Thiel Owners

Welcome! f1wheels

there are a few Ayre and Pass Labs users here. Best advice, go to the 1st post and read forward to the present. There is a plethora of information in this thread. Excellent advice and tips abound. Have fun David.

Happy Listening!

Welcome F1. I am speaking from personal experience and generalizations and do not formally represent Thiel Audio. The Ayre and Pass Labs are both extraordinary amplifiers from excellent designers. Each has its sonic signature, but either is considered top drawer.
It is worth noting that you blew 2 drivers with the Ayre. I suspect something is wrong with it or something else in your chain. Those coaxes are very rugged and the only failures I know are from distortion. If it were mine I would seek troubleshooting and repair. Also the power advantage of the Pass is significant. More power always runs cleaner. Definitely consider it. Look at the watts / ohms ratings. A good amp for current hungry Thiels doubles power from 8 to 4 ohms and again doubles or nearly so into 2 ohms. That pattern bespeaks a power supply capable of delivering current, which you need if you listen loudly to lots of bass or persistent dynamics and/or in a large room. Good luck.

The 2.4 and 2.4SE drivers are the same. The crossover has upgraded components plus the cabinet finish and the outrigged plinth make up the SE. Some of us on this thread are developing a Super SE with considerably higher performance parts which will become available through Coherent Source Service when the time comes. 

Enjoy, Tom

Tom, 
Years ago, I owned the IMF Loudspeakers by Irving M. 'Bud' Fried.
When I opened my store in Louisville, in '83, he called me to discuss carrying his products. (By then it was 'Fried Loudspeakers'. One point he was adamant about ADAMENT!, was his stand on real wool stuffing in the cabinets of all his models. 'None of that cheap synthetic sh*t'! So, when I designed the LSA's one thing I did was A/B the speakers with the standard cheap, stuff, lol. It was truly an aha moment. NOT a placebo effect. I repeated this for several audiophiles, not explaining. They unanimously and overwhelmingly picked the tightly packed wool models. I can't remember what was used in all the THIEL speakers. (I'm old). I recommend this for any box speaker. 
Have you experimented with this?
Larry

TomThiel wrote:
>A good amp for current hungry Thiels doubles power from 8 to 4 ohms >and again doubles or nearly so into 2 ohms.
I've been wondering about this. I run a Classe ca-300 amp with my 3.7s. The soundstage  does get a bit congested at large orchestral climaxes, for instance. The Classe is rated 300wpc into 8 ohms and 600 into 4ohms, but there is no specification regarding doubling into 2 ohms in the literature. The 3.7 has a minimum impedance of 2.8 ohms with sensitivity 90dB/2.83V/m. Do I need a more powerful amp?

tmsrdg,
This is an old memory so forgive any misstatements. 
I remember talking to Jim and Tom about their design work on the CS5 Loudspeakers. One issue, and a large one, how to pull the amount of current from the amplifier to adequately make the bass come alive. 
The speaker had a stated bottom of about 22Hz as I recall. Jim said that they decided that if the impedance dropped enough, that that would pull the amount of current needed to adequately fund the bass. (just as the 3.7 drops in impedance in the lower bass) After the speakers were finished, he and I had dinner and Jim expressed his disappointment in the published specs of the big boy amps versus the reality of their capabilities in producing power into diminishing resistance. It seems that they were not nearly as powerful as claimed.
Back then, Gryphon, now a powerhouse amplifier, was woefully inadequate in playing program material on my CS5's at even moderate levels, with music having deep bass.
As Jim said, 'Every solve creates another challenge', or words to that effect.
So, tmsrdg, I'd check a review or two on your amp, I'm thinking you're right about the congestion issue. Possibly they don't rate their amp into 2 ohms is because it doesn't do well. Many don't.
Best,
Larry