Thiel Owners

Andy2, Really? Is that where this is going? I suggest that you either offer more constructive posts or work on your cleverness.

@unsound
If you’re trying to recreate orchestral climaxes in your room, I suggest you have the wrong speaker rather myself with the wrong amp. Most Wilsons or the JBL K2 9800 will play loud as hell without issue. I hope buyers of the CS2.4 are not expecting to get ear splitting SPLs. And I hope, for the sake of your ears, that you reserve that experience for an actual orchestra a few times per year rather than every night in your room.

Yes, 85 dB is a low bar. It’s also close my upper limit of comfort. Unless I’m going to listen to folk or a quartet, I bring ear plugs to most concerts. Even at 90 dB, my Ayre has plenty of headroom, probably <15W with the 88 dB 2.4. It’s laughable to think my amp is sweating. 2 ohm, 4 ohm, doesn’t matter at this level. Meanwhile, go take a look at Soundstages measurements of the 2.4. Speaker distortion probably becomes audible before amp distortion (and the CS2.4 has superbly low distortion).

Yes, extra power sounds better, all other factors equal. All other factors are not equal. I’ll take an Ayre, ARC, or Aesthetix over any Krell or Levinson, thank you (hey, I’m an A-hole!). I won’t assume your system is wrong for you. Please grant me the same and ronkent.

@Beetlemania. Once again, it’s not about ultimate volume levels, but rather the ability to provide the power into the actual impedance loads of the loudspeakers.
I never meant to single out anyone in particular. Just the opposite, I’m suggesting that some of the amp recommendations made here by others weren’t necessarily the best general recommendations for many Thiel’s. It just so happened that I ended up following up to those individuals that responded to my post.
The power levels I suggested were actually based upon Thiel’s recommendations. Jim Thiel told me himself that Thiel’s power recommendations were based upon standard 8 Ohm power recommendations, with the assumption that the amps could double down as needed. He offered that for example that if using say a Thiel with a 4 Ohm rating, and one wanted use a tube amp (incapable of doubling down) then one should double the power recommendations appropriately.
As you can see from the links in my previous posts, many of the amps frequently reccomended here, struggle to do so into lower impedances. 
As impedances drop so do sensitivitities.  400 Watts into 2 Ohms won’t provide much more volume output than 100 Watts into 8 Ohms. 
I don’t think many would find 100 Watts an outrageous number of Watts with an 8 Ohm speaker.

As my contribute here I can witness that my loved McCormack DNA-2 in my opinion is perfectly able to drive my Thiel CSs 3.6, usually I don't push the volume very high but anyway my system seems never in the lack of power or dynamic, old beast but it still fit all my needs.