Thiel Owners

I'm very glad that Jim Thiel took the path he did in terms of value for money.  I always appreciated the fact that Thiel never went into that ridiculous-price territory we see in many other manufacturers.  A top of the line Thiel competes very well with much more expensive speakers from other companies.

(As for Jim's "change of heart" about measurements, I'm not so quick to interpret it that way. The signature strikes me as perhaps a concession by Thiel that audiophiles really go for boutique parts upgrades, capacitors and the like, so this is a concession to that.  Similar to how some manufacturers continued to include bi-amping posts on their speakers because they knew audiophiles wanted them, even if the manufacturer doesn't share the same belief).

@prof Do you think Jim Thiel was insincere when he told Jeff Fritz:

The improved resolution is not the kind of thing that shows up well in measurements; the magnitude of the difference between the CS2.4 and the CS2.4SE is more easily heard than discerned from graphs. The new capacitors allow more nuance, air, detail, and decay to be reproduced by the coaxial drive unit. This was especially evident to us when listening to recordings that contained realistic reverberation, as well as recordings where the instruments were not processed heavily.  

?

Thanks! for sharing- prof and beetlemania

I tend to agree with Jim Thiel and Bill Conrad, respectively.
There is an improvement between the CS 2.4 / CS 2.4SE, believe me, I spent many hours of listening to ensure that nothing was remissed.

Regarding Conrad Johnson, if one is considering a model of pre or power amp, and there is a "SE" upgraded model available, go for the "SE".
Totally worth those sweet teflon caps and vishay resistors.
Happy Listening!

beetlemania,

No that doesn't sound insincere.  I think Jim was a pretty straight-shooter, so that suggests he believes he heard the difference.  Though I would have been interested in a longer conversation with Jim, to draw him out on the subject and see how he may nuance things.

Though I would have been interested in a longer conversation with Jim, to draw him out on the subject and see how he may nuance things.

Well, I think it's telling that he called the Clarity Caps "boutique" capacitors. That sounds quite condescending to me. My supposition is that he was pretty firmly in the "objectivist camp" (measurements tell you everything you need to know) for most of his career and only reluctantly admitted, towards the end of his life, that measurements don't tell you everything.

There is no doubt that his designs measure superbly well (except as measured by Stereophile - JA's "quasi-anechoic" method limits the mic distance to a mere 50"). Soundstage's measurements of the CS2.4, for example, are among the best they have examined in terms of flat frequency response and low distortion. And I consider his drivers to be among the best ever made - near-pistonic behavior albeit handicapped by the slow roll-off of the first order filters. But that quote to Jeff Fritz, shortly before Thiel's passing, clearly indicates that he recognized that not all sonic improvements can be quantified by machines.