Thiel Owners

Good to see you- ish_mail
Hope Tom can answer/provide assistance w/ your query.  Happy Listening!

ish - I would be speculating as well. I have heard that the SSs stay out of the digital domain, therefore accomplishing their requirements in analog, and probably doing it such as you suggest. I can offer no real insight. However, I am still looking to develop a qualified repair station for SmartSubs. I welcome any input from all of you.

Silvanik - Rob at Coherent Source Service does have a CS3.6 XO schematic which I developed from layouts. Rob determines how he shares that proprietary information. We are developing upgrades to address issues such as you mention. Electrolytic caps do drift and fail over time, and there are more sophisticated solutions available today, especially capacitors. I have bought a pair of 3.6s to put in queue behind the PP, 2 2 and 2.4 presently under development.

We have determined to replace all resistors with Mills MRA-12s at unity value for a stand-alone, cost-effective upgrade. However, further changes to layouts, foil coils and lower ESR caps may require tweaking those resistances at the time of further upgrade. The 3.6 work is scheduled in 2019.

tomthiel
Thank You for addressing ish_mail and silvanik's queries.
Hope you had a fun Labor Day Weekend.  

Happy Listening!

Guys I need a bit of unbiased advice. That may be a stretch here;)

Im considering upgrading my caps to SE spec on my CS2.4's. 

im sure the SE guys will jump in and say do it but before I do I'd like to hear your thoughts since there is a bit of risk doing this myself and I'm not sure what the benefits will be. 

First off I've never listened and thought - I need more clarity. I have thought need more mid bass. My understanding is frequency response doesn't change but clarity does. 

Ive never heard the SE's either. 

I can can get the parts for $400 bucks, assuming I do the work myself is this upgrade worth it?   Mind you I'm no expert with soldering and will need to YouTube how to solder to bring my skills up to speed.  I can solder two cables together or to a binding post, but I've never soldered to a board. 

@last_lemming Soundstage/ultra audio and feel the music both reviewed the SE version albeit they did not directly compare to the standard version. The only difference related to SQ was two capacitors in the coax feed. These are Clarity Cap SAs which Rob Gillum has at Coherent Source Service. I think you will find this a worthwhile upgrade. But these have now been surpassed by two generations of Clarity Caps. 

This is a *really* long thread to slog thru but maybe start January 2018 when Tom Thiel started posting. Mr. Thiel is working on crossover upgrades for legacy Thiels and the CS2.4 is among the first models getting his attention. He is planning Clarity CSAs in the coax feeds, probably with 1% Multicap bypasses. Other caps are also likely to be CSAs including a custom low voltage cap in the shunt positions.

Resistors will be Mills MRA 12s. I replaced my OEM resistors with Mills. Here are my comments copied from elsewhere in this thread: “the Mills has a fuller, richer sound although my perception of this varied from song to song. I heard little, if any, difference on solo trumpet but a pronounced difference on the well-recorded 2L Mozart violin concerto. Guitars and voices were more "full-bodied" on folk-rock, blues, and bluegrass. More “tonally-rich” might be another way to describe it. On a Chesky test recording, percussions were more emotionally engaging, toe-tapping. The Mills also seems to have a bit more texture or, at least, it was easier to hear into the microdynamics. I think this is related to my initial impression of a "lower noise floor”.”

"I hear more bass impact, a more spacious soundstage, and, especially, an ease of presentation. The MRAs even seem to have mitigated a somewhat “glassy” quality in the midrange."

If you are itching to upgrade, get the SAs from CSS and Mills resistors from Sonic Craft. Otherwise, wait a few more months and get the full kit from Tom Thiel/CSS after the upgrade is finalized.