Thiel Owners

Yeah...

In the past two/three years I've had...

The newest McIntosh stereo receiver MA6700
Which I liked kind of...took that back and bought the MC275 tube amp because, well, it looked so cool. Had a minor issue with it which McIntosh customer service absolutely proved useless so I sold that off...

My local shop had a CJ MF200 which I bought because it was...there. I'm having it looked over right now. 

A Peachtree 220SE integrated. 

A Primare i32 integrated which I liked but not enough, so I returned it and purchased my current amp, their A34.2 which is really good. My local shop is also Primare's national distributor. 

A  pair of Musical Fidelity M1 monoblocks - which were fun. 

I think I might have missed one. 

However,  currently my BAT VK3i pre and the Primare are working really well and I'm not really looking.  Unless of course I am able to find a Pass...A few posts back I mentioned there was a BAT amp I was watching with a buy it price of $1500 - about $500 below the BB average but the seller let it go for $1000!!! Aaaaargh!

Laughing...
I search both A'gon & eBay everyday, so I do not miss an opportunity of a lifetime!

Thanks for mentioning the Primare I-32.  I want to demo the cd player -CD32.  It is good to read that something was amiss in your system.
Interesting that you like the Primare power amp?

All-

talk about your interconnect (IC) and speaker cable (SP) journey over the years, past present and future.  Happy Listening!

Jafant...

Until I landed here about 3 years ago I had pretty much regarded interconnects/speaker cables as the last thing on my list. Sight unseen, sight unheard, heck - the components came with them, right?

I think the first "high end" amp I purchased here was a "vintage" McIntosh MC2100 105 watt per channel solid state affair which had very small screw terminals for the speaker connections. The seller related that he found a certain brand, which is now long forgotten, perfect for bringing out the amp's best performance.  I was then using a pair of Klipsch CF-3's which had been driven by Radio Shack cable from a 100 foot spool, tucked along the walls and laying - gasp! - on the shag carpeting. Them speakers was 101db efficient comprised of two 10 inch woofers and a  centered compression tweeter which I found to be shrill - especially with my new "audiophile" amp. 

This thread could also be titled "How Audiogon Ruined My Life and Why I'm Still At It."

On subject...  Based on the seller's advice I walked into my local shop and made the inquiry. They knew of the amp's Trumpian sized speaker terminals and fashioned a pair for me out of some Tara Labs cables.  Bingo!  Wow, this stuff is true!  Mind you, I was then somewhat surprised at paying over $100 for speaker cables having never done so before. 

Sheesh. 

I then, and up to quite recently, had a very mixed bag of cables for everything, a few Tara's, MITs, Silnotes, Morrows...never using one brand or another in the chain altogether. 

Goertz speaker cables are amongst my favorites. I still have 2 pairs, single and bi-wire just in case, 7 feet long. I have not had any speaker wires laying on the floor for a long time now!

Currently I am 100% Transparent Audio throughout, components and speaker alike. Reasonable in cost, excellent customer service, with a trade up policy I believe no other cable company offers.  I'm sold and happy. 

Sight unseen, sight unheard...it's sound, not sight that matter. Cables ain't sexy, there's no lights, buttons, meters, brushed aluminum fascias, toggles, aerospace graded space age polymer coatings to appreciate. I cannot offer any technical opinions regarding my preferences for cables in general, but I will offer that experimenting pays off.  I suggest starting off small and continuing from there. I have and it's worth it. 

Damn you, Audiogon!

By the way, my spate of recent posts to this thread was conducted whilst spinning vinyl and ripping discs into my server yesterday in an air conditioned space.  105 here yesterday afternoon. Yikes. 

Great forum, I'm still learnin' stuff!

I used Audioquest cabling for my earlier 2.2's & 2.3's. I switched to Transparent cables when my Thiel dealer (extinct now!) sold me some in the 1500 range. Later on I had a chance to compare much cheaper Sanders cables and interconnects. They sounded at least as good, and were much cheaper. Now I use Sanders for much of my needs except for when I switch to tubes and don't have balanced connections. Then it's Audioquest as I have sold my Transparent. Call Roger Sanders and order a pair if you don't like them, he'll take them back and refund your dough. I just call him and tell him how long and single ended or balanced and a week later I get a box of cables! Viola!