Thiel Owners

My only experience of amps on the 1.6s has been Accuphas (too tame), Rega Cursa/Maia (not quite enough in reserve when called upon but up for it), and Naim 282/250 same RMS power as the Regas 80W but with a much better transient reserve and these coped very well. With the exception of the Accuphase these amps could make the Thiels Rock, not something they seem to be noted for I gather. A Rega Osiris would be worth a try if available too from what I've heard from it elsewhere.

As I've said in the past, I use a pair of Cambridge 840s with my 3.7s and I think they're completely adequate, at least at the moderate volumes I listen at. You'd pay in the 3-4k range for a pair. I know a guy who hangs around on audioasylum uses a $2,500 parasound a21 on his 3.7s and has for a while. I tend to think that amps are a good place to make a compromise on price. As long as they have enough power the differences tend to be small compared to speakers. I think the preamp makes a significantly bigger difference overall.  The Benchmark looks like it'd probably do fine with most Thiels, although it's pretty small compared to your pair of Classe amps. I'd be interested to know how a bridged pair would do with the low impedance.

I assume going forward people building Thiel systems will be the type who are more interested in getting great sound for the money than in big names or eye candy.  I get more satisfaction from knowing I got great performance for a moderate amount of money  I've got around 16k in my system and it's so good I have no interest in messing with it.  Benchmark DAC2, Bryston BP26, Cambridge 840 x2, Thiel 3.7, Infinity Intermezzo 1.2 sub.  The electronics definitely won't win a beauty contest but they perform great.  

^Enough power for the load at hand.

Good points unsound. Amps from the same manufacturer often have differing goals and topologies and do not perform similarly. Thiel speakers got progressively more demanding - I guess the 5 bass was worst, but the earlier speakers were more benign, probably because Jim didn't yet have the Krell FPB-600 and Levinson 33Hs. Bryston amps seemed to get better and better at driving Thiels, partly because Thiel was their design-test torture load.

(Thanks again to the well-wishers for your kind comments!)


Tom,

Where does the 7.2 sit in your estimation?   Is it still the pinnacle of performance in Jim's designs?