Thiel Owners
David Fox sent me a photo of the CS3 with dual binding posts. Indeed that speaker, #539, would have been built months into the product life-cycle, and I would have been the person who made the silk-screen and punch jig for that plate . . . Hmmm . . . Be that as it may, feedback developed from reviewers, retailers and end-users citing problems that we couldn't replicate in the lab, and all turned out to be various forms of cable interaction anomalies. The coherent source architecture shone a light on problems that are just not audible under other playback paradigms. At some point (?) we quit the bi-wire game to mixed reviews. As unsound says, there is value to splitting the signal, especially the equalized signal. For full disclosure, I am bi-wiring (present tense) my ceiling-mount PowerPoint recording studio room monitors as an attempt to preserve the transient edge of the tweeter from the deleterious effects of current draw from the woofer. Mike Morrow is making a cable where all conductors are braided together while having separate signal paths for the tweeter and woofer feed, so the entire bundle (12' long) experiences the same EMF environment, resistance path, capacitive and inductive envelope, etc. while segregating the signal paths. In my imaginary life, I would bring in my audio engineer super sidekick to measure, document and publish the paper elucidating what is learned in an A-B-C scenario of various forms of wire in my controlled, measurable, recordable situation. But, alas, life is short and priorities sing their own songs. In that song, Mike and I agreed that this solution is worth a try. I'll report my experience. |
jafant: No, but I sold them to a neighbor in NJ who has since moved here in Williamsburg, so I get to visit them from time to time. Still nice speakers, though had I the money at the time I would have gotten the 3.5s. It's nice to see Tom Thiel on this forum. The CS3s were the first real high end components I owned, and my wife objected to the light teak finish (she also thought they were too big, so imagine how she felt when I replaced them with Duntech Princesses!), so I called Thiel to see if it was possible to stain them darker. I spoke with Tom, who told me it wouldn't be very successful, and sending them back for a new veneer wouldn't be cost effective (he ultimately suggested tongue in cheek that I just get CS 3.5s in rosewood finish). Tom's woodworking on the speakers was immaculate--the grains were beautifully matched. An extremely well designed and made product--I'm sad to see it gone. |
@tomthiel I am able to find (at Parts Connexion) Clarity CSA parallel combos that will give me the CS2.4 capacitance in the coax (14 and 28 uF) and woofer feeds (33 uF). Reading this review of capacitors: http://www.humblehomemadehifi.com/Cap.html it is tempting to match the Clarity with Mundorf (writer suggests 90% Clarity and 10% Mundorf). But I can’t get the exact Thiel values with Mundorf combos. For example, I can get a 22uF CSA and and 5.6uF Mundorf. How critical is it to get the exact capacitance value, especially given that these are rated +/- 2-3%? It is possible to add a third in parallel, eg, 22 + 5.6 +0.33 = 27.93. Do you recommend adding the third capacitor to get closer to 28 uF? Also, what are your thoughts on adding 0.01 uF bypass? I might try adding a Dueland or Cornell-Dublilier 0.01 to my existing SA in the coax feed - seems like a potential best-bang-for-the-buck mod - but not if you think that’s a bad idea. |
