beetlemania
Responses from beetlemania
| Brand new Vandersteen Model 2's Folks just don't realize how great capacitors can make such a difference. Absolutely. I have first-hand experience with this as I replaced *all* parts in my Thiel CS2.4 SE except the drivers and cabinets. Heck, I even heard a small but meaningfu... | |
| Thiel Owners @stspur I don’t think you’re going to find a 630V EL. If you’re swapping for fresh ELs just match the voltage rating. The high voltage *film* caps are for critical feed path placement in which higher voltage = thicker film = better sound. Now, if ... | |
| Thiel Owners @stspur The “S” are probably Solens. Those were probably pretty good for their time but the Claritys should be notably better. Pretty cool to see “Thiel” on those resistors just like Tom wrote. Still, I would upgrade those to MRAs, especially if ... | |
| Brand new Vandersteen Model 2's Vandersteen makes running changes to models without changing the name (other manufacturers also do this, eg, Ayre). The 2Ce Sig II got a new midrange driver circa 2012 that was unannounced and I think RV made one or two other changes before the Si... | |
| Vandersteens on active speakers and room correction "Above 150Hz", he said there is nothing that can becompared with using high quality capacitors and air coil inductors. That sounds credible to me and I have no interest in active speakers other than I *am* curious to hear the Dutch & Dutch. | |
| Diminishing Returns Fair Enough, just depends on where/how you define “diminishing returns”. To restate my point, the Vandy 2 is a great value and reaching for the newest iteration within your budget will be rewarded even if the returns are diminishing. | |
| Diminishing Returns I think you would be hard pressed to get any other speaker the quality of the 2CE’s Sig I’s for that little Vandersteen model 2 is, IMO, an all-time best value in high end audio. Get the most recent iteration you can afford (it is frequently upg... | |
| Thiel Owners I disassembled one (original prototype # -0004) cabinet, removed the crossover and wired only the woofer to the input terminal. The other (-0003) was left as a reference with the internal XO and woofer intact, but with the midrange and tweeter... | |
| Ported versus sealed speakers: is one type better? Speaker designs are tradeoffs. Ported designs can go deeper and play louder, in general, while sealed designs have superior definition and textures. | |
| Thiel Owners Vandersteen’s carbon drivers are, IMO, the best audio drivers ever. If I win the powerball, I won’t look any further than his model Seven.The 2.7/3.7 coax and ribbed diaphragms were a significant step towards the same goal Vandersteen has with res... | |
| Thiel Owners The 400uF electrolytic is in series feed to the midrange. Oh, wow! Welp, on the plus side there is more room for sonic improvement. But 400 uF of film caps will certainly need a new layout/board. And it looks like one of the other ELs is 220 uF. A... | |
| Thiel Owners Jim never went over 100uF. Pic of @vair68robert coax crossover has a 400 uF EL. I know this crossover was designed after Jim passed. I imagine he will need to use an entirely new board if he chooses to replace that cap (plus a couple of other... | |
| Thiel Owners I was at least able to verify that the original caps are indeed Clarity Caps SAs as I am almost certain that this is the first re-cap these 3.6s have ever experienced You must have very late production 3.6s. I would have guessed Thiel stopped ... | |
| How many people here generally buy used? Most of my gear I bought used or demo. My system at retail price would be out of my budget . . . and retail price system within my budget wouldn't put a smile on my face. | |
| Thiel Owners @tomthiel Thanks for your report. I’m impressed with the variety of configurations tried. I’ll further adjust mine based on your narrative. I wonder why “don’t do it”? |