Thiel Owners

I should keep focusing on getting a better amp so that when I do go cs 7 I’m actually able to play them.

Unsound
well said!  I feel like my amp just doesn’t have the muscle anymore where I felt it drove the 3.6s. I agree the cs7 is an incredible speaker. Thoft read back to some of Tom Thiel’s impressions. He heard them a/b comparison to the 7.2s at coherent source.  I can tell you this they will clearly show you what you have in the front end of your system. Unsound brings up a good point about room size. 

Suppose it’s a better idea to wait then isn’t it...

@thoft, 

Thiel CS3.6 loudspeaker Measurements | Stereophile.com
Thiel CS7.2 loudspeaker Measurements | Stereophile.com

Actually, as you can see from the above measurements, they are a very similar load to amplifiers. The 7's are a much better speaker. One of Jim's best. That's a great price for a speaker of this quality! The 4 driver 7's ease at playing deeper bass with greater dynamic range will probably have users pushing their amps harder to appreciate that over the 3 driver 3.6's which will will begin to demonstrate strain much earlier on.
Both of these speakers bass output is most likely to overwhelm a 10' X 13' room. A room of those dimensions will probably be better served by a 1 series Thiel.  

Thoft. Yes they are harder to drive I went from the 3.6s (25 yrs) to the cs7s. I don’t regret it but I need to upgrade my Bryston 4B amp now. They are in another league from the 3.6s IMO 

So cs 7 at 2k. Are these worse than the 3.6 on amps?

Happy Friday! All

snbeall

Good to see you again. Have you found a SI-1 integrator?

Happy Listening!

Jon_5912,

Back to amp question, you might want to check out Starke Sound's AD4.320. They are on sale, satisfy many of your requirements, offer hassle free 30 day in home trial. A unique D class module boosted to 600kHz and analog power supply. No association other than keen interest. Mine arrived last night but remains boxed. 

Prof - I suppose an 'ultimate' solution would have nothing in front of the drivers, except possibly a phase plug at the apex of the tweeter. The bare baffle then needs propagation control. We used splatter paint and fabric on baffle (in my time) to break up glare. Later, the perf metal may have performed that function. I like my new Ultrasuede on Felt solution. 

Once a designer decides to protect or otherwise hide the drivers, then it's a dance of interacting variables. The user might choose differently than the designer, but often lacks knowledge of the trade-offs. 

Thanks very much for the info Tom.  That's what I figured.  I don't have
much urge to take the grills off my 2.7s.

I do find my Joseph speakers benefit somewhat with grills off in terms of opening up the high end and delivering all they are capable of.  At the same time, though, they are actually a bit more coherent with the grills on (high frequencies more seamlessly integrated).   In fact I find many speakers sound a bit more coherent in the top frequencies with the grills on.

Thoft - to augment unsound’s point - an aspect to consider is voltage sensitivity of a speaker in a room. I like that you can listen at 3/4 volume setting. Many preamp designs lose performance as the volume setting decreases. Often the criticism that a speaker doesn’t perform well at low volume is less a characteristic of the speaker than it is of the amplification driving it. Of course our ears roll off in the bass and treble at lower volume, so speakers with a bloated bass will sound "better" at lower volume. But the preamp considerations are a significant determinant factor. PS Audio’s ’Gain Cell’ solution side-steps the issue and sound "the same" at any volume setting. Such a puzzle. Nice solution. PS's moderately priced Gain Cell DAC-Pre is my go-to preamp for this reason among others.

Prof - your information is correct. As a company we aimed our products at living-room listeners. Thus the relatively high cost of our enclosures. We assumed grilles would be in place for listening. Over the years, our fabrics became more sheer and less audible, culminating in perforated metal grilles, which are very transparent.
To various degrees, fabric reduces amplitude in the 1.5 to 8kHz range by as much as 1dB. That’s pretty huge, considering that sophisticated listeners can register 1/10th dB differences when sustained over a broad sonic range. The bare speaker will sound more aggressive, especially in less-treated rooms.
To another point. Thiel’s grille frames were used as a significant mitigation to cabinet edge diffraction, and sometimes as wave guides to shape off-axis dispersion. In the case of a very dead room and a listener preference for the additional brightness content, we highly encourage taking the fabric off the frame and using the frame for its engineered purposes. I have also noted wave propagation effects directly on the baffle surface which are tamed by the fabric itself (on models with fabric touching baffle.) Generally speaking the grille is a significant engineering element and removing it undoes significant design effort. I’ll add that many of the long-standing criticisms of the Thiel sound (up-front, in-your-face, tizzy, harsh, etc.), directly result from removing the grille.

Let’s side-step to your model 02s. That model preceded our knowledge and attention to most of these diffraction and wave-guide considerations, but the frequency response is more accurate with grilles on (and overall performance is probably a toss-up. The Renaissance 02 reworks the grille for considerably higher performance while retaining the general aesthetic of the original 1976 design.

thoft - any answer to your question of amp / speaker / room adequacy is by nature incomplete, often in danger of mucking things up more than clarifying them. The equation is very complex. Many combinations work OK, and the pursuit of "better" performance is fraught with trade-offs including cost. I know it sounds trite, but if it works for you, that’s the goal.

Now for my personal take. I have outlined my amps and rooms here before, and my MO of playing the next-album-up for my evaluations. That album often works all day, and I hear cuts in the background, in intensive listening, standing and sitting, in measurements, and with different amps, cables, circuits, treatments, etc. I say that significant, recognizable aspects of each amp are audible - and they may be important to you, or not.

Your Adcom 5800 is a big brother to my little Adcom 5300 (at 250 vs 80W/C). They use MOSFETs in the signal path which lean toward tube sensibilities. I have no direct experience with your amp and can’t judge anything about your setup. But Nelson Pass either designed it, or was part of its design development path. Nelson is a world-beater, and his amps deliver high current, which Thiel's demand.
If you enjoy the game, you might find a way to borrow or audition another contender for direct comparison. The game takes time and costs money. At some point we might consider letting musical enjoyment guide us.

@thoft, those are pretty big speakers for a room that size.

prof

Wes Phillips (RIP) wrote for Stereophile about this very subject back in the 1990's. I cannot recall if any TAS writer(s) mentioned grills on vs grills off? My ears did not discern any difference.

Happy Listening!

@unsound for a 10 by 13 room. It’s pretty loud. Walls shake. 

"yes-every budget."?
McIntosh Amplifiers | Shop Music Direct
vs.
Schiit Audio: Audio Products Designed and Built in California
really?

@tomthiel
I can't remember where I got this information, but I seem to recall that Thiel speakers were designed with the grills in mind.   That is, they are voiced with the grill on and thus ideally should be used that way.Is that correct?

I've never actually taken the grills off my 2.7s to try them that way - one reason being I don't like seeing speaker drivers (I find it distracting when I know exactly where the sound is coming from).

^How?

3.6 owners on the Panel- weigh in and address thoft 's query.

Happy Listening!

Yes- every budget. 

Happy Listening!

^...”...3/4 volume ...”... isn’t really relative.

Is it safe to say the adcom 5800 is fine if ive played music on the 3.6 setup at 3/4 volume multiple times for lengths of times it’s good?

^...”...every budget...”....
really?

james633

My pleasure. Mac has an impressive catalog and offers gear for every budget. Old and new.

Happy Listening!

Thanks for the fed back regarding McIntosh. I have heard McIntosh gear many times but never in a controlled environment with direct A/B comparisons. 

2nd Note;
Tom addressed an excellent point- like so many other milestones in Life, we never forget our 1st Audiophile experience. Enjoy the Music.

Happy Listening!

tomthiel

Thank You for another history lesson. Your memory is on-point. 
Mac gear is known for a lush, delicate, presentation. In 1967, Brother Stan certainly had his finger on the pulse.

Happy Listening!

james633

Reading across other Audio forums, you will find Audiophile that utilize Mac/Thiel combinations. Mac certainly builds robust power amps that feed enough current for a pleasant aural experience. 
Keep us posted as you demo Mac gear. Have fun!

Happy Listening!

James - a thought from Thiel history for you. I take interest in how brands associate with other brands. Partly in play is dealer synergy - dealers tend to carry brands that go well together. Sometimes designers align with other designers for shared approach or desired outcomes . . . Thiel’s brand associations grew somewhat over the years, but centered on some brands that get regular mention in this thread: Krell, Mark Levinson, Bryston, early Classé and Threshold.  For the record, McIntosh never came on Thiel’s radar. Nothing negative, but nothing ever presented itself.

For myself, my first aha moment when I learned that reproduced music could be every bit as involving as live music involved McIntosh. As a singer-songwriter-student I was immersed in music, and playback was mostly a tool for production and for learning. Then one day I went to lunch at a faculty community house at the edge of campus. After lunch we all sat down to absorb a newly released jazz album, followed by an appreciation and discussion of musical and sonic merit. It was 1967, I was a freshman. These guys opened my ears and my mind.
The only piece of gear I vividly remember was the pair of chrome amps with their glowing tubes. When asked, Brother Stan said they were McIntosh - I don’t remember the model, or the turntable or speakers. I do remember the musical magic and the adjectives 'lush and delicate'.

Unsound,

 Thank you for the thoughtful response. I know that takes time and it is good food for thought. 

Some like McIntosh with Thiel. McIntosh succeeds in accomplishing their design goals, they are well made, and bench test well, they hold their value as well or better than most of the competition, they will likely have parts and well qualified techs available for some time to come, their consistent, tasteful, even iconic styling will probably go into the future making visual aesthetically pleasing compatible future McIntosh purchases probable.
With that said, I can't for the life of me understand why they still use autoformers in their ss amps. Perhaps it made sense with their background in the early 60's when transistors were anything but reliable. But easily for the past 40 years that has not at all been a concern. That they add the autoformers and all the extra taps necessitated by them, as well as the poorly functioning meters only adds technical compromise and expense. The MC462's 2 Ohm Class AB output is the equivalent to that of a 113 Watt amp without autoformers that can properly double down to 2 Ohms. The MC 462 seems rather expensive for use with the Thiel CS 2.4's The only other example of a ss amp I'm aware of that used an autoformer was a limited edition run of a First Watt amp made for unique application, and in that case the autoformer was used on the input rather than the output as McIntosh does. For the McIntosh autoformers to work ideally they need to be used on an exceptionally linear impedance load. Which is not typical. Look at the Thiel CS 2.4's impedance graph here:

Thiel CS2.4 loudspeaker Measurements | Stereophile.com

Notice that the impedance rises to 15 Ohms at 60 Hz, typically a demanding area. 

Meanwhile the MC462  is recommended to be used with the tap that corresponds to the speakers lowest impedance. Which in the case of the Thiel CS 2.4 is close to 2 Ohms, and stays there most of the time.
 
McIntosh Laboratory MC462 power amplifier Measurements | Stereophile.com

While I appreciate the MC462's spec'd sensitivities for both single ended and balanced inputs, which would accommodate direct connection to many self volume controlled DAC's, the measurements don't live up to the specs, and vary with the tap used. Furthermore,  the input impedance is not the most cooperative for that economical advantage.

FWIW, subjectively I never appreciated the Mac house sound. To my ears they lack dynamics and dimensionality. YMMV

As a general statement have you guys tried McIntosh amps with your Thiels? Do you like them? If so what did you like or not like. 
 I am kicking around the idea of trying a MC462 with my Thiel 2.4. I realized there are better and cheaper amps. 
Thanks. 

Happy Friday! All

thileiste
Nice! gear. I was fond of the AQ Niagara conditioner myself.
Happy Listening!

@jon_5912, For moderate volume levels in a moderately sized room, you'll want a rated minimum of 400 Watts per channel into 2 Ohms for the Thiel CS 3.7's.

For the CS3.7 I have tried the following the past month.

1) CODA CSiB v1 with 150 | 300 at 8 | 4 Ohm. First 18 watt Class A

2) Benchmark AHB2 x 2

3) Currently the Krell K-300i 150 | 300 at 8 | 4 Ohm. First 90 watt Class A

The CODA and Krell are integrateds. They all sound great. The Krell especially nice with AudioMirror Tubadour III SE tube DAC. I have not heard the CODA with the tube DAC yet. I may this weekend unless I sell the CODA by then. The Krell is super smooth sounding with a lot of bass power, more than the other 2.

The Benchmark AHB2 is super clean sounding and I like it a lot and likely how I will listen the most, occasionally switching to the Krell.

These 3 units are not extremely expensive and make the CS3.7 sing.

Jon, get a purify amp, or an hypex amp if you want to safe some money. Almost as transparent as the benchmark, twice the power, half or less the money. 

@jafant  On the digital side i will get Aqua Formula xHD + LinQ combo.As for cabling Gryphon VIP speaker and interconnect cables, Audioguest Firebird power cords and Audioquest Niagara 3000 power conditioner.

jon_5912

Much has changed in 10+ years regarding electronics. If you have a local dealer/retailer, start there. If anything it is worth looking over current offerings that will serve as a point of reference. As always, trust your own ears while auditioning the gear! Have fun on the Audio journey.

Happy Listening!

One of my amps has been shutting off randomly.  I've got a pair of Cambridge 840s I run bridged mono powering my 3.7s.  They're both 10+ years old and are fairly budget oriented made in China products.  I'm on the fence about trying to find someone to fix the problem.  I'm assuming I'll be amp shopping in the next few months.

So, what should I consider?  Should I consider a pair of the Benchmark amps?  That's 6k and knowing me I'm unlikely to spend much more than that, or even that much if I can avoid it.  I want the best performance I can get for the money but also reliability.  There's a pair of Bryston 7B3 for sale somewhat locally and I might stretch the budget a little for something that will be under warranty until I'm retirement age.  On the other hand, a lot of people seem to think the Benchmark amp is something special and I could get a pair of those brand new.  All else being equal I'd rather buy something that runs cool and doesn't waste a lot of electricity.  I definitely prefer buying made in America, or at least something not made by the brutally impoverished.

thieliste

nice score! Looking forward in reading about the CS 3.7/Gryphon combination. What other gear including cabling rounds out your system now?

Happy Listening!

Yep

Ah so you had the 3.7s before and have bought them again?

@prof  Thanks, i've owned 1.5s, 2.4s and 3.7s.Started my Thiel journey in 1997.

Wow, in Amberwood too! 

That's awesome thieliste!
Can you remind me: which Thiels have you owned?

Hey guys, well i'm happy to announce that i'm back in the Thiel game.Just scored a mint pair of 3.7s in Amberwood finish.They will be driven by a Gryphon Diablo 300.Will update when i order the rest of the gear probably in april.

^Especially when the ports are on the opposite side of the drivers :-)

Totally agree unsound.  'Time coherent' was never accurately defined with marketing or general knowledge or the physics that create true phase/time coherency like Thiels.  'Point source' is also too broadly marketed, but easier to accurately define.  Ported speakers muddy the definition of both terms, don't they?