Thiel Owners

Happy (last) Friday of 2018- All.

Yesterday I upgraded the NOS-11 (Pre/DAC) from Audio-GD to a Audio-GD Master-1 preamp and an Audio-GD R8 (R-2R Resistor Ladders DAC)

Great improvements across all areas!! also nice to experience that the CS-2.4 receives these upgrades with verve :-)

Tom thank you for the excellent advice.  Interesting thread no doubt. 

I will add this.  A local buddy let me borrow his higher power tube amp and it really woke up my 2.7.  He used it on 3.7 with success.  My BAT VK55 isn't a slouch for a 55 wpc tube amp however, the Thiels really need more power to punch out good bass notes. 

Sam, your experience is consistent with mine during 50 years with myriad amps and signal chains. More power, especially current, works better. One insight is that current lag induces phase lag. In most speakers phase lag is not audible, since phase is already compromised and the ear-brain is reconstructing - inferring the wave-form. But minimum phase transducers eliminate that fore brain engagement (because the wave-form is not phase compromised), and therefore any phase anomalies are much more apparent. Similarly holco's GD upgrade is more evident on Thiel (or other such as V'steen) minimum phase speakers.

I'm speaking from hard experience. Upstream transparency was the single most critical aspect of success or failure of Thiel auditions. The speaker always gets blamed for any musical failing. But if you think about it, the speaker is critically translating its input signal including phase response, which is why it can sound so good when the signal is right.

Did a video recording of my audio set, not the best recording in mono but just to get an idea ;)

https://youtu.be/xVTKm7MoWSA

Original song,
https://youtu.be/iIh2y5O8vH8