Thiel Owners

@tomthiel - Hi, Tom! In another Thiel related thread, you offered to share your take on why there wasn’t a CS4-series speaker. Wondering if you wouldn’t mind sharing that story here?

Thanks again for enriching these discussions!

Arvin

Larry, It's been  a long time, and I might be mistaken, but I thought the late "Bud" Fried also thought 1st order cross-overs were "all wrong". I seem to recall that some of his designs were supposed to be based on transmission line cabinets, yet none appeared to be suitably ginormous enough to be actual transmission lines. Also, wasn't there some sort of brouhaha with Stereophile over the measured bass output of his speakers vs. Thiel's, wherein Stereophile reexamined their procedure; to find that they were in fact correct.

Tomthiel, Interesting that you used Krell's  (though I can understand why)  for developing the CS5's, it's been long rumored it was the 250 Class A Watt mono Threshold 12e's.

A good amp for current hungry Thiels doubles power from 8 to 4 ohms and again doubles or nearly so into 2 ohms.

Neither Ayre or Pass give a 2 Ohm rating for the amps F1 is considering. I’m not convinced, however, that matters for a CS2.4. Unless you like to listen at *really* high SPLs and/or have a large room, either amp sound be more than enough to deliver musical bliss. Interesting observation, though, that something in the, um, Ayre might have caused the blown coax. I wonder what that might be.

The CS5, though, looks to be a supremely current hungry speaker. Stereophile’s measurement shows the impedance dropping <2 Ohm in the bass! Might not want to drive those with a SET :)

The observation of congestion of orchestral climaxes at high SPLs suggests, to me, the onset of clipping. Probably need a more powerful amp if that’s how you like to listen.

Rob,

I’m glad you enjoyed my ramblings on the Thiels. At one point I rambled in an online hi fi mag reviewing speakers (many years ago) so I’ve had a lot in my listening room. I drifted away somewhat from the hobby for a while (turning to designing my home theater room among other things). Still, both back then and now I have enough contact within the community to hear amazing gear.

I keep experimenting, modifying the positions of the 2.7s and find I can get them sounding almost however I want - smooth and lush, brighter more dynamic or a mix in between.

Right now I’ve dialed them to where they sound just super clear with incredible transient response, yet with a warm inviting timbre. Playing something like P. Glass’s Powaqquatsi with it’s ever changing layers of percussion sounds so exciting and life-like, the exact character of every different drum, block or triangle so vivid.

Like I said, I’ll miss the 3.7s scale, but the 2.7s portray more rhythmic drive and conjure sonic images with more solidity than anything else I’ve yet heard. So they are to my ears very much a “performance-first” speaker where the lively sense of musicians performing is the overall effect vs other speakers where soundstaging/spaciousness may leave the overriding impression.

ronkent,

Thanks for the REL recommendation. I used to be more familiar with that line years ago and they were my first thought.
However I’m in a situation where some room features rule out anything but very small subwoofers and the size/performance ratio of the JL Subwoofers I chose are tough to beat.

As I think I may have detailed earlier in the thread, the JL subs, though generally made to use the rca line ins also offer a high level speaker input - ala REL - and as that was easiest I started taking the feed off my 2.7
speaker posts.

Though I got some of the subwoofer benefits - larger, deeper sound - I also lost dynamics and the tone of the system went too dark/soft/rolled off.

i don’t know why (and I’m mostly a newbie with subwoofers as I’ve usually hated subs).

I tried using the rca inputs as well (sent from my preamp) and while it was a bit more dynamic the tone of the system changed too dark. In both cases this was running the 2.7s full range with a low crossover point.

JL Audio’s position, and that of most of the subwoofer aficionados I’ve read, is to go with the crossover and split the sub/mains, usually around 80hz. So that’s my next move. (I bought JL Audios high end analogue crossover).