Thiel Owners

andy2,

Very interesting post.  Thanks. 

I know what you mean about the "sparkle" that some speakers may have (in this case yours) vs the Thiel sound, and certainly agree on the advantages of the concentric mid/tweeter design.

I wonder if you have heard the last, re-designed version of Thiels concentric mid/tweeter in the 3.7 or 2.7 speaker?

I was familiar with previous Thiel speakers (including having had the Thiel CS6 for quite a while with it's concentric design) and the 3.7 design, with that new flattened, corrugated mid and new tweeter, was really another step ahead, both in terms of smoothness, clarity, and coherency.

I have auditioned a great many speakers and heard too many to count over my fervid audiophile career, and I've simply never heard a more coherent speaker top to bottom, but especially in the mid/upper frequencies.   It's impossible to hear any crossover or discontinuity, just a perfectly whole, seamless presentation.   Every time I came home from auditioning highly lauded, latest greatest speakers (including new Magico and others) one of the first things that stuck out is how the Thiels made those other speakers sound less coherent.

Same for soundstaging.  As you mention, I really enjoy how consistent the sound is from the Thiels from a wide variety of listening positions.  That to me is a very natural aspect of sound.   If a speaker starts to sound phasey, or really shifts tone/imaging quickly with listening position, that's a turn off to me.   

I'd draw an analogy to TV technology.   When plasma displays and LED displays were battling it out, I had the same issue with LED lit displays, as their image altered in contrast/color noticeably with any shifts of the viewer off axis, which gave it a a "shifty" quality to the presentation.  Plasma, being emissive light source was completely even and stable, so it produced a beautiful, consistent  image from any reasonable angle.
An image of a painting on a plasma would be akin to what it's like to view the real painting, insofar as you could walk around and examine it from whatever angle you wanted.

Whereas LCD, especially in previous incarnations (and still to some degree today), had a shifty quality which made it more like those "hologram art" pieces, where you have to stand in just the right position for the illusion to work, which instantly identifies it as artificial.

I get the same issue with really fussy speakers.  It's one of the reasons why I don't care for most electrostatic speakers, especially Martin Logan.  ML have long claimed they have mitigated the "head in a vice" electrostatic problem by curving their panels.  But whenever I listen to ML speakers I still hear the same issue.  Move my head and the image quickly slides in to one speaker side.  Whereas with my Thiels, while of course there is a sweet spot for the stereo illusion, it's wider and tonally there isn't some obvious change with listening position which make it feel lessy fussy, more natural, and more realistic over a wider listening area.

And as Andy says, the Thiel design is fantastic with soundstaging and imaging specificity.  The 3.7s were just about the best soundstaging/imaging speakers I've ever heard, at least from a conventional box design (only my MBL omnis exceed them in some ways).

Though of course now I live with the 2.7s.

In my long "speaker auditioning" thread on A-gon, I mention a lot of speakers I auditioned, and every time I came home I'd spin the same tracks on the 2.7s and one of the first thing that would impress me (aside from the beautiful tone) was the soundstaging and imagine.  The Thiel soundstage is huge, the imaging dense and palpable.  Playing live concert recordings especially had the sense of expansiveness and being at a concert.

As I've mentioned in the thread before, one of the performance advantages I heard from the bigger 3.7s over the 2.7s, is that the 3.7s imaged more consistently across the whole soundstage, speaker to speaker, so even instruments panned hard left or right floated distinctly apart from the speakers.  I find that less so with the 2.7 design, where instruments to the sides tend to sound a bit more 'coming from that speaker' than the big Thiels.  

I also get the sparkle thing Andy spoke about.  Depending on how I position my Thiels I DO get a beautiful sparkly golden tone in the upper frequencies.   But it's more of a consistent "glow" over the whole spectrum.  There isn't ever a sense of the upper frequencies "sticking out."  It's very inviting.  But on some other speakers the design can seem to add a bit of additional sparkle to the upper frequencies that can be appealing as well.  It's one of the thing that appealed to me with the Joseph and Devore speakers.  It makes, for instance, picked acoustic guitars sound more vibrant and present.  I don't mind it if that character doesn't sacrifice too much in the way of coherence, and it's a nice place to visit, sonically.

Prof,

I didn't get to listen to the CS2.7, but from what I've read, the CS2.4 concentric driver uses mechanical cross over where as the CS2.7 uses electrical xover.  It means that the CS2.4 driver probably uses a high pass capacitor in the signal pass and since the midrange need a lower xover frequency, the capacitor probably has a large value which usually is not optimal for high frequency.  The signal has to pass through this capacitor even for high frequency.

I don't have the information but if I was correct about the CS2.7 concentric driver being electronically xover, the tweeter can have its own xover which means it can be optimized using a more appropriate capacitor therefore it may explain what you heard in term of the treble glow.

The CS2.4SE has upgraded capacitors and although I don't know the specific detail, but my guess it's the series capacitor of the concentric midrange is most likely.  These high end capacitors do cost a lot of money.  For example, a typical for a tweeter capacitor is around 5.6uf which could cost somewhere from $50 - $200 depends on how much you want to spend.  For the CS2.4, since the midrange part has to play much lower frequency, the capacitor could be as high as 10uf or more which will cost even more.  A quick look up, a 10uf Mundorf Supreme is $55.0.  I've read somewhere that the capacitor used in the CS2.4 is Clarity SA which although a good cap but probably not the best.  When I used Clarity SA cap in my own speaker tweeter xover, for example Cowboy Junkies Trinity Session track Mining for Gold, the background noise of the recording is not that apparent.  But when I switch to Mundorf Supreme cap, the background noise was a lot more apparent and more 3 dimensional.  When I listen to the CS2.4, I always told myself that the treble could use better capacitors.

As for comparing plasma vs. LCD or LED, I have always prefer plasma over LCD or LED not only for having wider viewing angle, but plasma was always more natural to me.  A lot of people may not realize it but picture processing also use filters not that unlike xover in speaker.  They also high order or low filter.  High order filter in picture processing allows for sharper and clearer image, but at the same time less natural - sort of like music as well.  Each TV manufacturer has its own picture characteristic.  Sony tends to have a more vibrant and sharper image.  Where as Panasonic tends to have a softer picture and I suspect it has to do with the filter design.

In the few minutes I have . . . Andy, good observations - the 2.4 upper coax is crossed over as a single driver - the electrical signal drives the tweeter only, and the midrange piggy-backs through a mechanical elastic surround. Indeed the CC-SAs in the 2.4SE are less than state of the art, but at the time were CC's best offering. Regarding the "glow", Thiel always avoided artifacts even if they sound beautiful. In my present upgrade work with beetlemania, we have chosen ClarityCap CSA's which are 2 generations beyond the SA and are extremely good as being extremely neutral, without artifacts. We're testing efficacy of various bypasses in parallel to the CSAs.

You are correct about the 2.7 XO midrange feed cap. It is a 400uF electrolytic, which is audio grade, but nonetheless degrades the mid signal a little, even though it is bypassed by a 15uF polypropylene and a 1uF styrene & tin foil. My upgrade strategy is to eliminate all electrolytics (somehow!) to make the speakers virtually perpetual (electrolytics drift and fail over time). As you say, great caps are very expensive. I am assembling cap bundles based on a custom Japanese best in world film, bypassed by CC CSAs, rebypassed by the custom Thiel Styrene/tin and possibly a CC-CMR - all depending on which circuits. Much comparative evaluation will continue toward finding the best performance/ cost plateaus. It is easy to spend $thousands on caps. We are likely to have at least 2 upgrade levels for each of the products we address. The 2.4 is on the list and progress is being made slowly but slowly. 

Excellent discussion Andy, Tom, Prof
I know that Beetlemania and Tom, specifically, are working diligently on this XO project that will benefit us very soon. I am looking forward to the final products for upgrade and excited by ClarityCap CSA best offerings.
To address Andy's initial query, yes, the CS 2.4SE is an extra dose of sweetness to an already sweet CS 2.4 loudspeaker in stock form.

Happy Listening!

I'm still a Thiel owner (my entire HT is Thiel and my subwoofer is a Thiel SS2/Integrator), but my main speakers are as of last night Audio Physic Avanti 3. On a whim (well not so much as my buddy has a pair of AP Virgo 2's), I listened to them and was completely blown away. They do everything that I love about the Thiel's equally well, but added a smoothness and that famous AP ability to "disappear".

The only thing I really had to give was the Cherry color of the AP vs. the maple that makes my 2.4's look so stunning. Guess you can't have it all!

It's a shame to keep the 2.4's in storage (well, in a finished attic, so not much of a storage per se), so I will put them up for sale. If I had a second system, I would keep them, but I simply don't have the space for that (I've already claimed a room for my stereo and the basement for the HT, so I can't ask the wife for yet another space...)