Thiel Owners

I kid Jafant.  It's very generous of you to be helping out a budding audiophile.

@jafant 

Curious question! Firmware H, 2017.
why do you ask?

As for some of the comments with regard to tubes driving Thiel speakers, well I have a pair of Cary Six Pacs Monoblocks rated at 50W in triode mode.  I tried them to drive the CS2.4, but they just do no have any dynamic and the music lacked any life and vitality.  My conclusion is that the Six Pacs do not have enough power to match well with the CS2.4.

On a larger issue, I am not sure why Thiel in general are a bit difficult to drive.  In my experience, time-phase coherent speaker designs tend to be a bit less efficient than other more conventional designs but it shouldn't be difficult to drive.  Is it because the Thiel driver themselves have very low impedance?  

I myself designed a few time-phase coherent speakers (which I hope to share soon), but the impedance curve or the overall efficiency are not that different if I were the do the same but with using more conventional approach.  I supposed it's not because of time-phase coherent but something more intrinsic to Thiel specific driver specs.

With respect to "ease of drive", I looked at the CS1.5 which I believe do not use "Thiel designed" drivers but more or less "off the shelf".  Based on Stereophile measurements, the impedance minimum is about ~3.7 Ohm at around  200Hz.  Based on that, I assume the drivers used in the CS1.5 are 4 Ohm design.  The overall impedance of the CS1.5 is not that different from most 4Ohm speakers using conventional design approach.

For comparison, I ran a quick simulation on my time-phase coherent design, all using 4Ohm drivers:
1. For a 2-way design, minimum impedance is 3.6 Ohm at also 200Hz.
2. For a 3-way design, minimum impedance is 3.3 Ohm at around 160Hz.

But using a more conventional NON time phase coherent methods, the impedance is about the same, therefore my guess is time-phase coherent is not the real reason for being "difficult to drive".