tomthiel
Responses from tomthiel
| Thiel Owners sdl4 - you are correct about bridged amps 'seeing' half the load impedance of a stereo amp. That said, the 2.2 is a fairly benign load, especially as Thiels go. I recommend you compare your PS to the AHB if you can. I was gobsmacked by the differ... | |
| Thiel Owners @sdl4 - circling back to your inquiry about driving 2.2s with a single stereo AHB-2. I answered yes you could. But that answer is close to dangerous advice. Granting that it all depends on room size and loudness levels, one amp could easily run ou... | |
| Thiel Owners CS5 electrolytic crossover caps. Whoever spotted them was correct, despite the promo stating 'all film caps'. There a few, always shunts to common and always bypassed by the yellow 1uF styrene/ tin foil cap. There is also an iron core inductor in ... | |
| Thiel Owners Regarding protection: I learned that the flickering lights are merely warnings, not actual activation. That’s why ’it’ sounds so transparent - it’s not actually going into protection. If protection is activated, a restart is required. That's happ... | |
| Thiel Owners @unsound - thank you again. I hear you and am eager to hear about other options. I came to Benchmark via recommendations from high-end recording folks, tried it and like it. I can't explain how or why it outperforms its expectations. I did connec... | |
| Thiel Owners Here's the AudioScience Review | |
| Thiel Owners usound - Thank you for your thoughts. I share your concern about the power ratings, especially into low impedance loads like the (maddening) Thiels. To learn more about the discrepancy between the AHB-2 non double-down performance vs. my intensive... | |
| Thiel Owners sdl4 - distortion profiles are intriguing. More generally various forms of aural masking are intriguing. The aural cortex does somersaults to create the mental image we call ’hearing’. The entire chain from live event to listened experience is con... | |
| Thiel Owners jafant - No retail space in the cards. Open studio space still a couple of dim possibilities. Workspace is materializing a little at a time. | |
| Thiel Owners In small bites. Jim chose the big Krell FPB600. Other muscle amps no doubt 'outperform' the AHB-2. I like the 'grunt' of my bridged Classé DR9s (1100 watts / 2ohms.) Bill Thalmann is presently hot-rodding them. And Nelson Pass is a hero of mine. S... | |
| Thiel Owners Unsound - what do you consider the low impedance limit of the AHB-2? | |
| Thiel Owners tmsrdg - yes sir! sdl4 - remember, I’m an electronics layman 1. Yes, an AHB-2 should drive your 2.2s. Medium-size and real-world are vague and subjective terms, but here’s why I say yes. The (clipping) protection circuitry is so fast and sophist... | |
| Thiel Owners Jeff - you may be in for a big treat! If your woofers are indeed mis-wired, that wreaks havoc with the phase coherency of the whole system. The most certain way to get it right is to get a 6 volt battery (lantern) or 9 volt is OK for woofer with a... | |
| Thiel Owners I recommend getting the Benchmark AHB-2 into your auditioning mix if you can. Once I latched on to its clean, quiet capability, all the way to 1/2 ohm load, I have gotten hooked. Just sayin' | |
| Thiel Owners You are correct - I didn't cross-check my rusty memory. The CS3.5 bass in its enclosure is 'critically damped' Q.5 for no bass hump, which some critics consider 'dry' or over-damped. Also my apologies for my final statement of 'excellent in every... |