Thiel Owners

Jafant,
My current system is SAM reference TT+Audia Flight phono pre/Raysonic 168 CD player/Bluenode streamer feeding an ARC Reference 3 driving a pair of Levinson 436 amps for this system. As for cables, I am firmly in the budget cable camp, so I use a mix of Blue Jean, Monoprice, and custom made cables. I have more gear than I can use at any one time, so things get swapped in and out periodically though:)

-Gary

An update on my upgrade impressions . . .

There have times over the past couple of weeks when I wondered whether the new boards were fully settled. Regardless, I’ve noticed more than ever the differences in recording and mastering quality among albums, so it could be that’s some or all of what I’m hearing. Michael Fremer, among others, has commented on speakers that are “too” revealing. I don’t agree with his conclusion but now appreciate what he is referring to.

While listening a few days ago I recalled Shane Buettner’s review of the 2.4. He generally raved about it but one complaint was that he heard “slightly on the cool side of neutral sound”. He caulked it up to the aluminum diaphragms (he’s a huge fan of Vandersteen). I ran this past Tom Thiel and he pointed out that aluminum drivers can sound bright or tizzy if poorly implemented but not “cool”. Anyhow, vocals on some songs do sound a bit thin or cool. I suspect this reflects the recording quality because vocals on other songs sound dead neutral. Something like the Norah Jones debut album or recent Keb Mo sound superb but something like Shawn Colvin’s debut not so much. Tom also mentioned that John Atkinson would find flaws in his recordings while reviewing Thiels.

To be clear, I have zero regrets about the upgrade. The textures and spacious sound are intoxicating. The resolution and transparency are pretty much SOTA. This is easily the best sound I’ve had in my room and, in most ways, rivals the best systems I’ve heard. Although recording and mastering foibles become apparent on some albums I wouldn’t go back. And the well recorded music is just so freaking good. I listen to my system almost every evening and I can now bliss out more than ever.

But, this might be a warning to those who share Fremer’s point of view if you are considering the XO upgrade. Curious to hear responses from the community.

My upgrade is not finished. I still need to replace the hookup wire with Cardas and replace the binding posts. I’m also toying with the idea of trying a Jupiter copper foil 0.01 uF bypass cap on one of the coax feeds.

Thanks for the extra pics, holco. I tried unsuccessfully to add pics on Audiogon systems a couple of months ago. Not sure what the problem was.

beetlemania, 

As you can see I had no problem to upload some pictures,  but it's time consuming compared to what I normally have to do on other forums, it's also unfortunately that there is no option to share pictures on the topics itself. 

Regarding your upgraded crossovers, I totally understand what you are going thru, like I said before the 2.4 is performing out of this world so good!! after the crossover upgrade.

As we speak, I am now working on the internal Supra wirering with grounding, hopefully with a positive result. 

Tomthiel,
At least for one loudspeaker I found out the serial number, it's 1446

https://www1.picturepush.com/photo/a/16101822/1024/Thiel-CS-2.4/20190203-194532.jpg

As we speak, I am now working on the internal Supra wirering with grounding, hopefully with a positive result.

I am curious what type of Supra cables you plan to use?  I bought them from Madisound which has reasonably good price.  They are available in various gauge size, but the larger gauge such as 9AWG has an odd resonance issue, but I had good experience with the smaller gauge wires.