Thiel Owners

Very cool Tom!

I first heard Thiels on tubes at CES - in the VAC room where Kevin Hayes was using Thiel CS6s.  I was completely entranced by the combo.  Not being able to afford VAC and already having good experience with lower priced CJ amps, I sprung for the big CJ Premier 12 monoblocks, tried them with the CS6 and there was that magical sound I'd heard at the show.

But then, I tend to prefer certain tube amps on most speakers.  I've never been able to settle in for very long with an SS-powered system.

Prof - my personal AHA moment was somewhere around 1981, possibly with the introduction of the original CS3 at Chicago CES. We used Tim DeParavicini's Esoteric Audio Research pre and power amp. I was dumbfounded. Jim dismissed the pluses because he couldn't get past the minus of insufficient deep bass control. BUT, I never really heard such magic again, probably because I got so deeply immersed in factory-building that I lost track of the musical experience.

We usually had a latest CJ and ARC model in our listening room. All those amps seemed to vanish before the bankruptcy auction except the Krell FPB-600 in Jim's lab.

We usually had a latest CJ and ARC model in our listening room.

I have very limited experience with CJ but ARC is great stuff, IMO. If I wasn't an Ayre-head, I would probably have ARC (or Aesthetix or a John Curl design).

There are one or two Thiel owners here on A'gon who use ARC to drive CS2.4 and, even, CS3.7 using ARC.

Jim dismissed the pluses because he couldn’t get past the minus of insufficient deep bass control.

Understandable, especially from his designer perspective.

The reason I’ve held on to the Premier 12s all this time is because Michael Fremer’s old stereophile review nailed the character of these amps. They have that mid-band lushness, upper frequence glow/sparkle/aliveness and yet produce taught and controlled sounding bass with every single speaker I’ve ever owned. I never feel compromised with "tube bass" in terms of a flabbiness or lack of control. As I’ve written, the 3.7s on my CJ amps had the most controlled and coherent bass I’ve ever heard.

The CJ Premier 12 amps are still expensive to buy used and expensive to re-tube when necessary. I would think a Premier 11 (the stereo version) would be a very nice substitute, and a fantastic amplifier to hear with the CS3.7s, also. I love CJ and I love ARC. I am currently using Audio Research Classic 120 mono amps with my CS3.7. They make a simply magical combination. But I am sure a CJ Premier 11 (or pair of Premier 12)  would be stiff competition.