Thiel Owners

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

This thread has been taken hostage by unsound lately :-)

That’s a great, and funny, story, Tom! And a good reminder of the compromises designers must make. Throwing money at the problem helps but even with unlimited budget, consumers will not have a “perfect” system.

For myself, I most value transparency, resolution, imaging . . . musical immersion. Those are the very qualities improved with the CS2.4 XO upgrade. And I have assembled a system that addresses those priorities within my particular budget. I have zero interest in recreating SPLs of The Who in my room.

Great story about Nelson Pass and his "dangerous" speaker design!

In terms of amps for use with Thiel speakers, I've been very happy with my PS Audio M700 Monoblocks driving Thiel 2.2 speakers. These amps put out 700w per channel into 4 ohms and can handle peaks at 2 ohms if necessary. Fortunately, the 2.2 runs mainly at 4 ohms or higher and only rarely drops into the 3-4 ohm range (per JA's Stereophile measurements).

It's clear that some of the later Thiel models are harder to drive than the 2.2, but folks on the PS Audio forum report great real-world performance of 2.4's and 3.7's using the M700's or the BHK signature designs. I don't think anyone should be hesitant to at least demo Thiels with PS Audio amps.   

@Beetlemania, I’ll say this one more time. IIt’s not about ultimate volume levels!It’s about dealing with impedance!
Look at the graphs of distortion levels in the previously posted links.
Your correct, if it was about ultimate volume levels, I’d have very different speakers.

Yawn. Stereophile amp measurements tell you the outer limits of the unit. If I needed anything even close to 200+ W at 2 ohm continuous, you would have a point. But . . .
never mind. You can have the last word.