Thiel Owners

Happy Friday - ALL.

Excellent news about Rob keeping the support. I am already spreading the word to Thiel owners.

I am already spreading the word to Thiel owners.

Good idea. I just pasted Tom's post over at the asylum. We'd be smart to do what we can to support Rob's venture!

I was always on A’gon years ago, but brought back now with the final death of Thiel, Rob Gillum’s phoenix rising, and XO questions.

I replaced the caps in my CS2.4 in 2011 and can clearly answer the questions asked so far. Only way in is by removing the passive radiator with their unusually-sized allen driver. Two separate circuit boards, for the low-frequencies on the base and the HFs on the back (above the binding posts). Unless you don’t solder, little to be concerned with because everything is so BIG and the circuit boards (in at least my earlier units) are made of wood. Best access is with speakers on their back. But even then, expect some contortions to all your work through a 7x10" opening.

Thiel sent me a schematic of the crossover, and I believed Thiel's hours of assessments that the ClarityCaps SA gave the best sound. But I one-upped the 2.4SE with the next-higher model, the ClarityCap ESA. I replaced only these caps as they’re the only ones in-line with the coax actually passing signal, the others are paralleled for impedance matching and frequency contouring.

I researched the caps as needed here, and there are probably newer better caps since 2011, though for a price.
http://www.humblehomemadehifi.com/Cap.html

and I bought them from PartsConneXion (a 27uF direct replacement and a 10uF || 3uF = 13uF). PCX will also match each pair of caps, a big plus for speaker consistency and imaging even with +-3% rated caps.
 I also bypassed them with the then-recommended Vishay MKP1837.

Take a picture of the stock crossover before you start pulling it apart.

I cut the Axons out but kept 1" of their leads to attach the new caps to, and then had to smoosh the larger caps in their place, snuggling them up around surrounding components. I used ShoeGoo to hold them in place to the base and/or adjacent caps to buffer them from vibrations. Once everything is laid out to your satisfaction only then fire up the soldering iron and complete the job. Just be VERY careful how you place your soldering iron as it’s very near a giant woofer magnet and a hot soldering iron being pulled through your woofer cone could make for a very bad day. After you’ve done one speaker, take a break for awhile. When you’re fresh, you’ll do the second speaker in half the time.

It’ll take a long time for these caps to break in to the point where they sound better than what you took out, so put the FM white noise or CD player on repeat 24/7. Having become so familiar with my 2.4s stock, I can confidently say these new caps give a greater purity to the coax, greater air, delicacy and inner detail. Also, better imaging due to tighter cap tolerances around the crossover frequency. Not hugely night and day, but making a good speaker that much better for very little money and time.

I’d post pictures if I could...

While I'm posting for the first time in years, I can vouch for Rob Gillum's excellent solo work.  I had a CS2.4 coax go silent on me a couple years ago, long after Thiel-proper was gone.  To assure consistency, Rob had me send him both my coax drivers, which he rebuilt from the ground up using the latest adhesives and various tweaks developed since their 2004 inception, and their later (relatively) mass-produced manufacture. 

The sound of my 'old' coaxes was so firmly embedded in my ears that once the rebuilt ones broke in, there was no question I was hearing a purer, faster, more delicate sound, with better left-right matching too.  Again, not night and day, but another notable step up to this long-term 2.4 listener.  And the hope that these drivers will last 'forever.'