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Thiel Owners

Guys-

I just scored a sweet pair of CS 2.4SE loudspeakers. Anyone else currently or previously owned this model?
Owners of the CS 2.4 or CS 2.7 are free to chime in as well. Thiel are excellent w/ both tubed or solid-state gear!

Keep me posted & Happy Listening!
128x128jafant
pieper1973's avatar
pieper1973
39 posts
 

Thank you for replying and the info👍🏼

It seems I'll have to go either for the caps Rob will be getting shortly with the correct values of 14/28, or I'll have to combine two or more caps.

Seeing as there are more combinations to get to the magical 14 and 28, what would be a good combination, and could that be explained :for instance, would it make a difference if I combine 8+4+2 uF ( each obviously half the others value; would that create an unwanted effect?), or if I combine 8+5+1?

Would it be better to combine 7+7, or would that be what you not want, because of?

Anybody a nice explanation for how to tackle this best?

Pieter

beetlemania
834 posts
 

Thanks for the post, @tomthiel. Interesting history of the origin of those 1 uF and how they were later used to improve performance of the Solens in other models.

I don’t see “PUR+” on Clarity’s website. Are those the 800 V PURs? Have you heard reports of how PUR compares to CMR? I’m curious to read reports of PUR sonics. Maybe I’ll become convinced to upgrade the CSAs, at least in the coax feeds.

Can you say more about your bypass comparison? I’m imagining you compared full-value SA/CSA against SA/CSA less 1 uF + 1 uF ELPAC. Your post suggests “capacitor tizz” is the result of discontinuities among paralleled caps. That makes sense to me but I’m wondering why this seems *not* an issue when bypassing with even smaller caps. As you know, I bypassed the CSA coax feeds with Multicap RTX at just under 1%. In my comparisons, the bypasses improved transients and, *maybe*, further improved resolution. I did not hear any deleterious effects.  

To get that 14 uF on the CS2.4 coax board, I’ve been suggesting DIYers get 10 + 3.9 CSA and add a 0.1 bypass (Multicap RTX, Audyn True Copper Max, or Jupiter copper foil depending on budget). But maybe the best course is a pair of 7 uF which, apparently will be available per Clarity’s website (although I’ll be surprised if all values on that sheet are stocked by PartsConnexion and Madisound). Might still be worth adding the ~1% bypass for improved transients but your post implies paralleled main caps should be balanced as evenly as possible. And what about that 28 uF cap? Do you think cap discontinuities would be audible with 18 + 10 uF? Or would it be worthwhile to bundle 4 x 7 uF?
pieper1973's avatar
pieper1973
39 posts
 

I've already got one potential upgrader👍🏼

One question here in the forum on the matter..

The person in in contact with at clarity caps said that the 28 uF cap would have to be in 250 VDC, as 27 uF would be their largest in 400 VDC, whereas the 14 uF could be made in 630 VDC (I don't know if the caps Rob has are also 630 for the 14 and 250 for the 28 uF cap?).

Would it be a problem, sonically, to put a 250 VDC cap in the system?

Pieter

tomthiel's avatar
tomthiel
1,670 posts
 

Pieter - Higher voltage acts more like film-foil and sounds better. But the upper frequencies have far less power than bass, so difference is negligible. Also the 28uF is in the final station where voltage has been previously shunted to ground. Al in - take what you can get.

 

beetlemania
834 posts
 

@pieper1973
The 250 V is not a “problem”. The OEM caps are only 100 V. But as @tomthiel explained, the higher voltage caps have thicker film which is desirable. So, a 250 V PUR would almost certainly sound way better than the OEM 100 V Solens or CYCs. But even better performance is possible with 400 V and 630 V versions. I heard an improvement with 250 V over 160 V CSAs on the woofer boards, and those are shunts, not direct feeds. It wasn’t a huge difference, and I told Tom I could understand a manufacturer going with the 160 V to meet a price point, but I was willing to pay for the improvement.

In my communications with Rob Gillum, he seemed lukewarm around my upgrade project. I suspect his stock is limited to SA at 630 V (I might be wrong!). One clue is that Thiel only built ~200 out of a planned 300 pairs of CS2.4 SE. Those SAs will certainly improve the sonics of the original CS2.4, even more so if you have boards sourced from FST with the CYC polyester caps. But a DIYer can do even better in 2022.

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