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Driving a Thiel

I'm looking at purchasing some of the discontinued floorstanding Thiel Models (CS .5, 1.5 and 2.3)and was wondering whether my 120 Watt Marantz SR 8200 receiver has enough power to drive these speakers. I'm not playing anything loud but other threads about appropriate amps and so forth concerned me.

Thanks for all the help!
aniesen
curio's avatar
curio
305 posts
 
I totally agree with Buff

I have Thiel2.4 and I think Cmalak never listened his speakers yet.
I strongly suggest Cmalak to put a powerful SS amp behind the 2.4 and listen how much them sound differently
I use the Parasound Halo JC1's , kinda 400/8ohms and 800/4ohms to feed my 2.4 and I bought them from a guy with ARC monos 120 .. he's another one that never listened this speaker correctly powered.
It's a impedence matter .. tubes can't correctly copy the long fall into 2 ohms that 2.4 has in the mids territory where on the contrary the powerful and good SS amps floodlight that area.
cmalak
681 posts
 
Curio...I have had powerful SS amps behind my Thiel 2.4s...I had the Musical Fidelity A5 (250/500/1000 wpc into 8/4/2 ohms) and I had Musical Fidelity KW500s (500/1000/2000 wpc into 8/4/2 ohms). And I upgraded to the Ref 110 with a big smile on my face. So thank you for your recommendation but I tried all three and know what sounded best (to me). If you read my post I told the OP to be cautious and choose speakers that are more sensitive and have a more benign impedance curve because it is unlikely that has integrated receiver will be able to drive any of the Thiels.
unsound
7,329 posts
 
Hevac1, the Thiels don't have a "wide Ohm range", in fact it's just the opposite.
Curio, the Thiels don't have a "long fall", see above.
Thiels can be run with some tube amps, but due to the load, tubes aren't the most cost efficient way to power them.
hevac1
812 posts
 
Unsound,
A speaker that can have loads down to 1 ohm is a wide range to me. Most amps are rated 8 to 4 ohms. not many have a lower Ohm rating in their specs. I have listened to a few amps with Theils and found most even if rated down to 2 Ohms cannot handle them.
cmalak
681 posts
 
Hevac 1...I am not sure where you get that the Thiel CS2.4 goes down to 1ohm...in the attached link, you will see that the speaker stays between 3 and 4 ohms from 100Hz to 50KHz and drops to 2.7ohms (min dip at 600 Hz). So a high quality 4ohm rated amp with 100wpc+ will drive the Thiel 2.4 very nicely. Here is the Impedance vs Phase vs Frequency plot from Stereophile: http://www.stereophile.com/images/archivesart/theC24FIG1.jpg
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