Thiel Owners


Guys-

I just scored a sweet pair of CS 2.4SE loudspeakers. Anyone else currently or previously owned this model?
Owners of the CS 2.4 or CS 2.7 are free to chime in as well. Thiel are excellent w/ both tubed or solid-state gear!

Keep me posted & Happy Listening!
128x128jafant
(Continued - sorry) 
are real or just the normal sales talk. 
Have speakers really improved that much in the last 20 years and is it maybe worth checking out other brands now that my 3.6s need work ?
Are there any objective Thiel owners among the Thielophiliacs that have done serious unbiased listening to other newer brands and can provide thoughts on PRAT, imaging, coherence, etc. of other brands vs. our beloved Thiels?
Thanks. 

unsound...

You were the very first member to relate the merits of the 3.5’s to me and once again I have learned more. 

I mis-spake (new word!) about sensitivity/efficiency and your input cleared that up.  Much appreciated.  

I had lived with a pair of Klipsch Epic CF-3’s for a period far longer than I have with any Thiels. (Entirely Audiogon’s fault, mind you.)  Those old Klipsch had a sensitivity of 101db, capable of being driven with a tabletop radio but - and oy vey! - those compression horn loaded tweeters really got to me after a while.  At one point, just before I removed the drivers and turned the cabinets into bookcases, I had actually stuffed a pair of white crew socks into the horns to eradicate the brittle quality.  Solely for aesthetic reasons shortly thereafter I used some foam.  Neither attempt resulted in resolution to the perceived problem so...bookcases. 

Don’t ask.  I am less of a carpenter than I am a technically proficient “audiot”, but it struck me as a good idea at the time.  

Anyway...it might be misconstrued by some followers of this thread that I didn’t like the 3.6’s. They were typically excellent Thiels - unbelievably “true” sounding from top to bottom.  It was only at my very conservative listening levels that they didn’t, couldn’t (?) deliver that natural, organic bass.  Pushed a little beyond my norm they were as wonderful as the 3.5’s. 

Thiel makes ANYTHING sound good, period.  I’ve thrown just about everything at the Thiels I’ve owned - class a, class a/b, class d, monoblocks, tubed and passive preamps, and they all benefitted from Thiel. 

If I didn’t discover Thiel from this site I would probably still have that old Pioneer pushing them Klipsch...

There’s been a lot of recent talk about using Bryston amps with Thiel’s here recently. I am not the only one who has touched upon this more than once before, but I guess for some slogging through all the posts on this thread might be daunting.

There was a time with the earlier Thiel’s that Bryston was as easy recommendation to make. A company with a long tradition of well made products, with one of the best warranties in the business, respected by both audiophiles and pros alike. Heck, the 3B is still one of my favorites. But... the more recent Thiel’s with sub 4 Ohm impedances aren’t quite as good a match. If one is considering purchasing Bryston amplification for any of the sub 4 Ohm Thiels it behooves you to read the following:

https://www.stereophile.com/content/bryston-4b-power-amplifier-measurements

https://www.stereophile.com/content/bryston-3b-st-power-amplifier-measurements

https://www.stereophile.com/content/bryston-7b-sstsup2sup-monoblock-power-amplifier-measurements

We can see that only the biggest 7b mono’s really have a proper 2 Ohm power delivery window to deal with the more recent Thiel’s. Even then it 690 Watts into 2 ohms is equivalent to a 172.5 Watt amp that could truly double down. With the latest Thiel’s impedance load one would be paying for 400 or so of unused Watts per channel.




rosami, while there has been some incremental improvement (IMHO more hype than substance) over the years in speaker design, I still think the real value is with some of the older stuff. Some of the great designers, like Jim Thiel, John Dunlavy, Peter Walker, etc.,  have past, and there hasn't been a stampede of newer one's jumping to take their unique places. If you like Thiel's you might want to check out offerings from Duntech, Green Mountain, and Vandersteen. I suspect the next generation of speaker design on the horizon might be a bit different with more internal DSP functions. Time will tell.

rosami


great timing for another consideration of Thiel speakers. Over on eBay, there are several pairs of CS 2.4 loudspeakers. Grab a demo if you can,

much has changed since the CS 3.6 model. Keep us posted should you decide to go in a different brand, direction.


Happy Listening!