Thiel Owners

CS2.7 upgrading update .

A few months ago I had finished upgrading the woofer board and heard some improvement but nothing earth shattering , I am almost finished with the coaxial and the improvement is way beyond anything  I would have thought possible . 

I kept things simple , replaced the resistors with Mills , upgraded the capacitors , bringing the electrolytic capacitors within  and/or lower tolerance specs , making only one change suggested by Tom , replacing the 400uf capacitor with 4 100uf caps .

What I discovered was that the electrolytic capacitors used on the shunt or negative side were out of tolerance , the 68uf cap used on both the tweeter and woofer were up to 20% over while the 330 and 220uf used on the mid was about 7% over .  The 68uf caps were replaced by Mundorf caps that were about 3% over but replacing the 330 and 220uf caps was a bit of a problem .  First I replaced them with ERSE " 5% " tolerance caps that turned out to be over 11% over ! I didn't even try to listen to them . Then I  tried Jantzen " 5% ' caps , they were about 6% over .  I listened to them for a while and was happy with hearing the improvement that the other upgrades made but it bugged me that Tom was telling me that Thiel's tolerance max was 5% and mostly within 3% , so after asking Tom's advise I went with a 300uf Jantzen cap that together with the 220 I was able to achieve a 2% over tolerance . 

I said almost finished because I am waiting for Clarity to release the PUR series capacitor ,  can it get any better ?  Some say that the 1uf bypass cap is very influential  so I'm hoping for a yes . 

Tom just mentioned that he is replacing the steel screws with brass , do it it does make a slight improvement , I also installed reinforced nylon screws on the coaxial speaker , as for the washers I had to grind down brass ones to fit using them on the woofer , I did see that McMaster Carr has some #8 washers as small as .375" OD but I think they might still be a little to large .  I also discovered that the screws holding the boards inside the speaker were of ferrous metal  and replaced them with brass .

This project has not been easy but it is well worth it .

tomthiel

Thank you for your undying passion in R&D. I realize that it must be tough to perform such duties without a dedicated Hot Rod Garage nor Studio. Bravo! We all are better off with your presence here.  I enjoy reading about Thiel Audio via History lessons as well. Your mind is extremely sharp.

Happy Listening!

oblgny

How is your Summer my New York Brother?

Happy Listening!

 vair68robert

Thank you for your DIY contributions as well. How is your Summer?

Happy Listening!

jafant - I do love the R&D and do appreciate the support and interactions I get with you guys. I’m glad Rob is pleased and hope we get those Purity caps sometime soon. The new order seems to run on snail time.

It is difficult and frustrating to be working against the current. But, progress is being made. The declarations here about Cardas Clear Beyond caused me to overcome my bias from earlier Cardas wire which I found to be warm and dark. I require neutrality and now have a sample of their 15.5 gauge internal hookup wire for comparison. Tests this week!

In the general news department, Bill Thalmann of Music Technolgy in Virginia has finished upgrading my Classé DR6 and is working on the DR9s. He is also upgrading the CS3.5 equalizer which has been upgraded to best professional specs by Jim Williams of Audio Upgrades in California. I’m looking forward to visiting Bill to compare JT stock against JW, against BT upgrades and finalize that project. I will say that in my trials here, JW’s upgrade is a significant improvement over Jim’s (budget constrained) 1987 design. JW used a bigger transformer, regulated power supply, faster and quieter transistors and a couple more bypass caps. JT’s design had all styrene caps and metal film resistors which came through unchanged. JW’s upgrade has a more authoritative bottom end as well as a cleaner, more transparent upper midrange. The previous ’sparkle’ was an artifact. Progress, slowly but surely.