But what about the facts? Although Thiel claims that the phase is within 15 degrees, I have not been able to see that in any of my measurements. Time coherence on the direct sound is fine and at 10 ft measures within milliseconds. But then there is the indirect sound which is of course determined by the room characteristics. The first order xo have less minimal phase changes, but they are still there. Not to mention that the drivers are have their phase changes and they don't cancel each other out. I have worked on digital active cross overs to approach linear phase +- octave around cross over frequencies and was able to improve the phase coherence but did not have the ability to conduct a blind study to determine differences or improvements. I think we can do nowadays better to really establish the facts of time coherence and listening preferences especially with klippel measurement equipment becoming available. But I don't see the willingness to really find out the facts and integrate it with the subjective experiences.
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!
13,684 responses Add your response
If I may add to @tomthiel ‘s comments. I think that it’s important to remember that when we read of empirical statistical reports results, we often don’t get the whole picture. The results might suggest that on average most people don’t seem to perceive time and phase coherence or the lack there of. That doesn’t mean that all didn’t. For some reason, some are more sensitive to this than others. And conversely those others might be more sensitive to other aspects of sound. If I learned anything from this hobby is that while we have remarkably similar hearing; we listen quite differently. For example, one of our regular thread contributors @prof has reported his impressions of various loudspeakers here on Audiogon, and I couldn’t possibly agree more with him on every single occasion, His words could be mine; word for word. Yet, when it comes to amplifier preferences, and to a lesser degree on speaker/listener location, we are worlds apart. For what ever reason we tend to have very definite even though subtlety different impressions of listening impressions. Which is why I try and present as much objective evidence as I can when posting. |
jon - you’re in good company. Most engineers align with Dr. Toole in claiming phase coherence doesn’t matter. That opinion is based on observation of double-blind testing. Note that Jim Thiel began his audio journey as one strongly in the camp of empirical / engineering driven mind-sets and choices. The coherence thing wasn’t an accident, but its existence has elements of accident. Before introducing the 01 in 1976, we experimented with many types of transducers. Among them was a sphere covered with 1/2" tweeters with enough combined surface area to support full range reproduction. The predicted sonic nirvana didn’t happen. Over a period of months, we compared transducer types to determine our eventual platform / approach / solution. To shorten a very long and involved story, we needed a full-range coherent source as a reference - call it an inverse microphone. The Coherent Source concept began as a laboratory standard rather than a product idea. That rightness or ease or naturalness or grace in the coherent source- was unmistakable. Coherence also unveiled myriad problems previously masked by phase scramble. A book could be written about the psycho neurology involved in interpreting sound, and the priorities and effects of "real" vs "scrambled" sound. People here have asked whether phase coherence is heard directly or part of a system of scrutiny of all factors involved in the transducer. No easy answer, but after experiencing coherence, we never looked back. Presently I am working with the 02 as an accessible workhorse for testing and comparing various technologies. The 02 is a polarity-correct second order system (as were its successors - the entire SCS sequence.) I am building a first-order XO and adding time alignment for the 02 to address this very aspect of masking of the systems under test. Soon we’ll hear what happens when first order meets second order in the 02. So, Jon, don’t be chagrined. Jim would have never accepted the coherence thing if he had not experienced it personally. Also, the coherence transperancy led to the need of inventing a better resistor and wire. I spent the summer of ’78 unraveling wire. Cousin Ted (our aerospace physicist) heard what we heard in the 03 prototype and suggested its similarities to low-level distortions in the Pioneer 10 / Jupiter probe communications, for which part of the solution was 6-9s (now CDA101) wire. I followed up his introduction to the project manager at ITT-NASA, and high purity, oxygen-free wire became standard in all our coils and wire from that point forward. That wire solution allowed final progress for the 03, in addition to radically changing how Jim admitted possibilities beyond his physicist / engineer comfort zone. I would call his perspective shift transformative, from quite skeptical to quite receptive. That cluster of events around first order and wire may be the defining elements of what made Thiel Thiel. Believing what we hear is crucial to real progress. Before landing on "For the Love of Music" as our first motto, another contender was "Believe It". |
@sdecker, absolutely, the relaxing nature of Thiels is something that I can't claim to objectively explain but I've experienced it very consistently. It's the thing that bothers you about other speakers not being there. It's funny because I'm generally an audiophile skeptic. I don't entirely disbelieve in wires but I mostly do. I'll probably never try an aftermarket powercord. but in this case I think there's something significantly different that I can't explain. I had my Thiels in storage for a few years due to complications from the real estate crisis but when I got them set up again that quality was still unmistakably there. It's a little bit difficult for me to admit it. |
Thiels have been my primary speakers for nearly twenty years now, first CS2.3 then CS2.4 in 2006. A dispute with a new condo neighbor hypersensitive to sound caused me to buy a pair of the new KEF LS50 Meta stand-mounted speakers for substantially less bass transmission between condos. Single coax driver, but 2nd order crossover and rear-firing port in a tiny 12 x 8 x 11" 17 lb box on stands. I compared them with my 2.4 when I first broke them in, noted the expected differences, pros and cons, and then parked my Thiels for over a month and listened only to the KEFs. I pulled out the 2.4s a few days ago to remind myself what I've been missing. I'll save the space of comparing the two, but to mention that the immediate and overwhelming sound of my Thiels was 'relaxed' and 'relaxing' musical presentation, to the point of the cliched 'time slowed down' listening to them, a fully 'natural' 'authentic' listening experience. This far overwhelmed all the objective detail differences versus the KEFs I've become skilled at identifying for the past 50 years. I'll only add my music's bass extension and volumes were moderate enough not to tax the KEFs, the leading-edge speed, and sustain micro-dynamics and detail, were at least as good with the 2.4s, so those weren't factors in 'relaxed' being 'slow' or 'veiled.' It transcended all those individual characteristics. After all these years, is THIS what full time/phase coherency sounds like once I've been missing it?? That's the ONLY thing I could account for such a dramatic and indescribable difference. I don't think I would have noted this character so blatantly if I had been swapping speakers every few days. I know a number of forum members have Thiels with other similarly good non-time-aligned speakers. After a long absence, has anyone else had an experience similar to what I describe? |
^Nice amps for Thiels. Unusually most users report better results through the single ended RCA inputs rather the balanced XLR inputs with these amps. I’d caution you about using these amps in bridged mono configuration with your Thiel’s. Typically bridged amps don’t do well into low impedances. A better alternative would be to have your Thiel’s modified so that each would have dual binding post pairs and have each amp run a channel to the each of the binding posts of each speaker. In this configuration each amp would receive either two left channel or two right channel inputs respectively. A pre with dual stereo pre outs helps facilitate this. I would suggest avoiding a pre that leans to the dark side or has a rolled off treble with these amps, “liquid” presentation would be a plus. These are fairly sensitive amps, be careful of very high output pres, or you might have limited volume control range. |
At Coherent Source Service, they were effortless and pure. Rob had a great amp driving them, but I don't remember what it was. The flat-front drivers of the original 7 address a real problem of cone drivers. The sound of the upper driver falls into the cone cavity of the driver(s) beneath, creating a particular hollow congestion which I have identified both sonically and in measurements. The 7 is free from that problem. Even though Jim improved the technical driver performance for the 7.2, Rob and I both found the 7s more musically enjoyable in his small room where we could barely get 8' away. I am told that Jim was working on the 7.3 after the 3.7, including a refinement of the 3.7/2.7 upper coax, modified to more readily cross over to the 6.5" CS7 lower midrange and CS2.7 - 8" woofer. The 7.3 would certainly have had the flat-star lower drivers, which address that cone cavity problem. Plus each generation of his drivers stood on the shoulders of its predecessors. Imagine that speaker. But, the 7s or 7.2s are pretty good in their own right. If a pair came my way, I could live with either one of 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. |
@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. |
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. |
"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). |
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'. |
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 |