Hello out there.. I have a out of town friend who has a pair of 3.6s and wants to use a set of Audiopoints with them. He is not able to turn them over to check the thread size..I think they are 1/4-20. Does anyone know for sure. Thanks in advance. Tom
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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If anyone is interested I will be selling a 1 month old KRELL K-300i integrated soon. It is currently playing in my Thiel CS3.7 and it is perfect match. I am going CODA separates. I had an all Benchmark stack on the CS3.7 but I think the KRELL is a little better and actually rated for 2 ohm. Whereas my AHB2 are not officially rated for 2 Ohm but does work great with the CS3.7. We are talking about tiny improvements with the KRELL, mostly in the bass region. I moved the Benchmark gear (my best gear) to the living room where I have more space and bigger plans. |
@tomthiel I posted around October 2020 the name of the guy would did my mods. Audio Repairs & Modifications & Care (sublimelistening.com) He actually drove to my house to fix an issue with a mod he had done. A very honest and expert SCD-1 tech. |
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I have Thiel's original Sony SCD-1, and it needs repair. Someone here noted a tech doing this work.
" Don't know about the original recommendation but Bill Thalmann would be someone I'd recommend - https://www.musictechnology.com/about-us |
A variant of the Lincoln Effect, which I have come to use extensively, is the Background Effect. Playing music in the background, while I work, in and out of the room and while assessing technical measurements, has an interesting effect. I play the next CD up, and I play it all day, and I take mental notes of tracks with particular effects or utility. My comment is on the different kind of evaluation of the speaker under test which is occurring in that mode. There is a global assessment of appeal or resistance, of feeling-states or level and kind of involvement, which, over time, associates with speaker component evaluation and selection. It seems unlikely that those observations would come to the surface via directed, focused, evaluative listening sessions. As sdecker says, we're too focused on the minutiae and technical to allow the global to penetrate. This effect is similar to what many pros have mentioned. A new set of headphones or preamp, or mixer, etc. takes about two weeks to 'settle in'. They don't typically talk about equipment burn-in, but rather a form of psychological familiarity or knowing that allows a final accept/reject decision - to use or not to use for their technical art. I know that people on this thread have expressed this factor as their interpretation of what 'burn-in' is really about. There is truth there, along with truth of component maturation under stress. Anyhow, this week I hope to compare first vs second order, both time-aligned in the 02. (while packing and preparing to move - what a trip.) |
At TA I always cultivated “Lincolns” and their contribution was invaluable. others here might supply more technical explanation of XO slopes; Here’s my layman’s take, IF a system creates a proper step response, it is phase/time coherent. Jim’s second order XOs in the 02/SCS series do create such steps, because he kept polarity positive and he used beaming of the largish woofer to good effect. It works whereas most 2nd order executions don’t. Nevertheless, there are more reactance and wider phase and impedance swings in the second order. First order is more ideal BUT 1st order requires much more sophisticated drivers. I am presently comparing 1st vs 2nd in the O2, which is of great interest to me. I’ll report findings. Marena and Lincoln will keep me honest. |
I've made a point to have "Lincoln"-like friends to evaluate changes in my own system over the decades. Changes I (and other audiophile friends) may be too caught up in the minutiae to make an unbiased evaluation. I think half the reason the Lincolns are so useful is they're excited to hear 'real' hifi reproducing music that they can better focus and more enthusiastically assess, free from what they 'should' be hearing. What does your experiment say to the common knowledge (?) that time/phase coherence can only be achieved using first order XOs when processing in the analog domain?? |
A thought. It is asked whether phase/time really matters or if designers so inclined just pay close attention to everything, therefore producing successful products. This week's experiments might shed a little light. You know Marena. We’ve been working together again in the times of waning Covid fears. She has great ears, a well developed musical sense, and is a performing singer-songwriter. We’re comparing Douglas Pauly’s turbulence control technologies which I call "laminar launch". We’re using the 02 because it’s easy, available and feasible to ship around the country for serial evaluation and input. I became irritated with the one cycle lead of the tweeter - distracting from the deep engagement needed to compare laminar launch variations. So I made 4 sample 02s. R: stock = Reference, which Doug has been using in California. A, B, and C, leap-frog upgrades till now all the same with Thiel CS.5 drivers and 02 XOs implemented with ERSE coils and their best caps plus Mills resistors on separate W and T boards, plus my new super-wire, and nicely braced cabinets with F11 felt on the baffles. Substantial performance improvement over stock. A, B and C all measure and sound very close to identical. Enter the dark horse. I moved the woofer on A forward until the onset transient is time aligned. Still second order slopes, but all positive polarity and time-aligned, like an SCS / PowerPoint series. A's frequency response and harmonic distortion are undifferentiable from B and C. However, the impulse and step response now show time alignment. Excess phase and group delay are marginally improved. Of note is the waterfall plots behave better, which surprises me. The listening experience is qualitatively different. Subjectively, A now seems less forward, especially the high frequancy edge is gone. Gone. The differences read like many Thiel fans cite as their reasons for liking Thiel’s sound. Marena and I have practically written each others' comments regarding the improvements. But now I have a treat to add from this morning. My home is a small village of 1000. I have known Lincoln Fedicovich since he was born, as a rambunctious child and now a hard-working young man of 20, who is helping me move my shop/studio on short notice - another story. When he came for work this morning I asked if he would help me listen. His reply was "sure, but I’m not very musical". My test cut was Sarah Jaroz "Peace" from her "Follow Me Down" album. As is our custom, Lincoln listens blind, in his case very blind with no musical or hi-fi experience, knowing only speaker A and B, each fed a mono-mixed signal through the Classe DR6 to bridged dedicated AHB-2s for each channel. A & B are 4’ apart with listening line 6’ out. Play A, Play B, chat: Lincoln is my ideal "naive listener", interested but quite unexposed or opinionated. He said: "A was more crisp, clearer in every way. B was more like a speaker. Then I told him they were identical speakers except that A’s woofer was on a stand-off to make the music from both drivers arrive at the same time. I added that many experts think that doesn’t matter. We repeated A & B after which he said: "B still seems like a speaker. A is more like the music is here, happening in front of me. Can we listen in stereo?" We did after which he added: A is overwhelming better if every way, like it’s real". Then he added. "I always wanted to learn guitar. My grandma played lots of music for me growing up. Everything: Classical, Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, country folk, Johnny Cash, Nelson - lots of stuff. I haven't thought of that in years. This is good stuff." He agreed to help listen whenever I want. Now, how’s that for Saturday morning before getting to work on moving! |
mallikh67 Welcome! good to see you here. Make sure that all cables are connected to your gear. Tight connections on the speakers as well. Once this is accomplished continue to listen for improved sound. There are a few CS 2.2 owners here on the Panel. Stay tuned until they chime in to address your query. Happy Listening! |
hi i have an peculiar problem with my thiel cs 2.2 current system is coda csx power amparc ls 26 preamparc ls22 preamplumin t1ridge street audio speaker cabletransparent audio icsi am not able to get sweet spot and good highs . sound is muffled. and also changed amp to mcintosh ma 7900 treble is little bit improved but not mellow. inputs needed where the system is mismatched. any upgrades to speakers to be done on cross overs or something. inputs needed. regards |
JFANTctsooner Good to see you as always. Thank You for addressing Vandy subwoofer(s) and their application in audio systems. I enjoyed reading about M.I.T. and Transparent cabling as well. I hope you are ready for Spring. Happy Listening! First off, grills and designers are a funny thing. Most want you to take them off and others say don't. I was always told by my dealer who sold and owns the last of Jim's designs (the larger ones), to never take the grills off and he designed and voiced them with grills. Vandersteen's also use grills that shouldn't be removed. I've never once taken the grills off my TReo's (sold) or Quatro's. They have special heavy felt that are there for the upper drivers. It makes a large difference as a dealer proved when I was auditioning them. As for the MIT vs Transparent deal, feel free to DM me and I'll share my phone. I knew the owners and designers of both back when the split happened. It was so ugly. My dealer was the only one left who sold both lines. After he sold and got out around 2001 or so, they forced folks to make a decision one way or the other. Transparent has done a much much better job of moving forward than MIT has IMHO. That said, I'll take the AQ's that Garth Powell has designed over any of the exotics etc... |
Prof - it's hard to say. These various projects have taken on beta-partners, people who systematically build out the designs while carefully noting their listening experience as it goes. Eventually there may be all of what you list above, from advice to plans to kits to in-house upgrades to new Renaissance products. I know it's been a long time, but the project is still in early stages for reasons too quirky to itemize. It is quite a trip, though. |
Tom, I follow this thread religiously even if I don't contribute much, so I see YOU her several times a week, but thanks for the feedback in answer to my question. Back in the '70's cables were just beginning to distinguish themselves and at the time I felt the M1000's were at least in the upper ranks. But I do use Audioquests from the turntable to headamp. |
The 3.7 grill is a flat piece of perforated steel, covered in fabric, and attached to the front of the speaker with magnets. I've never thought about this before but the grills on my ATCs are also perforated steel with fabric covers. I've listened to both with grills on and off and didn't hear a meaningful difference in either. Maybe a very slight difference but nothing better or worse. |
tonywinga Thank You for the follow up to the generalized query about Grill off/on. I can only speak to the effect for models CS 2.4/2.4 SE, CS 2.7 and CS 3.7 loudspeakers. During my demo sessions, I detected no discernible difference(s). Based upon your speaker positions, I would safely say that you are dialed-in. Enjoy that larger-than-life soundstage. Happy Listening! |
I put the grill clothes back on my CS6’s. It was fun for a day to listen to bare speakers. They sound different with the grill cloths off but more natural with them on. Also, I have been tweaking my speaker position lately as well and I think I have found the ideal arrangement for me. Using the center of the tweeter as the reference point, the speakers are 102" apart, 50" from the side walls and 80" from the front wall (ie. behind the speakers) to the front plane of the tweeters. I find a tiny bit of toe in sharpens the focus of the imaging. I have 1/2" toe in. My listening position is 122" perpindicular to the front plane of the tweeters. That means from my ears to each speaker is a bit more than that distance. This gives me a deep and wide holographic soundstage. I can almost reach out and touch the performers, (but of course I wouldn’t do that). |
The SCS was the coax version of the 6.5" two-way that began with the 02 in 1976, the SCS in 1984 and on through the 2, 3 and 4. One of the driving forces for the original SCS was our interplay with Toyota who built their Camry / Avalon plant up the road in Georgetown KY, beginning in the mid 1980s. Toyota's manufacturing model includes sourcing everything within a 50 mile radius of the assembly plant, which they modified to 100 miles for the larger distances in the USA. We waded into developing a luxury speaker system for the Lexus, and a coax was critical to that system since listeners are at various and changing distances and angles. The project was intriguing, and Thiel eventually dropped out. The biggest contention was that they wanted Mark Levinson amplification, and Jim was unable to get ML to incorporate shaping circuitry into the amp designs. Japanese development engineering is extremely bureaucratic, authoritarian and invasive to internal company information, all of which didn't mesh with Jim's personal style. But, that first SCS coax came from that interaction which was further developed over the years for all the power-driver products. I hope your dad enjoys them. |
Pete - it seems that Jim Thiel and Richard Vandersteen shared very similar approaches to their art. Jim's subwoofers also used the power amp output, and Jim's room correction was also done in the analog domain, for the reasons you stated. I love what Richard did with his main amp bass rolloff to be re-boosted in the subwoofer - brilliant. My wonderment includes that those two designers existed in such separate spaces: their products were never, that I know, compared; and their fans and users rarely overlapped. Interesting how markets and brand niches develop. The cable thing is, in my opinion, a bigger deal with coherent speakers. I've spoken to the point previously, but to summarize I believe the ear-brain scrutinizes the music more critically when its coherence suggests real rather than reproduced music. When you get it all right, it's really right. |
I'm really enjoying this long thread guys. Thanks for letting it meander a bit. I just read about 'why' Vandersteen subs. Being a Vandersteen owner (I still love other speakers too and have owned more than a few, but rarely change my main speakers (average over 15 yrs of owning my main speakers since 1969 before moving on). Vandy subs are special in the way they mate with the main amps. You don't ever lose the 'voice' of your main amps. If you are using an NAD integrated amp, your sub will morph into the NAD sound. If you are using the largest 70k amp, it will do the same thing. You don't lose that house sound that you paid so much money for. I never understood buying a sub and the amp doesn't match the main system. It may seem small, but as you move up in a system you certainly hear the difference. The room correction is done in the analog domain too. I have yet to hear anything done in the digital domain that you don't hear. I've heard some exotic gear that uses DSP etc.. and It's never sounded as good to my ear than analog. I do miss the ease of using the digital for correction, but I still can hear it. Just my two cents and the Sub 3 is an affordable sub by most accounts. Their Sub 9 is the best sub I've ever heard and I've heard it in a couple of systems that weren't Vandersteen speakers. IRT cables back in the day, I too owned the original Monster cables, but only AFTER I was using the Polk speaker cables. They were my first. I owned Polk 10's which were an amazing speaker back in the day and their speaker cable made a positive difference (Moscode and Roberson amps with a Conrad Johnson preamp and Rotel turntable with a top Grade cartridge as well as the top AT cart). Bruce Brisson (started MIT) was the brains behind the original Monster stuff. It was as good as anything on the market in the beginning for many reasons (little competition). Noel Lee who owned it was like Mark Levinson. Both men are sales men. They knew what branding meant, before folks in audio even thought about branding per say (my ex is/was?? Mark's lawyer so I do have a spec of insight). Colangilo was the engineer behind Levinson as most know. I any case, when Bruce had his issues with Noel, he left to start MIT. That's when I met Bruce and started using his top cables at teh time (the MH 770 wire used for the Spectral gear, not the 750 wire used on the majority of his top cables. I also used the top 350 shotgun interconnects. He tuned the cables for my Quicksilver tube gear and it sounded better than the Kimber I was using. When he and Karen Sumner has their split and she started Transparent, I used both of them, but the MIT sounded better in my system. I think part of that was because my Quick preamp and monos were rewired with MIT's wire. When we (dealer and Bruce) did the rewire (brand new units) it made a HUGE difference. I never expected that type of difference. Then they tube rolled and upgraded the sockets to ceramic and then upgraded the caps to the Supercaps or whatever the top ones at the time was and it kept getting better adn better. I know this is too long and im' sorry, but the point is that wire/cable changes teh sound, but not always for the best. It's why we see so much cable on the used market. I now only use AQ cables. I have had much of the uber expensive ones in and out of the system and the AQ cables constantly perform more neutral in my system than the others. If I wanted to tune my system, I'd just purchase different components. I want what I paid for. Again, just my opinion and it takes nothing away from others. (using AQ Niagara 3000 with Dragon power cord into the AQ Edison outlet on dedicated, separate earth ground, Hurricane power cords for everything else, including the subs on the Vandersteen Quatro's, balance Fire interconnect from analog out of The Memory Player server/streamer/dac (bespoke) to Vandersteen MH5-HPA amps, William Tell Silver true bi wire with the Zero and Bass cables). I've been learning a bit on the Vandersteen forums (we have some Thiel lovers there too :) ) on peoples preferences for true time domain and phase correct speakers and how you need proper cables that are capable of delivering all that you paid for from your designer. Hope all are well. Pete |
