After reading the abbreviated Thiel South American history, I sure wish I had waited to find my CS 2.3 and 2.4 in something more exotic than plain old Maple...

@tomthiel, Fascinating, Who wouda thunk it? You've got my curiosity now. Tell us more! 

Happy Friday! All

I know we’ve explored some of this territory before. But I hope it’s worth repeating, especially for those who may not have read all of our 220 pages.

Ever wonder what Amberwood is anyhow? And its brother Morado? As time went by, Thiel wanted a standard-priced offering that was unique and upscale, and fit a broad range of living environments. From the beginning we offered what I considered the premium woods of the world: Black Walnut, White Oak, Teak and Brazilian Rosewood (for very little upcharge) because we could, because we made our own veneer faces and laminated in-house. So we could buy flitches of raw veneer and use it as needed. That may seem ordinary, but it’s really quite far from it. Most speaker manufacturers don’t even make their own cabinets. And the cabinet maker doesn’t lay up their own veneers, but rather buys veneered panels ready to machine. By 1990 we were making 5 models in 5 standard finishes plus practically unlimited custom options. Can you say complicated?

A growth strategy was to reduce variety by creating a target finish that would allow a large percentage of sales from stock rather than made to order. Our demand was fairly evenly spread among the existing finishes, so I went shopping for something new. Landing on a domestic species would have been nice, since we had two world-class veneer mills within 80 miles of us. But, that didn’t materialize.

What did materialize was a walk-about to South America with Jungle-Jim Martin a second-generation woodman who ran Marwood, a leading specialty veneer importer down the road in Louisville, and president of "The Hardwood Forestry Fund", a leading industry conservation group. We planned our first joint trip in 1989 specifically to identify a good supply channel for a magnificent wood from responsible forestry practice, that we could afford. There’s no way to ascertain responsibility/sustainability without first-hand inspection of the suppliers on their own turf.

Over two weeks, we visited 14 mills in 11 cities (locations) throughout Brazil and Bolivia. We knew some candidate species from my 15 years of making custom furniture, musical instruments and loudspeakers. But the scouting process was real and open-ended and one that paid dividends far into the future.

It’s pretty well known that the world has a resource depletion problem. By 1990 the outrage had taken two tracks. The Europeans claimed to boycott "bad actors" where the Orientals tried to verify "good actors". The Americans tended to pretend that everything was fine. Most of the real practices bore little resemblance to claims or published information, even "officially" documented and audited claims. Round wood at the source is little different from other extractive resources like oil, coal or diamonds - it’s quite dirty, getting progressively cleaned up on its way to the consumer.

But I could go to the source with Jungle Jim and shine a light on those layers of obfuscation. We took a mutual friend, a well-traveled, well spoken woman who could ask pointed questions in non-confrontational ways that were unavailable to us as guys in a very machist milieu.

Many of these mills were regular suppliers to Marwood with reputations for best practices. But under scrutiny, all the Brazilian sources fell apart regarding sustainable and ethical practices. Corruption reigns. The wood of choice firmed up as Pau Ferro, most often marketed as Santos Rosewood. It’s neither a true Rosewood nor from Santos, a port in southern Brazil a few thousands of miles from where it grows in Bolivia. That’s its point of export to the western markets.

Out travels led us to Bolivia where it grows. Santa Cruz is in the uplands between the Amazon Basin and the Andes. The area produces very good timber, which was comparatively quite responsibly harvested, primarily by Japanese mills exporting a range of raw veneer and lumber with semi and completely finished pieces and parts back to Japan. The picture grew much darker eastward into the backlands toward Brazil. Poachers, primarily German nationals, routinely carried out stealth logging raids, complete with pneumatic chainsaws, a convoy with a helicopter and machine guns. As a naive gringo, I would not have believed what I saw with my own eyes.

With Jim Martin’s Forestry Fund clout we were able to arrange a project of a life-time, working with the University of Santa Cruz and the Bolivian Forestry Department to create a long term sustainable yield program with the Chiquitano Native Peoples. The kingpin is that their tribal lands were secure. Of course they had titular property rights - that the poachers could ignore. But they could’t ignore large-expanse swamps with serious snakes, arachnids and reptiles, along with unimaginably agile canoeists armed with curare darts. A seriously secure site into the foreseeable future.

We need to jump over lots of wonderful details to say that we established a well managed, continuous-yield program that netted the Chiquitano natives a lion’s share of income, along with the best-of-class SUTO veneer mill for a long-term contract supplying Marwood, with Thiel consuming enough veneer to stabilize the whole program, which continued until Thiel was sold at the end of 2012.

The wood of interest goes by many names. Pau Ferro is the catch-all meaning Iron Wood, which applies to many tropical woods of similar type. Santos Rosewood is a lie, even though all the Danish Rosewood furniture since the 1960s has been made of this wood. It is in the same family as the Dalbergia genus rosewoods, but I felt it disingenuous to call it such. Complicating matters, there are two species, lowland and upland, that are all marketed together. So we coined two names. For the lowland species, I applied the local name of Morado which means ’purple’ in the local tongue. The upland species is lighter in color as well as less color-fast and bleaches toward blond. We named it Amberwood.

Because we were dealing directly with a responsible source and exporting via ship all the way to the Port of Louisville, 80 miles from Lexington, we kept the cost within reach and competitive with our local species. We went on to buy over a million square feet through that ongoing program. The offering was a hands-down success and our peers couldn’t believe that we could offer it at standard pricing.

As with many things in life, there’s more than meets the eye; it’s more than a pretty wood. I’ve only told the high points here. There’s a whole lot to love about Amberwood / Morado. I’m glad when people share that love.

prof

Nice! post and citation per Stereophile Magazine. The cabinet and finish of my CS 2.4SE loudspeakers is impeccable as well. Weighing almost 90 lbs per speaker, they are no slouch. Care and Consideration in effect.

Happy Listening!

^FWIW, Amberwood was my overall favorite finish. It wasn't available for my favored CS 3.5's, and I might prefer something like Cherry for the big CS5i's.

@tomthiel 

Just stumbled upon an old Stereophile review of the 2.2s.

https://www.stereophile.com/floorloudspeakers/492thiel/index.html

A quote:

"What I admire most about these speakers is the fact that the product is so professionally done. The cabinetry is impeccable. I get the feeling that these speakers are the result of many months, perhaps years, of careful research, engineering, and listening—not something that was rushed to market half-finished, with revisions to follow. "

It must be nice when reviewers and customers note the effort you folks put in to these products.  I remember when I had the CS6 at my place in amberwood (as I recall) it was just so...impeccable...in it's finish, design and workmanship.  It adds so much pride of ownership and satisfaction.

ALL

Today marks this thread's 6th Anniversary here on AudiogoN. Since inception, we are acquiring and attracting new contributors and members of The Panel. 
It was another banner year in 2021. Hopefully, we did not lose anyone to the virus? Stay Safe, especially, those of you guys  in the larger cities.
As for this New Year, I would like to attract more Industry types.
I know that you guys are reading this thread. Feel free to drop by and say Hello. Same goes for Dealers/Retailers. Everyone is welcome!
Here is to an excellent 2022!

Happy Listening!

duramax747

Thank You for the follow up and collection information. Agreed, Mr. Rob Gillum had/has  a pair of CS 2.7 in Piano White at CSS. I do not know if he still owns this specific pair?  We really should meet sometime as I would like to hear a comparison between the CS 2.4 w/ SE upgrade(s) vs. CS 2.4SE models.

Overall, a very cool Collection of Thiel Loudspeakers.

Happy Listening!

jafant,

Piano white finish for the CS2.7. Only pair I've ever seen in white. 

I have CS 1.6 in black, CS2.3 in cherry, CS 2.4 in maple with SE upgrades, CS 2.4SE in red Birdseye, CS6 in Zebrawood, and CS 7.2 in cherry. 

duramax747

Thank You for the shipping intel. What finish are your CS 2.7 loudspeakers?

Which Thiel models are left in your collection?

Happy Listening!

Just a heads up to members about shipping. 

Shipping has always been a challenge on expensive audio gear. As of late it has gotten far worse. 

My business ships a good amount of stuff and two expensive splitters for MB GTR were simply lost with no trace of there whereabouts. 

I've encountered our material coming in damaged also.  

For this reason I am only dealing with local buyers for CS 2.7 I've decided to sell. 

This isn't me using the forum to post a for sale item. Instead I'm simply saying for a speaker that cannot be replaced I refuse to ship it and other members may also consider doing the same.

Happy Friday! All

My Diablo 300 - Humboldt shootout will take place feb 20th stay tuned.

All

a nice pair of CS7 are available on U.S. Audiomart. Denver CO area.

I hope these speakers find the next good home.

Happy Listening!

thieliste

Good to see yo here again. I am looking forward to the Cable shoot-out.

Happy Listening!

@thieliste

Good stuff and always fun to try out new gear.

Some of us cringe at the word "smoked" when it comes to amps. 😊

Thinking back to the 70s and 80s it was not so uncommon for some amps to literally go up in smoke. In fact, my Dad’s 1968 Philco Color TV caught fire once. It was maybe a year old when it happened. Managed to contain the damage and get it repaired. Needless to say, always some tension turning it on after that.

Hi guys, 10 days ago we did a shootout in my rig between my Gryphon Diablo 300 and Audionet Pre G3 + amp monos driving my 3.7s.

At the end of the day the Audionet combo was not able to beat my beloved Diablo 300 integrated.

I still prefered my Diablo 300 because it has more meat on the bone than the Audionet combo and with my 3.7s it is more engaging.

But the game is not over guys, guess what the Audionet dealer will soon come back to my place with this time around the Audionet Humboldt.

This is going to be a lot of fun, i would suspect my Diablo 300 will be smoked by the Humboldt but who knows let's wait and see.

Will keep you guys posted.

I will also be demoing cables in my systems very soon to find out if another cable brand can smoke my Gryphon cabling.

jazzman7

Nice score on the Coda CSiB integrated amp.

Happy Listening!

Just to let everyone know that after a 2 month wait, took delivery of my new Coda CSiB integrated amp today. So far so good. My CS 2.4s seem very happy with it. And more importantly, the Mrs is happy with it. Also happy to report that I ordered it just in time to avoid a sizable price increase. My local dealer, Mike Kay of Audio Archon told me that prices on the Coda line have gone up 15% across the board. Will report more after this new baby has had more of a chance to break in.

@unsound If you don't expect live volume levels, it might work.

I was think thinking the same thing as this is not intended to be a full range, serious listening system. 

@miyu8

Your experience would indicate that 60 wpc of my CJ amp might be enough.

Thanks for the discussion!

miyu

Good to see you here again. Thank You for suggesting ARC Ref 75SE with Thiel loudspeakers. I am a Jazz Hound as well.

Happy Listening!

@dsper 

I have an Audio Research Ref75SE driving my pair of CS.5’s that I bought from Bay Area Audio back in the day. The authority of that amp mates well with the baby Thiels in an almost magical way. No low end bass of course but the coherence and musicality above 40 Hz or so is amazing. In my larger room it works satisfyingly well for everything but the really big orchestral works. My taste is jazz and alternative so this suits me fine.  

The Ref75 has a lot of power and slam. I don’t know if you really need that for the baby Thiels but it’s quite a bit better than the 50 wpc AR integrated I was previously using. 

Happy Friday! All

oldtechguy

Very nice. I hope the 1.2 repair goes smoothly. Keep me posted and watch eBay/U.S. Audiomart for Thiel loudspeaker parts.

Happy Listening!

Not really, in a past life I was a Unix/Linux sys admin, though I was also a network tech, hench the oldtechguy. I did go through this lengthy thread, got rather interesting in a few places.

My music taste is really eclectic, currently Nathaniel Rateliff & the Night Sweats are playing, the previous album was by The McDades. I will listen to just about anything musical.

oldtechguy

Thank You for the follow up to my query. I want to say that there is another CS 1.2 fan/owner on the Panel. At your leisure, read through this thread from the beginning. There is a plethora of information available to everyone.  It appears that you are a "tech guy" Any special aspect or discipline in Audio?

I look forward in reading more about your Musical taste and system.

Happy Listening!

@dsper, If you don't expect live volume levels, it might work.

@unsound and jazzman7

Appears that I need to find a more efficient speaker or else move on from the CJ amp.

Maybe I need to give Fritz Speakers a call and see if he still builds floor standers. Or, I could consider Spendors like in the A series as a alternative, too.

Thanks, Dsper

A bit of an update on the ProJect Streambox S2 Ultra... I spent a good part of my morning attempting to disable the bluetooth connection as it was not secured. I eventually gave up and reflashed the Streambox with dietpi, I wouldn't recommend this task if you are not comfortable with Linux, but there's plenty of help available in various forums.

Now my custom box is running dietpi and my music collection is accessed with emby, a very slick interface. Audio quality is superb, temps of the box are lower. 

Most of my music files are flac's with some dsd thrown in as well, all sound great. Now to rip my remaining cd's.

To answer a direct question to me my Thiel are CS1.2, one speaker sounds great, the other one sounds blown, when I removed the grill found the tweeter was crushed, so have to replace both, not currently in a hurry for that.

To follow along with OP thread, and ideas, I went first with ProJect streambox S2, quickly returned it, ordered a ProJect Streambox Ultra, currently using it with a USB hard drive directly connected to the Ultra (which is really a raspberry pi running volumio), the audio is, so to speak crystal clear, since it is early in the morning I have not played audio too loud, don't wish to disturb neighbors, but I now have the audio quality I was seeking for a relatively low cost, well, compared to some.

@dsper 

From 1996 to 2004 I had my .CS 5s hooked up to an ADS A2 integrated (80 watts per side into 8 ohms) and it was decent, but then in 2004 stepped it up to Bryston rig - 3BST with BP20 preamp, and it made for a big step up in SQ. Very same room and speaker location as displayed on my virtual systems page.  Not a small room, but plenty of sound. And if more bass is desired, one could always work in a subwoofer.   

@dsper, 

Keep in mind that the Thiel specs at 87dB/2.8V/1M which is confusingly not the same as 1 Watt. Considering the 4 Ohm nominal impedance, it's more like <84dB sensitivity. Jim Thiel told me that his power recommendations were based upon the assumption that quality ss amp that could appropriately double down be used and that for example that if one using a Thiel speaker with a 4 Ohm rating with a tube amp one should double the power of those recommendations. Furthermore, the c-j specs seem quite generous:

lp66s2man.pdf (conradjohnson.com)

with a rather high +/- of 1.5 THD and a somewhat limited bandwidth of 30Hz-15Khz. 

Considering the limited bass output of the CS .5's and that they can seem a bit tippy without any treble roll off of their own, and the fact that tubes overload more gracefully. it would seem as though it should all work out. But in a room of that size you might be at the limits.

Of course, due to the small size of the CS .5's, they are not at all too cumbersome, and it wouldn't be too difficult to move on from them.

Sure, I guess it's worth a try. 

@unsound ...if you would consider other amplification...

You make a very valid point.

The other part of this for me is the desire to try a tube amp setup. For example the CS.5 is a 4 ohm speaker that is supposed to be able to run on 30 wpc per the Stereophile review link that Tom Thiel shared. The CJ LP66S is rated at 60 wpc at a 4 ohms. Along with jazzman7's postive comment, maybe I should try a pair. Not a real expensive experiment at current used prices for the .5's.

I appreciate the advice. Thanks!

@coop_301 , It appears that for a fairly reasonable charge you could have the balanced output voltage customized:

Okto Research

Okto dac8 Stereo D/A processor | Stereophile.com

Okto dac8 stereo DAC Review | Audio Science Review (ASR) Forum

Recommended Components Fall 2021 Edition Digital Processors | Stereophile.com

@dsper, A room of that size could accommodate full range sound, the only thing that might be holding back that possibility is the c-j amp. Now, I like and have used c-j (though ss) in the past, and I don't mean to harp on this, but I think the resale on c-j stuff is quite good. You might be able to get a visually less imposing speaker than the CS5i's that could offer deeper frequency response and still meet your other criteria, if you would consider other amplification that met the loudspeakers needs rather than getting speakers that met the amps limitations.

coop_301 & unsound 

The fun part about this forum is getting me and others to thinking about the subjects being discussed .  Preamp or no preamp , unsound's technical explanation got me thinking again , do I need an active preamp ? 

Asiaaudiosoc brought up a great point about the volume control , in my opinion it's the most important componet between your input devices and your amp .  I heard the difference between a stock and high grade Alps , it wasn't subtle .

All

As we kick off 2022, if you guys have not done so, please fill out your Virtual Systems page. New photo added to mine now.

Happy Listening!

asiaaudiosoc,

 Thanks very much for the candid opinion on the RME!  I'm not very experienced in all of this, but I know enough that when multiple people on this thread don't seem hot on a DAC, it's time to look elsewhere.  I was also hesitant due to all the bells and whistles, not really my style.

  I'm still quite interested in the benchmark, but as always welcome suggestions.  This weekend I found a CIAudio VDA2 DAC that I had forgot I had, I'm curious to try that out once I get the tweeter back (though I understand that it's probably not on the benchmark level).  Thanks again!

coop_301

I have a RME ADI-2 Pro AE powered by a LPS and have tried what you are asking. My system is Bryston/Thiel. RME (with digital volume control disabled by locking it at 0dB) connected to preamp sounds much better than RME (with digital volume control active) directly connected to power amp. 
I have extensively tested the audibility of the RME digital volume control and can assure you it significantly degrades the sound quality, no matter what RME’s designer claims. But even with the digital volume control disabled, I think the RME is too far below the level of your ML/Thiel. A true high-end DAC should nail you to the listening chair until the track finishes. It does not do it for me - I just use it as a headphone DAC/amp for my PC/video editing setup. It is good for the price but is no giant killer.
Best wishes.
 

So I finally got time to pull the dead tweeter from my 3.6, and it was kind of odd- the front "plate" holding the tweeter and rubber parts on had separated from the main body of the driver, and I noticed the gasket had a twist in it, so clearly someone has been in there before me.  I ran a track through it and there was no sound, did the same with the other tweeter and was able to hear some tunes.  I'm planning to send it to Rob, hopefully it's a simple fix and I can be on my merry audio way.  

Unsound, sent you a PM hope that's okay, I didn't want to keep spamming the thread here with my noob knowledge of all things electrical:/

oldtechguy

Welcome! Good to see you here today. What Thiel Audio model do you own?

I look forward in reading more about your Musical tastes. By your moniker, are you an Audio technician? We have quite a few DIY/Tech guys on The Panel.

Happy Listening!

@unsound  Ah, it all makes so much more sense...

The speakers could be a maximum of 30 inches into the room measured from the front of the speaker.

They would be positioned on the short wall anywhere from five to eight feet apart.

The listening position is about nine to ten feet from the speakers, leaving about seven feet behind the listening position. 

@tomtheil a pair of CS.5s might work

Good idea to explore - I had never even thought about the .5's! And thanks for the link.

Thanks for listening,

Dsper

^Thank you for sharing!

I've never heard better.

I just thought I would post since my current setup is sort of along the lines this thread took.

To qualify I do have some Thiel speakers, but the previous owner ran them with too weak an amp and now they only sound good at low volume, they are awaiting new tweeters.

To get to the gist of it, I am now using Von Schweikert Audio VR2 speakers, driven by Bryston PP120 amps. My Bryston preamp is currently sitting in its box with a label on it to go to Bryston for a repair, I attempted to go from my DAC, straight to amps, this was a bit, well, a lot too loud, so I bought a cheap passive pre off of ebay, It cost less than fifty dollars, so now my cd transport, and computer connect to my DAC which connects XLR to the pre, then six foot XLR to each mono block.

The sound is so to speak delicious, the best audio I have experienced in many years. Since my Ohm Walsh days anyway.

duegi

Good to see you here again. Thank You for reporting your experience with Mr. Rob Gillum at CSS. I look forward in reading more about your musical tastes and system.

Happy Listening!

dsper +1 for the CS .5 - had a pair in my living room from 1996 to 2011 before upgrading to 2.4s. Absolutely fantastic little floor stander.

Another confirmation for Rob Gillium and Coherent Source Service's job well done!

Quick turn around and quality work on some blown up CS3.6 mids. Going to have a set of tweeters redone and will install all at once. Post redo of the caps and resisters in essence I'll have new speakers, well excepting the woofers.

dsper - if you like the Thiel sound, a pair of CS.5s might work. They are a diminutive floor-standing 2-way which under your conditions might work well - Stereophile tested them at 89dB sensitivity. Thiel's flat impedance curve works to your advantage and I find them very easy to make sound quite good.

https://www.stereophile.com/floorloudspeakers/223/index.html