Thiel Owners

I have the original CS fives. 

"Looking for CS5 suggestions."

I have CS5's and live in the greater Indianapolis area. Audio Solutions would lend me used gear home for in home auditions, which were on a 15 amp circuit. 

I tried Krell, Pass, and Mark Levinson, among others, all of which were rated at 300 WPC plus into 8 ohms and doubled down. They all could power the CS5's and all sounded a bit different to me in my listening room. Also, they all were huge boat anchors, like 150 pounds. It was really a lot of fun maneuvering those behemoths from car trunk, down the stairs, and back out again. Fun - truly and sarcastically.

I thought that the Pass 350.0 was the best, because it sounded very solid and had a presence to the sound. But it was just too big.

I lived with a Coda at 300 WPC for a while and it did a pretty good job but seemed to me to get a bit constricted at the highest volumes.

My current amp is a McCormack DNA-500 and It is effortless in powering the Thiel CS5's as anything I have heard in my listening room. It may miss that last bit of rock solid presence I thought I heard with the Pass.

I always am looking at potential amp changes but the DNA-500 makes me very happy and weighs in at less than 100 pounds; so it will probably take me winning a lottery to change it out.

FWIW

Thanks for listening,

Dsper

ovinewar

Re DAC/Transport - here are some items I can speak to from personal experience that you could land today for less than a grand.

Re transport - check out the Bluesound site's outlet store at www.bluesound.com.  They are currently asking $199 for 1st gen Bluesound Node and $399 for 2nd gen Bluesound Node 2.

For a more than capable DAC, I've seen Bryston BDA-1 currently going for as little as $500 on Audiogon.

I personally had the 1st gen Node hooked up to the BDA-1 via Toslink and can report that this is a more than capable combination.   
I happily employed this combo in my main rig from 2014 until earlier this year, and still employ both pieces of kit elsewhere.     

Dsper

Steve McCormack said the DNA-500 is the best amp he's ever heard ,
lucky you .  If you truely like the sound I would suggest
sending it to Steve for one of his upgrades , or DIY .

I have a CJ/McCormack DNA-250 that I have been replacing/upgrading
capacitors and resistors ( getting 4 Hovlands in todays mail  )  
and I can tell you that
changing a few componets can make a hugh improvement in sound .
Replacing three  2 watt  resistors with Tantalum ones from Audio Note
suprised the heck out of me , highly recomended .

jafant 
seems like more people are discovering McCormack amps .

Next year my Thiels !

Rob

p.s.  Does anybody here have experience with Goldring MI cartridges
or Grace F9-L ( 5.5mv ) cartridges ? 

Your Bryston in bridged mode is not recommended for the low impedance of your speakers. In bridge mode, 8 ohm is recommended as minimum and your speakers go down to below 3 ohm. Keep them in unbridged mode and they will comfortably go down to 4 ohm and produce 200 + watt. Your amp would be great for bi amping though!