Thiel Owners

Thank you jafant. Tastes span AC DC to Allan Taylor, Spyro Gyro to Carole King.  Also don't mind some newer pop and country music as long as it isn't 90% backtracks and focus is on the voice. I enjoy great voices, beautiful piano, or acoustic guitar the most. Chris Stapelton would be a more recent voice. James Taylor would be a longtime favorite. Chris Botti, Mark Knopfler, Poco. Not much exposure to classical but new age Jazz is pretty incredible. To the enlightened  I am most likely a neanderthal on the  music taste front, but all of us are a product of those things to which we have been exposed.

I have had a capable NAD receiver and Infinity Preludes up until recently, as well as a Samsung Radiant wifi system for streaming throughout the house. Setting my office up with some better sound.Wanted to build from used and keep the budget reasonable because I am slightly OCD, I can get addicted to things pretty quickly so controlling that is a must for marital harmony. On that front, the 225 pound, 6 ft shipping boxes were not the most popular package to end up on our porch! No way to hide those on entry. 

How about you as far as listening tastes?

Ovinewar - do you have original CS5 or improved CS5i speakers?

I have the original CS fives. 

"Looking for CS5 suggestions."

I have CS5's and live in the greater Indianapolis area. Audio Solutions would lend me used gear home for in home auditions, which were on a 15 amp circuit. 

I tried Krell, Pass, and Mark Levinson, among others, all of which were rated at 300 WPC plus into 8 ohms and doubled down. They all could power the CS5's and all sounded a bit different to me in my listening room. Also, they all were huge boat anchors, like 150 pounds. It was really a lot of fun maneuvering those behemoths from car trunk, down the stairs, and back out again. Fun - truly and sarcastically.

I thought that the Pass 350.0 was the best, because it sounded very solid and had a presence to the sound. But it was just too big.

I lived with a Coda at 300 WPC for a while and it did a pretty good job but seemed to me to get a bit constricted at the highest volumes.

My current amp is a McCormack DNA-500 and It is effortless in powering the Thiel CS5's as anything I have heard in my listening room. It may miss that last bit of rock solid presence I thought I heard with the Pass.

I always am looking at potential amp changes but the DNA-500 makes me very happy and weighs in at less than 100 pounds; so it will probably take me winning a lottery to change it out.

FWIW

Thanks for listening,

Dsper

ovinewar

Re DAC/Transport - here are some items I can speak to from personal experience that you could land today for less than a grand.

Re transport - check out the Bluesound site's outlet store at www.bluesound.com.  They are currently asking $199 for 1st gen Bluesound Node and $399 for 2nd gen Bluesound Node 2.

For a more than capable DAC, I've seen Bryston BDA-1 currently going for as little as $500 on Audiogon.

I personally had the 1st gen Node hooked up to the BDA-1 via Toslink and can report that this is a more than capable combination.   
I happily employed this combo in my main rig from 2014 until earlier this year, and still employ both pieces of kit elsewhere.