Thiel CS3.7 and CS2.4 comparisons?

How are the cs2.4's sounding james63? What amplification did you mate with them?

Velocityofhue,

I am still enjoying them. I have not worked the system around them. I just dropped them into my old system Mac Mini (connected by toslink)-Benchmark HDR-DAC1 preamp/dac-Wyred4sound ST500amp.

My guess is that most people on this site would not like my system but enjoying a system is about knowing what you like and going with it. My system is very detailed and very aggressive for the bottom up. The bass has lots of punch and depth (relative to the size of the speakers/room) and is very good from such a small speaker, mids are sweet but tell the truth on vocals, bad recordings need not apply. Highs are nothing special but still hold there own, in my very damped room the highs are balanced and not bright at all (brightness is common with the 2.4). The driver integration is OUTSTANDING, and soundstage is as good as my room will allow.

I have moved them into a smaller room 12X15X7 and I feel they are a better fit in the smaller room. The bass fills the room better and everything else stayed about the same. I guess I should post pictures of my system sometime.


I really just bought the speakers as a stepping stone but I think they will be keepers for awhile. I have demoed the Thiel 3.7, Sophia 3, B&W 802Diamond (CS2.4 also) again this month in the same system/room. It was my second round of demoing the Sophia 3. I had full intent (still do) to buy new speakers. But the quality of the CS2.4's sound really makes me stop and rethink high priced speakers. I have been looking for a sound that turns out I already have... I guess that is true of a lot of things in life.

The CS2.4 is the first set of speakers that I have had where I do not focus on a glaring flaw. I have over 3000 CDs on an external drive and use my iphone as a remote. I love to change songs/albums/genres on the fly. I like that I can go from a soft Tori Amos album "Under the Pink" to something like Dream Theater at the drop of a hat. So all in all I am enjoying the music and that is what it is all about.

I may just skip mid priced highend ($15000ish) and hold out for a deal on something highend I really want. I am not sure speakers in the $15000 range will yield better results in my current room (still in the small house my wife and I bought in college). Once I move I will upgrade.

Hi james.....I'm interested in your impressions/comparisons with those other speakers you listed. I'm in the same boat, I have CS 2.4s hooked up to a McIntosh C220 pre and MC 402 amplifier. I also have 2 Velodyne DD 10 subs which pretty much take care of the bass. I was also thinking about upgrading to the next step of speaker....some of the choices I've been considering are the CS 3.7, the Verity Audio Parsifal Ovations, Sonus Faber Elipsas, and Avalon Indras/Transcendents. Are our CS 2.4s really that good that they do compare to some of these much higher priced models? What do you think? I haven't really had a chance to do any comparisons yet.

I used to have Thiel CS 2.3 and then 7.2s. The 7.2s are still a great value - probably could find a pair in the $5-6k range. With the 7.2s, I would listen to new speakers, and could never convince myself that any under $30k were truly any better, IMO.

I think you need to go out and listen, and ask yourself, is this really $x better than what I have.

In the end, it took me quite a bit more to find a speaker that provided what I really needed to justify a step-up. I think the Avalons provide a higher level of refinement compared to Thiel, giving away nothing the Thiels provide, while bringing more new experiences to the table.

I have to agree with Rtn1 and say that refinement is what you gain with higher-end speakers. The issues is not messing up anything else in the process. IMO materials do not over shadow engineering, but when you have both things get very nice.

Audioguy3107,

Now to answer your question directly. "Are our CS 2.4s really that good that they do compare to some of these much higher priced models?" Yes in the appropriate setting.

Consider the room:

What I mean by that is my room is about 1/2 the size of the demo room. So my CS2.4 fill and load my room about the same way a larger speaker (Sophia 3) filled the much larger room. The end result it that my system in my room was VERY comparable to the sound of the Sophia 3 in the larger demo room. Now where I will ruffle some feathers is where I thought my system was better but I will get to that later.

Also when you think about room size, in my smaller room I need less energy created by the speakers to achieve the same loudness of a bigger room. The speaker can play softer for the same volume. This creates less stress on the speakers and build quality (inertness, distortion, etc) is less of a factor.

One advantage of a larger room is soundstage and imaging. Small rooms have too many close boundaries to really let the imaging and soundstage do its thing. So all in all my point is, if you have a large room big expensive well engineered speakers will out perform an over achiever( CS2.4) but if your room is like mine (limited) I do not think many of the pricy speakers are better.... just different. Also we all know the down side of huge speakers in a small room so I will not get into that side of the discussion.

Concerning the speakers:

Thiel has engineering that other "small" brands could only dream of. The difference between Thiel and some of the other higher-end brands is they design around a price point. Good for me, bad for people will a lot of money. Engineering is easy when price is not limited but when price matters and you still have a good product they have done something very right.

Brands that put as much into engineering as Thiel and also bring unlimited quality of parts will outperform them.

Audioguy3107 I will be more than happy to write you a little review of my demo (with music used etc). I have not demoed may of the speakers you are looking at but as a fellow CS2.4 owner I could give you my take on what I have heard. It will take a little time though. Just let me know if you would like my opinion on any of the following demos and what aspects you are most interested in. What do you feel you are missing with your current system?

I have demoed the following speakers in the same room/system several times over the last year and mixed and matched electronics on occasion.

Sophia 3 vs 802Diamond (Two weeks ago, This time the Sophia 3 was spiked and set up fully with Audio Research/Classe' gear).

Thiel 3.7 vs Sophia 3 (about two months ago... I wrote an over view but the thread seems to be gone now, not sure why??, Musical Fidelity/Audio Research gear)

Thiel 3.7 vs CS2.4 ( two months ago, same room but slightly different systems. Systems were on opposite sides of the same rectangular room).