic plate. I'd like to replace them with your Cardas rhodium over silver, but I have to wait. I spent too much money with this upgrade. 😆
I have learned that the speaker cable in Thiel’s listening room was Kimber Type 88.
Let’s grant that Jim, et al, judged that to be his best choice along with his Krell FPB600 and as I remember a Sonic Frontiers preamp. Whatever the gear was, it certainly out-priced the relatively modest speakers. Jim’s logic was that the better the speaker, the better it translated its input signal. (Period). His job was to make that transducer and the job of others’ was to make their parts of the chain to do their jobs. Clean logic, dirty implications, especially when espousing a speaker (and the implied system) for everyman.
The problem gets hard for real reasons. Phase coherence allows the ear-brain to scrutinize everything - I have itemized some details in these pages, but basically everything goes under a sonic microscope. Getting it right becomes a far more complex puzzle, but so nice when pieces fall into place.
I won’t be buying any Type 88, but I will be testing some Iconoclast along with my poor man’s double helix contender.
Tom Thiel I am really fascinated by the Iconoclast wire please post your findings as soon as you have time.
I use Bruno Putzeys Purifi 6.5 in driver in my most recent speaker rebuild and just love its performance. Cross over is 1st order to a Via Wave SRT 7 ribbon tweeter at 3k what a wonderful blend . TomD
@sdl4, I’m not completely sure of the following, but I seem to recall reading a discussion where Bruno Putzeys said something to the effect that GaNFETS were indeed superior devices but a their current costs one could just as easily build Class A amps and that would defeat one of the main reasons of going with Class D in the first place; efficiency/cost. If I recall a correctly he was waiting for the price of the devices to come down. On the other hand, he’s also indicated that he's become a bit bored with amp design and would like to give more of his attention to speaker design. Honestly, I would take everything I just posted with a grain of salt, my recollections could be failing me.
I will say that the specs I previously posted on the link for the upcoming new amps look way better than anything I’ve seen for any(!) GaNFET amps I’ve seen so far, especially with regard to those specs that would be of particular interest to many Thiel users. And at more affordable prices too!
@tomthielI am leaning more towards replacing the tonearm cable and / or experimenting with damping fluid since for the most part the speakers only sound bright when I play vinyl. It's a jelco 750d with a jelco cable.
@improvedsoundWow, that outboard cabinet is really impressive! The attention to detail off the charts.
I see you put aluminum cooling fins on the bigger resistors. Tom had me try a similar cooling mechanism in my build. But it seemed to produce an echoey anomaly. Subtle on many tracks but I heard the best sound without the aluminum heat sinks. One of the advantages of an outboard XO is you can just vent the cabinet, no need for heat sinks. Simply add holes to the bottom and, maybe, top of the rear panel. When I was considering outboard, I imagined the top of the cabinet would just be stainless steel mesh.
I see coils on left side of coax and woofer have the same orientation, almost stacked. I suspect those are close enough to cause interference. Here are a couple of resources for your consideration: http://www.troelsgravesen.dk/coils.htm
Finally, the binding posts look like Thiel gold over brass (or equivalent). There are better choices out there, and it appears you have the budget. I used Cardas rhodium over silver.
Please hear those as friendly suggestions, not criticisms. You have done a lot of hard work!
roxy - I actually don’t know the name. It was his prototype he brought to CES, possibly around 1980. We used it in our show system and took some flack because the cable cost more than our speakers and power amp combined. Seems like it was a woven mesh, perhaps 3/4"- 1" wide x very thin. I remember Ray saying the insulation (perhaps Silicone) was applied with a mouse during layup. It may not have yet been finalized or had a name. Whatever it was, his cable lifted the veils, tightened the image and the bass and pulled out the stops in a jaw-dropping way. There were industry folks in the room (this was Thursday, setup day, Chicago, June) who were all impressed. Remember this is when ’the industry’ had not yet admitted that wire could matter, therefore it was snake oil. I do remember that Ray wanted us to use his wire for internal hookup wire, which seemed to cost more than the drivers. Out of the picture for us. Sorry I don’t remember or ever knew any more about a model or name.
Oh yes, I told Ray about Guarana, the Amazonian stimulant, and he eventually imported it and made a product called ’buzz gum’. Guarana is a left-handed caffein-like molecule that makes work in the Brazilian jungle possible (and pleasant.) To this day I keep some buzz-gum as a conversation piece to spread around our woods’ work crew when I was producing tonewood. . . . But still no cable name.
I have some samples of Iconoclast to get into my works. They use similar principles to those Kimber from the 80s (don't remember the name) that were woven, flat, and cost $1K/pair-foot. They were mind blowing. I'm looking forward to the Iconoclast because of their particular pedigree and geometry. They may serve as a reference of reference-level internal hookup wire. But . . .
@tomthiel I agree! I don't understand enough about how cables interact with speakers and specific electronics to be able to predict which ones will sound best in my system. To find cables that work well and don't have crazy-high prices requires a lot of patience and extensive trials to compare cables. As far as I know, @jafant is still on his extended cable quest, and I can't promise that I won't keep listening to new cables myself.
Cables are indeed fascinating, and their interactions with sources and load are beyond my understanding. And a lot of them don't work well with Thiel speakers. For the record - much of my approach to this playback thing holds cost and cost effectiveness as central values. I have auditioned some wonderful-sounding cables (including Cardas) that could simply not stay on my radar for reasons of cost alone. Independent of my own constraints, I live in the world of Thiel's classic orientation: creating musical tools and solutions that give access to sophisticated, satisfying musical playback experiences within the budgets of ordinary people.
@unsound Thanks for helping me understand some of the intricacies of the CS3.5 EQ and providing some clues toward what's happening in the evolving world of Class D amplification. I agree that Bruno Putzeys has been the brain behind many of the most important advances in modern Class D electronics, so it's interesting that he hasn't yet jumped on the GaNFET bandwagon. From what I've read, it appears that most of Bruno's work continues to use MOSFETs instead of GaNFETs. We'll see if that changes in the future.
For the present, I'm generally happy with the Class D PSA M700 monoblocks powering my Thiels, but I think it's likely that newer Class D offerings will sound even better and cope with low impedance loads more effectively - even in speakers that present a less benign impedance profile than do my CS2.2s.
@tomthiel Thanks for keeping us updated on your recent changes in cables and electronics as you look to optimize the functioning of the CS3.5 EQ. I agree with your suggestion to @Big_Greg to try the Benchmark cables to see if they reduce his concerns about brightness with his Thiel speakers - at least when reproducing music from vinyl - but I would also suggest that he try several other different interconnects and speaker cables as well. My experience has been that Thiel speakers (even my CS2.2s) can be pretty revealing of differences between cables and electronic gear. That's a good thing if you find a good cable match, but a problem if you don't.
For my own listening, I'm trying to find the best balance between high frequency air and detail, midrange fullness and realism, and low end impact without boominess. I'm also trying to achieve excellent imaging while minimizing listening fatigue. I've been generally happy with Cardas cables (like Clear Reflection) that blend the classic Cardas midrange liquidity with the high-end detail of the newer cables in the Cardas line. I don't get concerned when I read about listeners who are looking for uber detail and think that Clear Reflection softens detail too much. Not every listener has the same gear or the same preferences.
I've tried several interconnects (including Vovox Sonorus and Zavfino Fusion) that provide nice high frequency detail and natural tone, as well as seemingly adequate low-end heft, but I've found that over time they just sounded a little too thin and lacking in the richness, fullness, and coherence of the Clear Reflections. I'm not suggesting that everyone should use the cables I use, but I am suggesting that everyone should at least demo a range of cables to see what sounds best with their gear and their preferences. Thiel speakers are revealing enough to show off cable differences, so Thiel owners already have that going for them.
Yes, your experience with the Benchmark cables mirrors mine. I have Aurender N10 > DAC3B > LA4 > AHB2 x2 > 3.7. I've posted several times here about how glorious this sounds. I tried some upper-end Morrow speaker cables a while back. Frankly, and not to detract from Morrow's fine work, they didn't add much to the perceived sound quality when using all stock Benchmark wire.
Outstanding! Beautiful work. You are in good company here as there are several DIY members on the Panel. Keep me posted as you massage this loudspeaker back into your room/system.
As we can see, I left the original internal wiring, but lined it with some cotton. The four binding posts are made of copper. I replaced the plastic plates with aluminum plates and fixed them with neoprene gaskets. I respected and kept the graphics
big_greg - I’d like to address your brightness problem. It is odd that the Thiels alone are bright among good company. It seems reasonable to assume a speaker problem. I don’t know the 2.3s, but hear that the original tweeter could be heard as ’strident’ and the vented replacement 'fixes' it. I do know 3.6s and the only brightness, stridency, etc. I have found is from a baffle surface propagation phenomenon which is greatly reduced with grilles in place, and is being addressed in my present work.
There is the possibility that something has gone wrong in the XO which is disabling a shaping network in a tweeter or midrange. A physical XO inspection might be in order. But such an instance would be rare, and becomes statistically next to impossible in more than one speaker.
So here's another thought. I’ve had an interesting (disorienting) experience since getting my Benchmark front end yesterday. First of all: it seems phenomenally good compared with the PS Audio Stellar gain cell / DAC and S300 amp. BM is better in every way. The ’interesting’ part is how much more obvious are the cabling differences. I have some Straightwire, Audioquest, Morrow, Mogami, and the standard Benchmark / Canare that came with the stack. Hard for me to believe that the ’normal’ $35 BM interconnects seemed so much more ’right’. Same goes for the speaker cable (with not as much comparison.) I’m in cognitive dissonance since I’ve been doing wire for nearly a half century. I am presently evaluating execution levels in the 3.5 equalizer within two driving systems. The big tip-off was the Bass & Mandolin cuts. I have played the mandolin and was involved in the development of the Collings line. The nuances of chop and gulp, box and ring are in my ear and under my skin. I stopped blaming the equalizer when I added ’straight wire’ to my protocol. When I got to the all-BM / Canare cables things settled into that remembered musical reality. It sounds right and good and I’m not missing those audiophile traits that might be artifacts.
My point is that before you give up on the Thiels, you might make some comparisons with BM cables. The phase / time coherence of all Thiels puts the ear-brain in a different hearing space than do non-coherent speakers. I’ve addressed this idea before, and I admit it can sound hoaky, but my consistent experience over these many decades is that when the system gets right, the speakers disappear. Something smells wrong about your Thiel brightness problem. I hope you can fix it.
bobscliff check out speakerworks they have a good video on repairing speakers .
big_greg. I have a Merrill Heirloom TT with an outer clamping ring and I think it makes a big difference , I am surprised that there aren't more TTs with either an outer ring or vacuum hold down .
As for your 3.6s. have you thought of rebuilding/upgrading your crossovers ?
@vair68robertMy Sota doesn't have the vacuum hold down. Maybe someday. I use Sota's reflex clamp, which is good, but not as good as holding down the edges of the record. Prior to the Sota I had a VPI Classic 2 and their periphery ring. I initially had a hard time paying what I did for a big metal ring, but it was very effective and worth every penny.
unsound - that self-surround does break down over time. At the time we were trying to minimize the standing wave reflections and non-linearities between the cone and surround as well as ultraviolet deterioration of soft plastics. It worked well when new, and held up pretty well. Natural rubber turned out better.
Thanks to those who posted the earlier advice on the amp. I took a chance on the used Nova 300 and hopefully it’ll work out well.
I had another question if anyone has any experience with basic speaker repairs. The surround on the midrange driver on my 2.4 appears to be coming loose from the cone, and causes an awful rattling sound at certain frequencies, esp acoustic songs.
I was hoping to glue it back on with some sort of rubber cement or flexible adhesive like E6000. Any advice on what to use and how? Image of driver:
Yes, of course. That circuitry is already extant in the eq. There is only 6dB of boost at 40Hz vs 12dB @ 20Hz. Tomorrow I'll run today's trials at 40Hz vs straight wire.
It's not that Jim didn't know about CDs dynamic peaks, it's more like he was trying to cope to keep the equalized bass viable. That woofer was the first driver with his magnetic shorting rings for a more stable magnetic field and it had a huge overhung coil to handle the required excursion. The overhung motor requirement was the largest cause of the end of eq. He figured out the drastic distortion of reduction of underhung motors and powering long gaps was virtually impossible because rare-earth magnets weren't yet in the mix. Long excursions and underhung motors contradict each other.
Phase angle was not a thing in reviews at that time. In fact Jim goaded JA / Stereophile into measuring phase at all. JA and Larry A came to our factory in 1988 to spend a day in Jim's lab learning why he thought it mattered, how he measured it and so forth - and they gradually entered the arena of phase and time.
A promising solution to the dynamic limit would be to match a powered subwoofer with probably a second order crossover at 80Hz to limit the woofer excursion while getting true integrated bass to 20Hz.
@tomthiel, thank you. I’ve always wondered about the phase angle, measurements for which weren’t published back when these were released. I’m in complete agreement, I’ve always thought the area of dynamic range / ultimate loudness was where the 3.5’s could use the most improvement. Fortunately for me, it’s one of my lowest priorities. Still, it would be nice to be more completely relaxed when knowing volume peaks are pending. I am a bit surprised that Jim wasn’t prepared for the dynamic range of CD’s, they had been out for about a 1/2 dozen years by the time the 3.5’s were released.
sdl4 - unsound has a good handle on the factors. But there are even more complexities. Jim did a lot of work on that balancing act including the unusually low reactance of his early bass tunings. The phase angles are quite low and at higher impedance where the amp can handle it better. But to your question: not quite even in today's world.
This afternoon I drove the system up to flickering clipping lights on the stereo AHB with Chris Thile - Edgar Meyers 'Bass & Mandolin' album. The calibrated Benchmark preamp clipped the AHB @ 2dB lower with the 20Hz equalized signal compared with straight-wire / no equalizer. I got similar results with Patty Larkin 'Strangers' World' cuts which are mixed for 'impressive' bass impact.
Jim's intent was to get that extreme and excellent bass extension without significant penalty. And it worked in the 1980s. Remember that vinyl was still the standard which is bass limited by cartridge tracking ability. But the landscape changed not only with digital, but with showcase albums from David Wilson and others which were engineered for 'unbelievable' bass. The Watt/Puppy could handle the real cannons in his recording of the 1812 Overture, but Thiel's model 3 would bottom out because they actually reproduced those deep frequencies. Similarly digital bass could go deeper with more power, and was therefore no longer predictable. So, even though Jim took great care, and his parameters balanced out to require little to no more power in the bass than that required by midrange transients, when the signal landscape changed, the elegance of his solution became practically less safe.
You have a lot more experience with equipment than I will ever have , but your thoughts about the phono stage is something I can totally agree with . Does your Sota have the vacuum hold down ?
My experience is with MM cartridges only using a phono stage that is 100% tube for MM's is that a world of difference can be had with changing just one tube or with matching the one 12au7 with different sets of 3 x 5751's .
Also the setting up of a cartridge an art in itself ! Something that I am continually learning to improve my skill at .
I should be receiving my ESRE capacitors soon and will be upgrading the coaxial boards resistors and capacitors next week , except the 1uf bypass caps that will have to wait until the Clarity PUR's are available . I hope the mids and highs sound as good as the lows have sounded since upgrading the woofer boards .
@vair68robertA lot of vinyl sounds really good with the Thiels, and I do listen to mostly "classic rock". I have two turntables in my main system, a Sota Sapphire and a Technics SL 1200 MK2. The same record that sounds bright on the Sapphire will sound "good" (not bright) on the SL 1200, but loses a lot of detail, imaging, etc.
I'm using the same phono stage for both, but have a MM cart on the SL 1200 MK2.
It's quite possible it's not the speakers, it could be the cartridge, that the cartridge isn't set up right, the tonearm or cable, or how my phono stage handles MC vs MM cartridges.
The thing is, I have a number of other speakers that sound great in that system with the same electronics, so it feels like I'm trying to fit a square peg in a round hole.
@sdl4, Yes , the amp power output would drop with the impedance rise. But that’s because with that impedance rise, the sensitivity of the speaker will rise. As the eq is demanding more power, the speaker is a actually demanding less work from the amplifier to produce the same volume output, and with less distortion too.
I feel a little guilty even mentioning the "new" generation of amp modules. It’s really premature to do so. There are companies just now taking built to order amps. So far they seem to be foreign companies, so problems might have shipping and time issues. They are smaller and lighter than typical amps though. Some but not all companies making similar products have been taken to task for shoddy workmanship. Some of these companies haven’t been around that long. The sturdiness of their business legs might still be in question. It’s still yet to be seen if durability, parts, and service can be relied upon. Or what the potential resale value can be expected to be. Some of these types of companies seem to treat early adopters as beta testers. There could be growing pains before a product is truly consumer ready.
There has been a review of a prototype using power supplies that are incapable of extracting the full potential of these new modules. FWIW, the anecdotal review was very favorable in comparison to the current SINAD class leading Benchmark.
Since you asked::
Purifi1ET7040SA
From the pen of Bruno Putzeys, perhaps the foremost Class D designer in the world.
Rumor has it that Purifi is currently working on a power supply to fully extract all the potential from this module.
I'll partially agree with you on the highs using vinyl but I don't fault the speakers ,
there are some " rock " albums from the mid/late -sixties that can sound awful .
I have not noticed " brightness " in Classical or Jazz or Folk music but there are a few " rock " and "soul" albums that I have a hard time listening to ,
my opinion is that the mixing for AM radio was the culprit .
@unsound, I forgot to ask you about the new generation of Class D amps you're waiting for. Are there any specific amps or modules that might be especially promising?
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