Thiel Owners

Viewed another way, you got an unbelievable bargain. In the realm of passive speakers, which is still the norm in home systems, their design-engineering equates to products selling in 5 figures. I know factually that multiple other manufacturers would claim $15,000 as cabinet value alone.

I understand the desire to buy stuff as cheap as possible. But, I also encourage you to consider the intrinsic value of the goods. Pick a dozen brands / products at $20K and compare your new 3.6s toe to toe. I bet you'll be thrilled.

Tom is right about the value here.  It's one of the reasons I have such a dim view of audiophiles in general.  They'll spend ridiculous amounts of money for stuff that simply doesn't perform that well.  Thiels are a bargain at MSRP and they historically haven't held value that well so you can get an obscene bargain for the performance if you buy used.  When I bought used 2 2s it really opened my eyes to this.  They replaced a pair of 3k msrp speakers from a larger company in a second system.  They were so obviously, laughably superior that I don't think there's a single person on earth that wouldn't have recognized it.  It took a while for me to accept it but I eventually concluded that the relationship between price and performance is extremely weak.  I don't know what "audiophiles" want but it's clearly not the truth.  

Pick a dozen brands / products at $20K and compare your new 3.6s toe to toe. I bet you'll be thrilled.

Yes! There are 2, maybe 3, speakers south of $20K that I would *consider* trading my CS2.4SEs for. And that's before I finish my XO upgrade . . .

the relationship between price and performance is extremely weak

Indeed, I can think think of a few models as high as $40K that I would not trade my 2.4s for. But I can also think of a handful north of $40K that I would pick over any Thiel (maybe I would change my mind after a Tom Thiel XO upgrade?). But they damn well should sound better given the chasm in pricing. The bottom line is an audiophile can be *really* happy with a pair of used Thiels and not have to worry about how to get some incremental SQ improvement . . . until after winning the lottery.
:)