Thiel Owners

My only experience of amps on the 1.6s has been Accuphas (too tame), Rega Cursa/Maia (not quite enough in reserve when called upon but up for it), and Naim 282/250 same RMS power as the Regas 80W but with a much better transient reserve and these coped very well. With the exception of the Accuphase these amps could make the Thiels Rock, not something they seem to be noted for I gather. A Rega Osiris would be worth a try if available too from what I've heard from it elsewhere.

As I've said in the past, I use a pair of Cambridge 840s with my 3.7s and I think they're completely adequate, at least at the moderate volumes I listen at. You'd pay in the 3-4k range for a pair. I know a guy who hangs around on audioasylum uses a $2,500 parasound a21 on his 3.7s and has for a while. I tend to think that amps are a good place to make a compromise on price. As long as they have enough power the differences tend to be small compared to speakers. I think the preamp makes a significantly bigger difference overall.  The Benchmark looks like it'd probably do fine with most Thiels, although it's pretty small compared to your pair of Classe amps. I'd be interested to know how a bridged pair would do with the low impedance.

I assume going forward people building Thiel systems will be the type who are more interested in getting great sound for the money than in big names or eye candy.  I get more satisfaction from knowing I got great performance for a moderate amount of money  I've got around 16k in my system and it's so good I have no interest in messing with it.  Benchmark DAC2, Bryston BP26, Cambridge 840 x2, Thiel 3.7, Infinity Intermezzo 1.2 sub.  The electronics definitely won't win a beauty contest but they perform great.  

^Enough power for the load at hand.

Good points unsound. Amps from the same manufacturer often have differing goals and topologies and do not perform similarly. Thiel speakers got progressively more demanding - I guess the 5 bass was worst, but the earlier speakers were more benign, probably because Jim didn't yet have the Krell FPB-600 and Levinson 33Hs. Bryston amps seemed to get better and better at driving Thiels, partly because Thiel was their design-test torture load.

(Thanks again to the well-wishers for your kind comments!)


Tom,

Where does the 7.2 sit in your estimation?   Is it still the pinnacle of performance in Jim's designs?

prof - Please note that I have not heard the 7.2. I am relaying insider remarks from those who lived with the products, the process of evolution, the politics of markets and the necessary contraction of the company after Jim's death. I have also extrapolated factors regarding components and their sonic contributions. And then there is the undeniable fact that each new product stands on the shoulders of all of its predecessors, giving the x.7s a distinct advantage in many particulars.

All that said, I would choose the 7.2 as the epitome of Jim's work. He was working on a 7.3 which incorporated the 3.7 coax (or derivative) and the wavy driver geometry. Such a product could justify the cost of the quality components which beetle and I are lavishing on our upgrades. The low-level cabinet resonances could be quieted. Thermal management could be applied to the drivers and resistors, and so forth and so on, to create a next-league contender. I have little doubt that the 7.3 would be his very best work. But, I don't have a real answer to your query from personal experience. In hindsight, I wish I had stayed another day in Lexington in 2012 to absorb the upper models in the listening room. Time moves on.

I hope to learn enough and find the time to soup up the 7.2s. Notice that they don't show up on the used market. Rob says that the large majority of CS7 owners upgraded to 7.2s and are happy as clams with few reported problems. Plus, I find them beautiful in a way that reflects my design sense.

tomthiel,  see my post on 8/15/18 on page 74 of this thread. It would appear that the Bryston’s might have been better equipped to deal with the earlier Thiel’s better than the more recent ones.

FWIW, I preferred the sealed box CS 5’s to the 7’s.

unsound - point taken. Sealed box bass is more phase correct. I like it too. The brutally low impedance of the CS5 deep bass might be ameliorated by a separate amp for the bottom end. Also there is the matter of those huge analog bucket brigade time delay lines for the lower and upper midrange drivers - even with very high quality caps, there is a hypothetical veil.  I wanted a geometric solution of concave driver plane mounting. But small companies can only pull so much out of their collective sleeve under real-time development budgets and schedules. Fact is: Jim was enamored with the bucket brigade delay which he had independently "invented" before learning it was already 'out there'. And he didn't accept any down-side beyond cost. CS5.2? 

Do you have an amp to drive the CS5 well?

ish_mail
I, too, had an audition w/ TAD (floorstander around $30K retail a few years ago) and was disappointed. Especially for that kind of money? The rest of the gear- Esoteric DV-60, Pass Labs XP-10 preamp, Threshold T-400 and Aesthetix Atlas power amps, Silent Source / Signal Cable / Wireworld Electra Silver power cords all around. The room was really tight and dead silent in nature. Still, I preferred a Thiel loudspeaker strictly for it's rich timbre to my ears.

Happy Listening!

Tom,

Yes, those 7.2s sure are rare on the used market.   Whenever one showed up on audigon or wherever, I'd get melancholy.  They were something of a dream speaker for me and used prices were affordable.  But their size has always precluded a purchase.  The size of the CS6s when I had them long ago unfortunately pushed just past the boundaries of acceptable in my room, in terms of aesthetics, which is why I didn't keep them.  It's not a big room and once a speaker gets too large for a room I find the aesthetics awkward.

But that's an entirely different question vs whether large speakers can work in small rooms.  I've had full range floor-standing speakers, flat to 20 Hz, that worked great in my room and I've heard some big speakers work well in other even smaller rooms.  (The CS6 sounded amazing in my room too).

I'll have a pair of 2.7 coming next week so cant wait to hear these puppies.  Never owned Thiel before but a local buddy has the 3.7 and I love them. Will drive them with either a BAT VK55 or Mark Levinson 27.5. I'm sure the 27.5 will control the speaker best since it's 4 ohm  but the VK55 will sound sweeter.  

Thanks sharing that interesting history regarding Thiel and Vandersteen dealers, Tom. I’ve read most of those journals Hardesty wrote and edited and he was certainly a fan of both brands (and not a fan of Wilsons, Pipedreams, etc). You might look to his writings for amplification ideas. He was a fan of ARC and Ayre - hey, so am I - and I recall he liked VTL among tubed electronics.

I’ve heard both the CS7.2 and 3.7 but in different rooms and different electronics plus a few years apart. I cannot pick a winner but both were extraordinary, just below the very best I’ve heard (but at a fraction of the price). I probably sound like a broken record here but I think Tom Thiel’s XO upgrade could bring both models into that next tier.

tomthiel, I have an updated Threshold S 500 Series II. It might be able to run CS 5’s, but I think there might be better options. 
The amplifier requirements might be the only thing that’s scared me off owning the CS 5i’s.

prof -  Our 'other' listening room was my victorian farmhouse living room, where the company began. That room was 10' high x 15' deep x 17' wide plus a bay wall adding another 3' depth with 45° clipped corners. It also had a door in each wall except behind the speakers. I never heard the room overpowered, mostly because of the doors to relieve standing wave buildup and the non-resonant plaster on wood lath walls and ceiling. Good rooms are at the heart of good playback.

unsound - I love that amp. We met Nelson Pass early-on and had the Stasis 500 for all our development work from about 1980 (pre-production). That amp was still there when New Thiel bought the company. I don't know the Series II, but the basic architecture was state of the art at the time, plus it had gone back to Threshold for service. The Stasis variable bias was brilliant and effective. I would consider using that amp today.

Time for a story? OK.
Nelson developed Statis, and patented the technology. Nakamichi who dominated the car-audio / cassette player market at the time, wanted in to the emerging high end market. They contracted Nelson to develop two Stasis amps for them. He did so for the then princely sum of $quarter-mil. Nakamichi took it home and in true Japanese-culture fashion proceeded to remove any and all traces of the novel Stasis technology. Those of you who Japan - 1985 know that signing off on anything not in the textbooks might require ceremonial death. Forward 1.5 years. CES introduction of the Nakamichi Stasis. No one cares; it doesn't sound exciting. Nakamichi challenges Nelson. Nelson buys some amps on the market and evaluates them to contain NO Stasis stuff. Nelson objects that his reputation is being impinged. Nak doesn't get it. Nelson sues in international court that his reputation is being damaged via the failure of his Stasis technology in the Nak amps which contain no whif of Stasis. Nelson looses. Court says that Nak paid for and is free to use any of the assets, even if just the Stasis name. Nelson has bigger fish to fry and goes on to his brilliant career.

Thank you Tom for your insights.

As for time coherent speaker manufacturers, Green Mountain Audio is a brand that also has that claim although it does not seem to be reviewed by any main stream magazines.

There was also Meadow Lark but I am not sure it is still currently in business.

samzx12
Nice score! The CS 2.7 is a fine speaker indeed. Keep me posted as you massage them with the Mark Levinson or B.A.T. power amp.  Happy Listening!

tomthiel
Thank You for the Nakamichi story.  More please.  Happy Listening!

andy - I don't see any claims for the Meadowlark, nor technical specs or lab reviews. Good reputation, but I can't comment on their coherence.

Green Mountain has tons of claims and an approach that seeks coherence. There is a Stereophile review that demonstrates not really achieving what they claim. The impulse response is clearly not time-aligned and not integrated with best tonal response listening height. The designer's review reply side-steps the issues. I would call it a technically deficient attempt. I haven't heard them.

Back to Green Mountain - it seems I read a review of a fairly early model. Later 6moons reviews of their further work sounds very impressive. I still hesitate to comment without measurement verification of success.

Sorry for my first response based on 1 review of the Diamante.

Tom,

Stereophile reviewed and measured the Meadowlark Shearwater speakers.  2nd page of measurements (and showing time coherence) here:

https://www.stereophile.com/content/meadowlark-hotrod-shearwater-loudspeaker-measurements-part-2

I had listened to many Meadowlark speakers and had the larger Meadowlark Blue Herons in my room for quite a while.   They wounded warm, airy, lush and spacious.  But I never found the Meadowlark transmission bass design to be completely successful to my ear.  And as I've mentioned before, the Meadowlarks didn't have the type of concentric mid/tweeter design etc like the Thiels, and suffered a sort of suck-out phase cancellation effect with vertical movement of the listener, giving the tone and imaging a sort of "shifty" quality if one moved about.

I owned small stand mounted Meadowlark monitors for quite a while and though somewhat coloured, I really enjoyed the heck out of 'em.   The disappeared and imaged like the bejeesus!  Sold them and still kind of miss them.  

Sterophile never really measured any of the speakers claiming to be time coherent at the appropriate listening distances for proper driver intergration. So measurements were compromised.

I suspect some manufacturers models might have been more effected by these measurement gaffs more so than others (Green Mountain?).
  Though I’ve wanted to for  some time, I’ve never had a chance to hear their stuff. Roy of Green Moutain has contributed much on one of the best threads ever on Audiogon. It is very much worth seeking out. Be warned, he’s a bit critical of the Thiel coincidental drivers. Still a great read.

With that said, the Meadowlarks claimed that there “simpler” 1st order cross-overs sucked less energy from the output. IMHO, in using such simpler 1st order cross-overs they glossed over the corrections needed to correct for driver irregularities, box and baffle considerations to make for a fully true time coherent speaker system. Some of their more expensive offerings used what are now pretty much irreplaceable drivers. Some of their more moderately priced models offered some time coherence on a small footprint, furthermore some of these models were pretty easy to drive. Some even with tubes. 
Some of these models offered pretty good value for those with more modest budgets. Unfortunately they disappeared with rumors of creditors chasing them. There has been some recent chatter that the brand name might be resurrected. 

@prof, pre-concentric driver Thiels have that same phase cancellation effect.  If you're fairly close to them and move your head around vertically you'll notice huge shifts in sound.  I still love my 2 2s, though.  It's hard for me to imagine anybody not.  You never know what some people will think, though.  I saw a thread where some people were saying they're bright.  They're nothing of the sort.  I would say they're very close to perfectly balanced but if they're anything they're maybe just slightly warm.  

jon_5912
I concur. Perfectly balanced indeed.  Happy Listening!

stevecham
I, for one, would like to see you return to Thiel Audio loudspeakers.
Happy Listening!

The conclusion from some of the previous discussions is that concentric drivers with the tweeter located coaxially mounted within the midrange driver is the best way to achieve a more consistent soundstage.  Some have commented on the Meadowlarks and pre-concentric Thiel speakers to have a sound that is sensitive to listening position.  I am very puzzled that we don't have any good concentric drivers available on the market.  If Thiel could do it, I don't see why either ScanSpeak or Seas could not.

In my own design, with separate tweeter and midrange, the sound balance is also sensitive to listening position.  There is one way to fix this is to lower the xover frequency from the tweeter to the midrange so that the dispersion characteristics of the midrange and tweeter are more evenly match.  The problem is the tweeter has to play lower so that could add to tweeter distortion.  Some of the new tweeters from ScanSpeak could play lower but the less expensive tweeters may not be.

This affect is more prominent with first order filter vs. higher order filter design.  

andy2
excellent points all around. Absolutely! ScanSpeak, Seas and Vifa could build such drivers- why those guys chose not to do so, I do not know?
Happy Listening!

All - lots of good information. Bottom line is that most of those who try are prone to fail. An underlying cause is that coherent transducers are roughly an order of magnitude more difficult.

Andy asks why more manufacturers don't "do it". Short answer is because they can't afford to solve all the problems for the very limited market to pay for the development costs.

Case in point - Thiel Audio. We began with customized drivers from the usual manufacturers: Seas, ScanSpeak, Dynaudio, Vifa and others. Early on we forged a relationship with Vifa where Thiel developed what it wanted / needed and Vifa prototyped and eventually produced it. We got favored customer status and they got to put it in their catalog for anyone to buy.  The other manufacturers were not as adventuresome, preferring to make their own designs with less expense for larger market share. Our drivers were inherently expensive with bigger magnets, tighter specs, more critical surrounds and spiders, etc. It worked for both of us. Good partnership.

Except that we wanted to go beyond their comfort zone for some of the reasons Andy mentions. So by the 1990s we were deep into prototyping our own drivers and sourcing parts from speaker manufacturers and other industrial sources. By the mid 90s we had to make our own drivers from scratch to get what we needed.

There are no "good" concentric drivers on the market because most of them end up in car or home cinema uses with lower budgets and expectations. It would be hard for you to imagine the effort that went into Thiel developing its own driver-making capability, not because we wanted to, but because we wanted to build speakers beyond what the supply market could deliver to a demand market which doesn't require the rigors of broad bandwidth, high-performance drivers.

Regarding the prior thread of other coherent manufacturers, and why there aren't more. A case study that applies broadly is the "New Thiel". Ownership hired folks who cared about preserving whatever Thiel was doing, who hired among others Mark Mason formerly of PSB - smart and talented design engineer. It fell to him to prove to ownership and management why coherence matters. Fact is, that task is nearly impossible. They collectively decided to put their eggs in the same basket as everyone else and make very good "normal" speakers. 5 stars from Stereophile, etc. But, who cared? There are myriad good normal speakers. Unique vision lost. Company failed.

So why did Thiel take on the awesome task of making coherent speakers? Why do very few others succeed at it? I've said that it is hard and expensive - so why do it? I have previously shared how we looked at many topologies and possibilities of where to spend our efforts. Here are a couple examples of how we landed on coherence as a requirement.

The cats.
The farm / commune always had animals. The cats ruled the interior space. The living room was the test room. One of our test sources was a simple (no effects) recording I made of nature sounds, including wind in the bushes . . . and birds. The cats never cared much what we were doing. But during a session of 1st vs 2nd vs 3rd order slopes - Precious, the energetic black cat, scrambled up the speaker and took out the tweeter while it played twittering birds in the bushes. Hmmm. The 'cat effect' joined with the 'leaf effect' as unique signposts along the road to coherence.

The leaf effect occurred when we hauled the experimental 03 about 20' high into the Walnut tree in the side yard for outdoor anechoic-free-field measurements. (Poor man's anechoic chamber) We got differing measurements for unexplained reasons that turned out to be summer leaves vs autumn leaves vs bare winter branches. Score one for my daughter to decipher the cause! But, another thing became evident. The sound of the wind in the leaves and branches made sonic sense with a coherent transducer whereas we dismissed it as noise with higher order slopes. Very, very interesting.

There are other examples. I may have mentioned the teenage girl effect and the passerby-neighbor effect. We became convinced enough to surmount our skepticism and challenges of courage. We knew it would be intensely difficult to pull off coherence, but we chose to do it because we believed it mattered.

Notice that in the general industry narrative, they conclude that it doesn't matter enough to pay for the troubles. That opinion dominates. From 1978 onward, we never lost faith, and that term is what the skeptical scientist would apply to it. The Canadian Research Council proved to the New Thiel owners that coherence could not be heard. Most manufacturers believe it can't be heard. Thiel's dedication to the aspect of coherence is a matter of belief when viewed from a scientific perspective. And it isn't like Thiel's dogged pursuit proved anything. The world still says it doesn't matter.

But some folks, from previously unexposed novices to high-end recordists, "get it". Once they do, they generally don't let go, even though some aspects of smoothness and dynamic range are inherently compromised by the factors required for coherence. Nothing is free. Thiel chose to chip away at all the aspects and continually develop solutions to all the elements brought to bear by opening Pandora's Box.

I doubt that Thiel, as a fledgling, internally capitalized company, would have continued just making 'normal' speakers. It didn't matter enough in a marketplace inundated with companies already doing that. But there was something about the truth of the musical experience that fanned our flames, that kept us going for what turned out to be 35 years and would have been as long as Jim was able to keep making progress toward his vision of the complete loudspeaker. Thank you all on this forum for 'getting it', for honoring the decades of work that went into augmenting this obscure corner of the playback experience . . . 'for the Love of Music'

jon - regarding bright 2 2s. You are correct that there is a slight propensity toward warmth. The mid-bass centered at 100Hz is almost full when the speaker is optimized 5' from walls. When moved closer to walls, that zone and below gets stronger. There is also some roughness in the low treble, from 5 to 10K which can be problematic.

A huge source of the "bright" complaint is that most recordings are made to emphasize the brightness range for air-play appeal. Also, that range is where microphones and recording gear are likely to misbehave and recording effects such as the Aphex Oral Exciter do their job of adding tooth and sizzle to recordings. And playback systems also contribute anomalies, and all signal including compromises is under a microscope with a coherent transducer. A big part of the problem is cat and mouse and whom to blame.

It is impolite for a manufacturer to point fingers elsewhere, but those times are past with us here. You all have done the homework to find good associated gear and choose well-made recordings. You are in the 1%. In my 2 2 upgrade work I am looking at tweaking the series resistor feeding the midrange to add up to a half dB between the woofer and tweeter. Too early to know how it will work out, I'm still developing my measurement tools.

tomthiel
Outstanding! insight on the factors and forms that make Thiel Audio head-and-shoulders above the competition. Your memory and recollection is impeccable. You are spot on, in that, most of the population are not forward thinkers. Moreover, the same population cannot think outside of the box neither. This is a very good thing for those of us that can do, succeed at it.
Happy Listening!

unsound - you are right. Measurement distance of 50" and closer earlier in time, does not allow the proper triangulation for the drivers' travel path. 8' was Thiel's stated minimum. The limit was Stereophile's set up, but the results looks like speaker design failures. The closer the drivers to each other and the lower the crosspoints, the less the incorrect distance matters. But it does mislead the reading public. Andy makes a proper point that lower crosspoints give the upper driver a much harder time, requiring long excursions and sophisticated cooling.
To the point of Seas, Vifa etc. could do "it". We tried for years without success working with the best. It's not so easy as it might appear. And if someone did, the wire routing factors, etc. are so precise that high failure rates can occur and then who points fingers at whom. Taking it in-house was a huge challenge for us, but it was the only way we could get what we decided we needed.

Coincident drivers solve the lobing problem between the upper concentric drivers and the woofer crossover is at such long wavelengths that its lobing is not very consequental. Sit with your ears at 3' and back at least 8' and you are in the design target.

This discussion makes me feel nostalgic of the younger years.  Oh well time has to move on.  

@tomthiel Thanks for the counter narrative on the TAD reference speakers. Very interesting.

The Hales line was perhaps(?) another example of a faux coherent speaker line. Their cabinets featured concrete baffles that were sloped similarly to Thiel's. I auditioned a pair at the other audiophile store in town before deciding to buy my 2.2s. When I told the salesman I was impressed with Thiel speakers, he brought out the Hales, pointed out the sloped design, and told me they were like Thiel speakers except the concrete baffles made them better. They completely lacked the realism that sold me on the 2.2s, so I moved on.

Maybe it was the salesman more than Hales that misrepresented them as being similar to Thiels –– I never bothered to look at the Hales sales literature. Apparently, Hales used a sealed cabinet for tighter bass and touted flat frequency response as their main selling point. They used fourth-order Linkwitz-Riley crossover networks.

There's a (mostly) enthusiastic thread on Hales speakers here: https://forum.audiogon.com/discussions/hales-design-group-speakers-how-good-were-they. But it's much shorter than this thread; so there!

ish_mail,

As I've mentioned somewhere earlier on the thread, I owned the Hales Transcendence 5 speakers, and still own a the Hales Transcendence 1 monitors and center channel, which do duty in my home theater and for occasional music listening.  In fact, I own an extra double of each of those speakers just in case I blow a driver, which tells you I'm quite a fan.

The Hales speakers, to my ears, are excellent for midrange/tweeter coherence, smoothness, timbral warmth and accuracy, with a very low sense of "grain" to the sound, and really spectacular soundstaging.

What they miss for me is the density and solidity of the Thiel sound and imaging, and the sense of texture I hear from the Thiels.  (Hales sounding just a tad smoothed over).

But I absolutely adore the Hales in home theater duty because they combined clarity, timbral warmth and transient precision, with a very relaxed presentation.  Good for me since I often come to movie viewing in my home theater after a long day of doing sound effects, so I don't really want to be beaten around by an aggressively dynamic sound. 

Just an FYI:
3.5 Electronic Bass Equalizer listed on Goodwill auction site, current price $16

https://www.shopgoodwill.com/Item/59297127

iambenbryant
Nice catch! Good to see you again. How are you enjoying your CS 2.7 loudspeakers?  Happy Listening!

samzx12
Nice score! The CS 2.7 is a fine speaker indeed. Keep me posted as you massage them with the Mark Levinson or B.A.T. power amp. Happy Listening!

Thank you. I am excited.  Curious to find out which amp will work best. As far as overall sound quality I'd be willing to bet the BAT VK55.  

Hi Tom,

To the point of Seas, Vifa etc. could do "it". We tried for years without success working with the best. It’s not so easy as it might appear.

That is very interesting. Seas and Vifa were some of the very best at the time indeed. I have no doubt at all that is not easy, but I just thought if someone like Seas or ScanSpeak (since Vifa was taken over by SS) were serious enough about it, maybe they could make some very good concentric drivers. The challenge is in the motor design as well as doppler affect of each driver modulating each other. Based on what I read online and what are available off the shelf parts, it seems like the speaker design industry more or less has given up on time-coherent design. With exception for some very few drivers, most drivers has to be designed with at least 12db roll off. For example, Accuton is a very reputable driver makers, but if you use their drivers, you almost have to go with 12db or 24 db roll off. As for Seas and ScanSpeak, with their portfolio of products, only a few drivers can be implemented with first order.

Another things I found interesting is that almost all of Thiel designs use aluminum drivers. To the best of my knowledge, there is no off the shelf aluminum drivers on the market today can be implemented using first order filter because of their inherent break up at high frequency. So you pretty much have to use higher order filter to suppress the break up. So how Thiel did it with first order using their aluminum drivers must require some unique engineering. I think the "wavy mid range" driver of the CS2.7 is one way to minimize the break up. As for the CS2.4, I am just guessing but the mechanical of the rubber surround was meant to solve the break up problem, and whatever it is, it really works.

Hm..., this whole big planet that there is nothing like Thiel? To borrow a phrase from the movie "Contact" which was based on Carl Sagan book, "this whole big universe and our planet is the only source of life?  What a waste of space."

Anyone ever used to visit the old Thiel Web Blog? Hearteningly, it’s still actually accessible. It’s sort of fun...and melancholy...visiting some of those old posts. E.g.:

http://thielaudio.blogspot.com/2006/09/

http://thielaudio.blogspot.com/2006/10/

And especially all the comments, from many industry pros and writers etc, on Jim's passing:

http://thielaudio.blogspot.com/2009/09/please-share-your-memories-of-jim-thiel.html#comment-form

Hi guys, just got back from my Swiss trip and finally was able to audition the Aries Cerat pre-power Impera ll Ref + Concero 65 monos driving Thiel CS 3.7s.Guys you cannot imagine how far the 3.7s can go when driven by Aries Cerat separates, this is a totally different league compared to the usual Krell, Bryston, PS Audio, Pass and other McIntosh amps that have always been used with Thiel speakers.The speakers bring you directly at a live concert with a very refined sound, full body, super transparent but never anlytical, extremely fast and dynamic.The bass is very punchy uber stable and resolving.Soundstage is just phenomenal and very engaging.I can now say that Aries Cerat pre-power outperforms the aleardy awsome Ypsilon separates that i have home demoed in 2016.IMO Aries Cerat is today the absolute best tube amps at any price and most likely the most powerful tube amps capable of driving Thiels to their max.Each Concero 65 monos weigh 100 Kg.Cheers

prof

Thank You for posting those links.  Happy Listening!

thieliste

Good to see you and read that you enjoyed a fruitful trip.
Tube amp lovers should take your audition advice.

Happy Listening!

samzx12

I am looking forward to your power amp comparison, shoot-out.

Happy Listening!

Anyone interested in a near mint pair of amberwood CS6s? If so let me know and I'll post the ad.

I have 2.4s and the 6s are too large for my room since I moved a little over a year ago. Time for them to have a good home elsewhere.

@prof, that is fun reading.  I definitely agree that the 3.7s are not exceptionally hard to drive.  They appreciate some power but I don't believe you need a megabuck amp to get a lot out of them.  Maybe a huge solid state amp would make a little difference but I'd be surprised if it was big.  My pedestrian amps sound great to me.  The punch is great, bass has great texture, they seem extremely transparent top to bottom.  The transients are so sharp that on some recordings they're jarring and exhausting.  I've been thinking about digging out my Musical Fidelity tube buffer to soften things a little bit on recordings that shouldn't be heard too clearly.

stevecham

Good to read that you still own the CS 2.4 loudspeaker. I know that those CS6s will find the next home.  Happy Listening!

One of my favourite sounds are the times I used my little Eico HF81 14/w side classic tube amp on my big Thiel 3.7s!

It was utterly glorious - rich, open, detailed, sparkly transients - they sounded even bigger than they ever had before.

Really the only negative...if it was a negative...was that the bass became a bit "bigger." (I'm presuming from less damping).  I say "bigger" not "looser" because the bass didn't really become loose or flubby so much as just...bigger and richer...a bigger bass booty ;-)

Ultimately my CJ Premier 12s and pre-amp make for a bit more even sound top to bottom and allow for easier control of the system (e.g. my pre-amp has remote control which I need as my amps are in a separate room from my speakers).  But if that weren't the case, I would have used that little eico on the big Thiels more often.

I still have to get around to trying it on the 2.7s!  (But..well...that project is now delayed...)

prof

over on the other Audio forums, there are Thiel owners enjoying tube amps from ARC and Rogue Audio.  Happy Listening!