Thiel Owners

Ob, Used gear offers great opportunity, with some cautions. Most gear, including Thiel speakers use electrolytic capacitors. Even very high quality E caps have a projected life of 25 to 40 years. Rob says he has never seen a Thiel outright cap failure, but nonetheless, their performance deteriorates with time, causing migration of crossover points and slopes, or a vast array of parameters in amps. Some old gear becomes non-inspiring due to this performance deterioration. So, you might pick up used, under-performing gear on the cheap and have it re-capped for like-new performance, or upgraded for better than new performance.

In your room, you might consider Conrad-Johnson or other tube gear. Pay attention to its damping factor and bass management. Tubes can be very sweet.
 
Best of luck with your system rebuilding. 

And here's a question - I have the CS2.3s, and of course much of the discussion on this forum focuses on other models, but I assume based on specs alone my 2.3s are fairly similar to the 2.4s, meaning hopefully much of the discussion is still pertinent to me?  The corollary here is that I don't need to run out and get 2.4s, and when/if I start getting itchy to replace the speakers, I should think about CS6s or the acclaimed 2.7s. Are these good assumptions?

welcome thosb.  from my experience as a Thiel owner (since 1985 and 5 different pair),   i would not go from 2.3's to 2.4's as it probably is not worth the effort,  though i had the 2.4's and they are terrific.  wait and find a pair of 2.7's as that would be a big jump in sound quality.  

thank Tom for the input on the PS amps.  I use the stereo 250 and it is a killer amp in so many ways.   from all i have read both here and in the audio mags,   i think PS and Bryston are probably the top two "affordable" solid state units, while the new D'Agostino amps are supposed to be incredible but high dollar.  Not familiar with tube stuff as much,   but i know VTL is great gear and might be worth looking into. 

Thos, Replacement models are generated to push the art, grow the company and generate new interest. The old products aren't really old or defective, in fact in many ways Thiel designs out-do many contemporary products. The 2.3 and 2.4 are conceptually the same product, the product that Jim wanted to design in the late 1970s when we figured out that phase coherence was our passion. We knew from the beginning that a coincident driver was the end-game, but we were an internally capitalized skunk-works and it took all that elapsed time to develop the 2.3 coax. The 2.4 was the next generation, with a smaller diameter midrange. But the woofer, crossovers and cabinets are very similar, as is the sound quality. Many folks think the 2.3 presented a more cohesive projection than the 3.6, due to the coax driver. FYI, the 2-series always followed the next generation of the 3-series and benefited from upper-model knowledge and technologies. The 2.3 followed the 3.6.1 (internal nomenclature) which included some driver upgrades.

I concur with Ron that you might best keep loving your 2.3s. One of these days when you are ready, a higher-order or newer model might be in order. And when the time is right, I hope to provide significant sonic upgrades to several of the classic models, applying newer component technologies.

I don't know when or why Thiel abandoned its first tag-line . . . there was some legal bullying . . . and Linn added a word to our motto as an upstage tactic. From the 03 in 1978 until the mid 80s our motto was        "For the Love of Music".  Carry on.