Thiel Owners

beetlemania...

Hahaha.  Good reply.  I just sold my Maggie MMGi’s off here on the site in just 3 hours.  Took a single re- list to sell the Audio Research DSi200 Integrated sole, but that was $1300 greater.  C’est la vie. 


What my “settling down” means is that I am not going to chase the Audio dragon any longer.  I had some fine setups in the past, but my curiosity - and available funds at the time - had me buying/selling too much stuff to mention. 


My happenstance discovery of the Belles integrated is what compelled me to actively seek a pair of Thiels. 
I moved from Maggies to Thiels before so I know in advance this time around that I will have an extraordinarily good setup - and all for under $3K. 


I’m picking up the CS2.4’s tomorrow afternoon.  The guy who purchased my Maggies might be picking them up later in the day. Talk about timing...


In order for me to get the same sort of articulation and accuracy I am getting from the Belles I would have to spend much, much more.  A LOT. I been dere, I done that. I learned. 


I am realllllllllly looking forward to hearing this amp sing through the Thiels. 

Thanks @holco. Never heard of Audio-gd, but am open to taking a look and will look at their products.  The price is really reasonable.  Has anyone else here used their preamps or DACs?

Thank you for the suggestion, jafant. My brother is starting to get into the hobby, despite my warnings of endless tweaking and empty pockets, hehe, and I may end up giving him my 9000es.  (Will tell him to stock up on parts.) Been looking at going all digital, but I don't think I've done it right--the SQ seems weak.  Not sure if it's because of the Anthem DAC, or perhaps the source.  I've been using my Mac Mini and ripping CDs at ALAC (Apple's lossless codec).  Perhaps the SACDs just sound so much better?  I didn't think there is an audible difference, so I'm thinking it's something else.  Either that, or its just the synergy of the 9000es SACD player with my system.  Will continue tweaking.

For those who have gone all digital and find the results acceptable (or preferable to physical discs such as CDs or SACDs), what have you used from source to the amp?  The Thiels are famous (or notorious) for being very revealing, so it's most likely sounding out a weakness in my chain from source to amp (don't think it's the amp to speaker).  Appreciate everyone's thoughts.

unsound...

I’m pretty much with you on the meters thing, but for reasons including your opinion and others. I kinda enjoy music a little bit more when my living room is practically dark,  illuminated only by the evening outside the window.  My neighborhood doesn’t have streetlights, is heavily treed, so it can get pretty dark under the right conditions. 


I sit 10-11 feet away from my speakers and the last thing I want to look at is a miniature replication of a city scape sitting atop my equipment cabinet. The Belles integrated I am enjoying now has but two small LED’s on its faceplate, one for on/off, one for mute. Using either one makes it disappear.  Noice. 


It’s kinda like the way new automobiles are. I see something “new” added to the “experience” and I immediately think, “Oh, that’s gonna be the first thing to break.”  I had a sedan with a/c’d seats. Nice. Broke. Expensive to fix. One with a heated steering wheel - very nice touch. Broke. Damn. 


On a somewhat similar note - why do some manufacturers position the on/off button on the rear of the cabinet?  Drives me crazy...

Hello batmanfan!

I have a pair of Thiel CS 2.4s powered by a Bryston 3B ST fronted by a Bryston BP20 preamp.   Speaker cables are Transparent Music Wave Super Gen MM.  Interconnects are Kimber Hero XLR.

Almost all of my listening is in the digital domain (only exception is an old Rotel analog tuner).   Although I have a very good CD player,
a Bryston BCD-1, I rarely use it.  All of my CDs have been ripped as uncompressed FLACs.   My listening is via either these ripped CDs or via TIDAL.
 
My digital supply chain consists of the following:
Hard wired ethernet connection (albeit utilizing Netgear powerline ethernet adapters) into Melco N1A.  All of my FLACs reside on the Melco which functions as a NAS, a streamer, and not unimportantly as an ethernet line conditioner.  Melco feeds Chord Qutest DAC via Curious USB cable, as well as a Bluesound Node 2i hooked up to Melco's outbound player port via Audioquest Cinamon ethernet cable.  The Bluesound player feeds the Qutest via Tributaries Coax and my older Bryston BDA-1 DAC via Audioquest Vodka Toslink.
I typically stream directly from Melco when listening to my ripped CDs, and employ Bluesound Node when either streaming from TIDAL or streaming to multiple rooms (have Bluesound kit in 3 other rooms in the house).  Chord Qutest feeds preamp via Audioquest Black Mamba II RCAs.

I am very happy with this setup.  

Have yet to go Roon, but definitely considering it.  Thinking about acquiring Roon Nucleus, at which point I'd have Melco feed Nucleus from its ethernet player port, and then have Nucleus feed Chord Qutest directly via USB.   

I continue to be happy with and amazed by the dispersion characteristics of my 2.7s.  Having been playing them for several guests, all of us seated along the listening sofa, the tonality remains so consistent from seat to seat, and they still manage to image for everyone.

They also sound particularly good from outside the listening room in my hallway.  My speakers face the front of the house, and when outside that room down the hall, that puts you with the speakers both in another room and facing away from you.   My Spendor speakers and my old Thiel 02s are more directional, so they sound more dulled from behind the speakers or outside the room.  Especially the Spendor speakers sound more like "speakers" in hearing more of the back-radiated sound/port.

With the 2.7s they continue to sound so open tonally you'd still think they were facing you.  They sound outside the room like they do inside the room - the same sense of "no speaker there, just the sound occurring in the space."  It's quite fascinating actually.