vair68robert
I Thank all of you guys- The Panel- for making it happen.
Happy Listening!
I Thank all of you guys- The Panel- for making it happen.
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!
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I have now picked up the aforementioned CS2.2s. Heavy, look very nice if wider than my normal Monitor Audio GX300s. I only have one set of cables that are single-wired; these being a set of Naim NAC A5s with bananas at one end and bare wire at the other. Even not sited well (4' from the back walls, in front of the MAs) and with poor connectivity, they sound quite good. I'm looking forward to having my son help me move the MAs out so we can try the 2.2s. More to follow! |
Prof - at your instigation, I’ve spent a lot of time with the 02 during this past year. It is small, shipable, simple and inexpensive. It provides a good development platform and test bed for many ideas which can be inexpensively iterated multiple times. I presently have 6 units for comparison and beta use and would buy more if they came along. I don’t yet have a way to measure impedance. The woofer is 6 ohms and the tweeter is 8. The Stereo Magazine review states the bass double peak at 18 and 17.5 ohms (quite mild) with the saddle at 5.4 ohms and absolute minimum of 4.75 ohms at 170 and 10kHz - averaging 6 ohms, which is what we called it. Those loads are mild and easy to drive compared with modern Thiels. Several of us here agree that a minimum of 4 ohms would make Thiel products so much friendlier to such a wider range of users. That said, the 02 has no Zobel or other corrective networks, so it presents a less resistive load than modern Thiels. More reactivity is harder to drive. The crossover is a straight-forward second order x polarity correct design. So, the tweeter signal arrives before the woofer, but the soft diaphragms allow a sweet, seamless crosspoint transition. The Gefco woofer has a proprietary pulp cone which is quite exceptionally smooth over its entire range, gently rolling off up to fully 10kHz. The Peerless fabric dome (we called it silk, but I don’t know) was the darling of the day, used by Polk and nearly everyone else. Nice, smooth tweeter with no real misbehavior. All that said, the drivers use conventional motors, coils and materials, unlike later Thiels that reduced distortion by more than a factor of 10x. Similarly, the cabinet is unbraced albeit veneered both sides on industrial particleboard for greater stiffness than MDF. And the crossover components preceded audiophile components. We self-wound the unpotted coils from standard CDA110-ETP wire. Resistors and caps were "better" grade parts bin quality and hookup wire was standard, stranded in PVC or vinyl. In other words, nothing special except attention to simplicity and longevity. My work this year would take an essay to summarize, but let’s say that every change I made created a clearer, tighter, more Thiel-like presentation. Potting the coils in varnish - then replacing with CDA101, solid CDA101 wire in teflon, etc. etc. etc. But nonetheless, the original stock speaker has an easy, friendly presentation, like coming home to love. I hear it, I get it and I even have developed some theories about whys and wherefores. One summary thought is that the stock 02 sounds like what we (especially from our long-ago youth) expect to hear. Audio neurology is very synthetic and wired to clues, cues and expectations far more than we generally realize. As a reference, my lab mule has migrated from stock 02 to hot-rodded 02 with original drivers > time aligned at second order. (That is the SCS format.) Then I substituted CS.5 drivers which are stellar.The woofer is cellulose / wool pulp with all the Thiel motor juju. I compared first vs second order crossovers executed (eventually) with CS7 style components, and landed firmly on the first order x time-aligned configuration. The workhorse value of this hot-rodded version is far superior. It no longer has that ’old shoe’ familiarity that you appreciate, but it shines with joy. The present iteration has rounded (1.5" radius) grille edges, braced cabinet, and lots of new technologies. Since it's not coincident, its coherence varies with ear position. I made an easily adjustable stand for seated through standing tweeter height. And the fun never ends. The form-factor is an original 02, the execution incorporates some beyond-Jim elements. But no coaxes or x.7 style drivers. Presently I'm looking for new lab space while liquidating my tonewood enterprise. |
I run my Thiel CS 6 with Wadia A 340 Amps ( 500 into 4) and use the Wadai 321 Dac. I also run an ARC LS 2 MKII Pre Amp with a Cambridge CXC Transport MK II . I run Silnote Cables with MIT Speaker Cables. I have found that the more power you have the better the sound. Thiels are not forgiving with equipment so get the best you can get. Get good recordings to! |
Every time I throw the old Thiel 02s in to my system it tells me that’s the sound I’ve been chasing. Decade after decade. Something about the palpability and tonality of the sound that grabs me every time. For some reason they seem to tell me more about what something is made of - a sort of solidity so chimes sound "solid," reed instruments have a solid resonating body, the metal of a trumpet vs a string instrument etc. I just don’t know why. I wonder if part of what I like in the 02 has anything to do with it’s higher sensitivity - 90 dB/watt-meter. Tomthiel, do you happen to know anything about the impedance on the 02? Is it an easy to drive speaker impedance-wise? (Sure seems so just by ear, whenever I hook up any tube amp to those speakers). I’d love a bigger, more refined version of that speaker. I’m still fiddling with the idea of testing out the Devore O/96 speakers in my room, which have some of the 02 qualities, but bigger and more refined. The aren’t as refined as the Thiels overall though, in a "modern loudspeaker" type of way. They don’t fully disappear as sound sources, do the wall to wall soundstaging etc. |
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Probably more than a third of those components were time correction for each the upper and lower midrange drivers. Bucket brigade analog time delay to fine-tune the arrival time. Those ubiquitous yellow 1uF styrene film x tin foil caps were developed for the CS5 and persisted to the end in various forms. |
The CS5(&I) was the exception. It was too big for that. That huge xo board slid into a pair of grooves near the back of the cabinet, abutting a rubber bumper at the top. The cabinet base with a rubber bumper was screwed up against the bottom of the board. I think the long edges were just a light friction fit. Long ago indeed. 1988 introduction = 33 years ago. |
With my in cabinet solution the resonance that will always accumulate on a chassis or components suspended or not will be dissipated with specific coupling methods and geometric shapes. For my method to work most effectively the same mechanical grounding scheme must be applied to the outside bottom of the cabinet to the higher mass of the floor. Suspended devices in free air especially under the bombardment inside a cabinet are presented with no path to dissipate resonance so those components will pass that interference on to the rest of the circuit. Your method does reduce the material cabinet resonance from compounding the air impact resonance of your suspended parts. The free air method still holds onto some of the resonance which then becomes part of the system. Tom |
Tom - your hypothesis is of interest. One observation is that all Thiel speakers mount their XOs to the bottom or back near the bottom with lots of fiberglass between the XO and the drivers / moving air. Plus the sound is hard, like a driver bottoming. When I put the redeveloped XO inside the cabinet, mounted on nylon studs and rubber feet, the problem had vanished. My best guess is some sort of electromagnetic saturation and/or possibly the bottom end of the midrange bottoming out. (But I didn't change the midrange driver, only some specifics of the crossovers.) As I've mentioned before, getting the XO out of the cabinet does worlds of good. My in-cabinet solution is different from yours - I am suspending each of the 3 small crossover boards in free air, rather than clamping it the the wall where it must absorb the cabinet wall vibration. |
Tom, Could the splatt heard be caused from turbulence inside the cabinet generated from crossover placement or the mounted components. The air flow would be disrupted by the mounting arrangement of the components on the board. The turbulence would change with an increase in excursion. Internally I have much sonic success with hard coupling the board to the speaker bottom and able to tune the board externally with a brass hex head assembly..1/8 of a turn can make some good magic. When the board is mounted outside there wouldnt be the turbulence but there is always a benefit in mechanically grounding the board to the higher mass of the floor. Resonant energy will go that way if given the right material and geometry. Tom |
naimfan - Some thoughts on the CS2.2 (where I’ve reinserted the rightful decimal point). The model 2 was a smaller-scale version of the original 3-way model 3 - less expensive for smaller rooms and moods. The model two often benefited from trickle-down tech. The 2.2 got the UltraTweeter developed for our flagship CS5 in the late 80s. Pretty good tweeter. It also got some driver motor technology including custom motor machining and copper coil and pole-piece shunts, new technology at any price at that time. The CS2.2 was Thiel’s first passive radiator which went on into all future floorstanders. On the manufacturing front, the CS2.2 followed the CS5 for which we got our feet wet with all CNC machining and serious Finite Element Analysis of the drivers. It got our first open lattice interior cabinet bracing and first acoustically frameless grille. It’s a very sophisticated product, especially considering its modest $2K class. (In fact many dealers and reviewers told us it would make more market sense at twice its price.) As often mentioned: "they’re not for rockers", and so forth, due to bass output limitations. I have an update for that. The tweeter handles the load, the midrange does quite well, its low end being crossed over an octave higher than the model 3. By the way, Rob has a good drop-in replacement for the midrange. The woofer is only 8", but it’s built to boogie. The main limit is a hard splat of the passive radiator on bass transients. At least that’s what early reviews (John Atkinson in Stereophile) said and we all acquiesced. I never settled with that idea. I had developed that passive radiator which has only a foam plate and two compliant surrounds that glue directly to the front and back of a lip in the baffle. In other words there is nothing for anything to splat against. Hmmm.As was our practice, Jim was headlong into developing the CS3.6 and didn’t look back at the 2’s bass problem. No secret that I’ve been working on updating these classic Thiel speakers for the past few years. My explorations led (via a long spiral route) to outboarding the crossovers while eliminating all magnetic elements (such as mounting screws), leaving only the components themselves on a masonite board; and paying closer attention to stray fields, wire routing and dressing and so forth. Guess what? No splat. I can’t overload them short of cringing. I can’t say I know exactly what was causing the problem except something in the crossover feeding the woofer and possibly midrange. I know the problem was there in spades and now it is reliably gone. And by the way, that big, wooly quality of the bass. Gone too. The CS2.2 can’t move as much air as the CS3 models, but it’s no slouch. So, if you have a chance to get a pair and if you’re interested in making them substantially better in the future, there has been lots of work done toward that end. It’s hard to imagine you being disappointed. |
I have a pair of 2 2s, they were the first Thiels I owned. I got them for a living room system about 10 years ago. I consider them the best audio bargain of my life. They aren't for AC/DC fans but at moderate volumes they're just so enjoyable. They're fantastic for acoustic jazz or classical, any small scale unamplified music. They're clear, relaxing, just slightly warm, I could go on and on. They don't need a ton of power. They were a revelation to me. Over time I had to accept that I preferred them to my far more expensive B&W 802s. I'm sure not as good on paper but if you just want to listen it wasn't even that close. |
ydjames Thank You for the follow up. We have similar weather this time of year. I have read about The Bassface Swing Trio. I will check out "Plays Gershwin". Regarding the Tweeter distortion, if you are experiencing the same aural findings on piano recordings, it could be a loose voice coil. I agree with Tom's thoughts. Consult Rob Gillum at Coherent Service (CSS) in Lexington Kentucky, U.S.A. for a possible re-build of tweeter. Keep me posted on this situation. Happy Listening! |
James - about your perceived distortion. I'm guessing that a recording that is good enough to consider as a reference does not have the type of distortion you are reporting. If it emanates from one channel, swap channels. If it swaps, it's somewhere upstream. Of course I'm guessing, but it sounds like a loose tweeter voice coil. Do you know Rob at Coherent Service? He can help troubleshoot as well as rebuild the driver. |
@jafant The weather in Singapore during this "season" is crazily warm and humid. We are looking at between 31 and 33 degrees Celcius. The good news is that the weather here is predictable most of the time. While the rest of the time, rain duration is unpredictable. It can be as short as 15 minutes, but it can also go on for hours and hours. When I have some time to myself, I'll retreat back to my room listening to music. I listen to quite a wide range of genres. Lately, I have been indulging with this particular album called "Plays Gershwin", by The Bassface Swing Trio. Recommended by some friends, I find the recording to be highly transparent, dynamic, and detailed. Soon, it will become my go-to reference album. However lately, I am beginning to hear more "distortions" from a tweeter when a piano is being played in the music. I am curious if it is a recording distortion or a "breaking up" mode of the tweeter. Sometimes, it can get as bad as cutting through the ambience of the music. On the other hand, I've been thinking if I should get a new driver to replace it. Could you guys help enlighten me? |
ydjames Welcome! Good to see our International Thiel owners. The CS 2.7 is a very fine loudspeaker. Reading these pages, you will find, many Benchmark fans and owners as well. T+A makes fine electronics, especially, DAC8 DSD. I look forward in reading more about your musical tastes. How is the weather in Singapore this time of year? Happy Listening! |
Dan - following up on the power part of your amp query. It has always fascinated me that Thiel speakers seem to bring out the worst in many amps. This weekend I interacted with a very knowledgeable long-term Thiel user who stated he had amps that worked with every other speaker, except his Thiel CS2.4s. That rings a bell - it echoes the experience of thousands of users, reviewers, fans and detractors. Why is that? Thiel impedance is low, but it is also highly resistive, which amps love. There are speakers with far more brutal load characteristics, which don’t have Thiel's ’hard to drive’ reputation. Go figure. I have been figuring for decades and have an idea that makes sense to me. Back to some context. I was the set-up guy for many shows. Most of that electricity sucked, and sometimes we even changed rooms to be away from elevators, etc. with very dirty power. Pin that. In the late 80s Thiel built a dedicated music room of some renown with lots of care to proportions, materials, treatment, etc. It had fluorescent lights, air-conditioning and office computers all on the same service, since its footprint was in a 40’ wide industrial space that all shared a single service. Even though we isolated the hi-fi gear on one leg, there were still many reactivities on the line. Our electrical engineer said that the problem was intractable - just live with it. Long story ensues. The solution came via borrowing hi-fi circuits from the next bay, which was used almost exclusively for finished goods storage. That power was cleaner and we hung a sub panel with short runs to the hi-fi system. The system performance was improved more than normal people would imagine. I am presently studying the mechanisms that might cause such mischief. My working hypothesis is that various design(er)s manage the various line distortions more or less effectively than others. Those design(er)s who understand the effects of dirty power can minimize the problems within their chassis. It seems a major component of the problem includes the differences between the high (+) leg and the neutral leg at or near ground potential; but it rarely actually is at zero due to losses and interactions in the feed wires. I have always been puzzled by how some / most equipment sounds so much better when run from 240 volts rather than 120. One explanation is that 240 volt is a real balanced feed with each leg running 180° out of polarity and the ground centered between them. Circuits see symmetrical power. Some snooping has led me to investigate recording studio power. High end venues often mix, master, etc. on the graveyard shift. Audibly better recordings result. As I rebuild my studio in a new location, I intend to run a sub-panel with both 240 volt and 120 volt outlets. Performance can be easily compared by swapping the IEC cord for 120 or 240 volt feeds. Can’t wait to learn. A seemingly optimal 120 volt solution is to use balanced power as is used in many labs and studios. An isolation transformer is tapped for 60 volts plus and minus rather than the usual 120+ and zero. I like the concept, have heard good reports, and would like to have that solution in my bailiwick - but it seems quite expensive. One bottom line from these musings is that buying an amp that can be tapped for 240 balanced power input might give you a leg up in bypassing a lot of power problems and getting good sound more reliably. These explorations feel right to me; they address many unsolved mysteries about why or how Thiel can sound bad when other speakers sound good. The other half of this equation is my personal belief that Phase Coherent transducers invite the audio cortex to scrutinize sound as though it is real, rather than an electronic facsimile. Our felt judgement is far more acute for ’real’ sounds than manufactured ones. My first exposure to this phenomenon was in developing the 03 in 1978 - we wrestled with this phenomenon for a year and a half and learned that we had to "fix" problems for coherent presentation that weren’t even on the radar when a higher order crossover was substituted. I know I’ve addressed this idea before, but I’m repeating for those new to the forum or to raise some issues that might connect some dots for folks beyond myself. |
Hi guys, I apologise for being late to the party. I was aware only when this thread popped up as a result of a google search, and this would be my first post in the forum. I have read a few pages in this thread and I am amazed at some of the system configurations of fellow owners have with their Thiel speakers. To share more about my system, I have the CS2.7 driven by Benchmark AHB2 mono, Benchmark LA4 preamp, T+A DAC 8 DSD, and a Windows PC running ROON Server (upsampling all of my music playbacks to DSD512). I've got this pair well loved CS2.7 finished in ebony, through a close friend of mine, and I have it for almost a year now. James From Singapore |
Dan - that is quite a system you’ve got going. I have no direct experience with your prospective amp models, but note that they all look great for current delivery and the brands pass the sniff test. But you knew that. Good work. I have two general thoughts: power supply and the 1.7. I’ll address system power later. I have observed that the CS1.7 may not be as advertised. Jim had his CS 1.7 nearly ready to go when he died, which then simmered behind the 2.7 in the last few years of Original Thiel outsourced product development. New Thiel changed the 1.7 design significantly, replacing Jim’s first order crossover with "high order" (probably 4th), and introducing a 2db/decade slope down from bass to treble - a standard PSB-type crossover. I also read that the tweeter sports a "new voice coil and re-designed motor". That sounds suspiciously like a normal overhung tweeter, again standard industry fare available from suppliers, whereas Thiel’s underhung drivers were made in-house. The underhung motor exhibits an order of magnitude less onset transient distortion and a completely symmetrical push-pull linearity - albeit at the expense of greater manufacturing cost, lower efficiency requiring a larger magnet, and greater hazard of burn-out due to voice coil geometry. I don’t know whether the woofer also opted for a "normal" motor rather than Jim’s design specialties. I have queried Rob for further insight. In the past he said to me of the 1.7 "It’s not Jim’s work". The 1.7 caused a parting of ways for the first team of New Thiel which included Steve DeFuria, a long-time industry insider who had collaborated with Thiel over its entire life-span. Steve objected to New Thiel calling the 1.7 a "Coherent Source", the application of a house curve, and allowing reviewers to represent it as a first order, phase coherent transducer. Notice that Stereophile among others never reviewed the 1.7 - I’ve been told that they didn’t want to play New Thiel’s game. I am not disparaging the performance of the 1.7. I am told that by conventional standards applied to normal speakers that they have been called "more refined than previous Thiels". Do any of you here in Thiel-land know how the CS1.7’s step response looks? |
dancastagna An incredible system in the making! Those amp(s) are heavy hitters to be sure. You have a tough decision my Audiophile friend. All Amp(s) are special in their own way. At this level of price-performance, take time to visit dealers/retailers to audition. Of the considerations listed, I have only auditioned Mark Levinson and D'Agostino models. Each were matched w/ corresponding pre-amps (same brand). Very musical and powerful. Endless current for driving a Thiel loudspeaker. Over on Audio Asylum, John Ellison, drives his CS 3.7 with Parasound gear exclusively. Read up on his postings if interested. I cannot comment on the Krell Trio 300. It certainly has the specs to drive a pair of CS 3.7 loudspeakers. Keep me posted on your findings. Happy Listening! |
I have heard other variants of the brands you have listed. The KRELL and ML are the 2 I liked. I had done some amps swaps with the Thiel 3.7 in the last 6 months and this maybe useful for you or others. The best amp was the Benchmark AHB2 in stereo and mono. However, it was also the worst because it had less power in the 2 Ohm than the others I tested. So I loved the sound of it the most but it lacked that low grunt or power that the others possessed. The next 2 were equally good - KRELL K-300i integrated, very smooth and killer bass - CODA CSib integrated, did everything well D-Sonic M3A 800s Class D ($1500) - surprisingly good. Maybe not as refined on top but it showed me that tons of power are appreciated by the Thiel CS3.7 - I bought my final amp for the Thiel CS3.7 a few days ago. It is the CODA #8. I will get delivery in 4 weeks. I plan to rotate the CODA #8 with the Benchmark AHB2 (likely in stereo mode) with the CODA 07x preamp and the Benchmark HPA4 preamp. A very easy task and something I was already doing with the D-Sonic and a single AHB2. The CODA #8 replaces the D-Sonic. The CODA #8 is rated anywhere from 600 watts to 1200 watts at 2 Ohm depending on the version one buys (1, 2, or 3). |
Hi Everyone, Been awhile since i looked in here mainly because I didn't have a system up and didn't want to think about it. I now have a great room that i have claimed. Finally a dedicated Home Theater 2 channel room. I have everything but amps and wanted to get your opinion on the few i have found, my main concern is the front three which will also be my two channel set up, so there are a couple 3 channel amps and a few 5 channel amps that might work. 1- Mark Levinson 533H 3ch by 300 8ohm 600 4 ohm 2- Krell TRIO 300 3 ch 300- 8ohm 600 -4ohm 3- Parasound Halo A-51 five ch This plays first 7 to 10 watts in pure A 250 -8ohm 500- 4ohm 4- Dan D'Agostino Master Power 3+ 300- 8ohm 600- 4ohms 5- McIntosh MC303 Three Channel 300w in all ohms These are what i can find used the other speakers are easy to find the same brand, except the Dan Dagostino that i would need to get another brand amp I'm running 3.7 for 2 ch/left&right Center MCS1 L&R rear cs1.7 4 atmos power point 1.2 and center surround power plane 1.2 4 SS2 subs Anyone have any preference out of these 5 amps?? Any other suggestions? I am so pumped to finally put this together. Thank you Dan |