Thiel Owners

The maximum wattage that can be produced by a 120 VAC, 15 ampere supply, depending on the amp's efficiency, is about 1500 watts.

Regarding 2.4: The XO part of the SE upgrade is simply replacing the 2 coax feed caps with ClairtyCapSA (best at the time). Rob @ CSS has them.

Our upgrades are trumping that in spades. We are replacing all components with carefully chosen, cost effective, high performance parts, and then backing off for a few less expensive cost/performance plateaus. beetlemania and I are addressing the 2.4.
Highlights: later 2.4 XOs were made in China and have less than best coils. We are replacing with old Thiel spec high-test coils in shunts and high-test foil coils in feeds. Resistors were sand-cast and we are using Mills MRA-12s, best of form, great improvement for the buck and near best at any price. beetle has tested and I have confirmed. It's a go.
Caps are ClarityCap for lots of reasons, will explain more later. Two generations past the SA. The CSA is state-of-the-art. All CSAs including replacing all electrolytics with a custom CSA. Bypasses are combination of Thiel custom styrene/tin 1uF with ultra-bypasses: MultiCap RTX or CC-CMR and/or various silver mica and other ultra caps being auditioned. That's the highlights. These parts are CS7.2 and better plus a return to hardwire point to point boards, with added thermal sinking and vibrational damping. Serious stuff toward considerably higher refinement than Thiel's traditional max bang for the buck orientation. We're looking very closely at cost, but making the assumption that you, the owner, has and loves the speaker and will consider this upgrade compared with buying a different speaker. I am confident we will create an exquisite sonic outcome for reasonable cost. Stay tuned. Sorry for delays. Life intervenes.

tomthiel

Will this upgrade be a board that replaces the existing board or a package of components for the user to assemble/install on the existing board? I recently upgraded my 2.4s using Rob's parts and am very pleased with the results, and I'd consider another, once yours is available, but am not sure I have the technical skill to rebuild the board with new parts.

unsound - Thank you for your point of view. It is entirely valid and I do not intend to recommend the Benchmark for the reasons you cite. But my task is to find source and process equipment that operate at the edge of serviceability rather than big, bulletproof, proven amps which are known to be great. Dealers that succeeded with Thiel generally used Krell FPB-600 or Big Levinson / Ayre etc. etc. You guys know what works. I know that those will all work better with my designs. I must find solutions to the larger problem of most amps not working well enough with Thiel designs. 

I am hoping to mitigate what I judge as somewhat misplaced design focus on Jim's part. He considered amp performance as amp-maker's problems and if an amp can be found to drive his speakers, then there is no problem. A disconnect that I see includes that the internal hoops we jumped to keep prices affordable were overshadowed by the costs of suitable amps. (Indeed those amps can now be bought used for less. Good.) I am working on the assumption that those amps will perform well without my intervention. My mission includes implementing design strategies that produce great performance with less than ultimate amps.

One such strategy is the particular bi-amp configuration I mentioned. I hope to prove a cost-effective way to drive Thiel's brutal loads with less cost than big iron amps. I want a very different amp than my classic Classe configuration. I will final test with Rob's FPB-600s among others. But I also want to see what I can get with a pair of affordable new world amps costing less than $3K new.

unsound - you are right. There may be some backlash. But we here are an insider beta group sharing a development process. Indeed we will test at full power. BUT everything we are doing will improve performance at high power. That end of the use spectrum is not my concern. My concern is getting maximum bang for the maximum head count from the upgrades.

Someone asked for a list of amps which I have dismissed. I don't have such a list. I read widely and systematically. I know that amps color the signal and how that generally works. I look for clues and attitudes in reviews and user comments, and add that to my personal experience. I know that if I use tonally and temporally accurate equipment with well made source files that my results will be valid. I am looking for the needle in the haystack and have not itemized the haystack.

Beyond amps, I am using Klippel and SpectraFoo Phase Torch and signal analysis gear. I know symptoms from square wave behavior and am familiar with measurement vs listening protocols; I helped develop those protocols at Thiel. Jim went on to amass tens of thousands of hours of experience correlating data with listening. I can't claim that. But I do know the territory, including considerable live and recording experience beyond what Jim brought to the table. I am taking an alternative perspective.

I'll be straight with you guys. I do not have the financial means to buy a dozen amps for comparing and proving. I must choose some tools within my means which tell me as much as possible about what I am doing and where I am going. As the project might gain momentum, I might get access to amps on loan, etc. (For reference, at Thiel we always had more than a dozen amps on reciprocal trade from top manufacturers.) I hope that JAFant or others of you might create a recommendation / dis-rec list from your considerable combined experience - beyond the conversation we have been sharing. That list would provide a huge service / reference to the 4000+ members of this forum.

Off for now. I'm running sound at the Open Mic at our Village Arts Center.
Next week the Piano Guild is testing my alternative bridge in their project piano. The piano, the guitars and the speakers all co-inform my understanding. Interdisciplinary Boogie.

jacob - we don't yet know what form the upgrades will take. One complicating factor is that Thiel crossovers since 1990 / CS2.2 use silver/tin solder which requires technical know-how. We will probably have a first-level upgrade of critical caps and all resistors that the adept user can implement. The higher levels are completely new layouts and will probably come as new boards with probable instructions for added cabinet braces and other tweaks. Too early to say. I know I shouldn't say. But, hey, you guys are family.