What's wrong with Thiel?

Thiels, love 'em or leave 'em right? I'm one of them that has been stuborn, and stuck with the Thiels. I've own the 1.5s,2 2s, and 3.6s. I am curently driving the 3.6s with Pass Lab Aleph 1 monoblocks 150w, Audiotruth Dragon silver speaker cables, Monarchy 22C DAC,and transport pluged directly to the amp with WireWorld gold Eclpise 2 ICs. Even though all my gear is warm, it did not come together until I incorporated four 11" ASC tube traps in my small 19'X 12' listening room. Room treatment was my best upgrade!

Sweet is not a word you hear often to describe Thiels. Believe it or not my Thiels are often Sweet. Nothing wrong with that..........!

Have you hugged your Tube Traps lately?????

I have a pair of Thiel CS 2.2 rosewood speakers with original double packaging boxes and all correct inserts. I am very motivated to sell these speakers at a realistic price. The fabric on the grills is loose in a couple of places and the passive radiators need to be glued back into place. I really do not have any space for such a project and have not used the speakers (in favour of my Audio Note speakers and little tube amp) in quite some time so I just want to sell them.

If you are handy with glue you can get these speakers for a Very Reasonable Price.

Let me know. By the way, all those comments about Thiels are true. I used to use a Levinson M 27.5 to drive these speakers and felt no need for a subwoofer and they sounded great and played both soft and very loud. I returned to the tube world and that is why they are available.

Regards,
Carl

Sugarbrie - I would definitely agree with you that matching amplifiers and speakers is important in the case of every speaker, not just Thiel's. However I would like to rephrase your next statement. I do not believe it is fair to say that a speaker which will run on a wide variety of amps cannot sound as good as a speaker which is more limited insofar as which amps will drive it properly. There are many wonderful speakers which have a relatively benign load and sound as good as Thiel's (different - but just as good) But I think perhaps what you were getting at is that a speaker which is unable to reveal the differences between two amplifiers is clearly inferior to one which is able to do so.

Incidentally as somebody pointed out - the newest Thiel speakers are starting to sound a little warmer and will not sound as bright even on brighter amplifiers. Also the impedance characteristics of these new speakers is considerably more benign than any previous Thiel. I think Jim Thiel may be making an effort to develop a speaker which is a little less picky about the amps which drive it - we may see a tube friendly Thiel yet.

I agree Hackmaster. You said it better than me.

Hackmaster, I don't think the newest Thiel's speakers impedance load is that much different than his other recent entries. They are more sensitive. Some of Thiels older models were more tube friendly, particularly the CS-2's with a 6 Ohm nominal, 5 Ohm minimal load and The 3.5's that were 4 Ohms nominal , 4 Ohms minimal load. The 3.5's did require a beefy tube amp due to the use of an active equalizer. While Thiels recommended at least 50 watts that rating was in reference to standard quality solid state ratings where the amps would double down. As such one would need a tube amp with double that rating from it's appropriate tap. These impedance loads were very steady compared to most other speakers. Unfortunately high powered tube amps usually(!) cost more that similarly powered solid state amps. Most amps enjoy the freedom from roller coaster demands that steady loads provide. The point being that it's not that all Thiels have been unwilling to work with tubes, it was just usually more expensive to do right.