jafant...
My local bricks and mortar buds, Audio Den located in beautiful downtown Lake Grove, NY - a town with neither a lake nor a grove - only recently relocated into a new space a little further away from my home. Their new location is now a five minute drive from my house, whereas the old location was literally a nice little walk. The move was necessitated by their needing a larger space to display/audition home theatre/automation equipment which, by dint of the medium, requires more real estate. (Large flat screens, yadda, yadda, yadda...)
To be clear, they haven't altogether abandoned two-channel weirdos like meself. A little while back there was some mention of Ayre equipment in the postings and I was able to listen to an integrated amp through a pair of Maggie 3.7's. Swe-e-e-e-e-t. This was...Octoberish 2019 or thereabouts - while we were imagining the winter to come that never showed up.
Recently, I reconfigured my setup back to a monitors as, once again, financial difficulties have arisen. I am selling my pair of CS2.4's in order to pay some bills and whatnot. (listed here on the site) I'm pretty much giving them away in order to expedite a cash infusion. C'est la vie.
I was recently able to procure a pair of Totem Rainmaker monitors to temporarily substitute for the 2.4's until such time that I will again return to Thiel. This would be my second pair of this model, and I also had two pairs of the Hawk model over the course of time that I've been a member here. (Yeah, yeah, yeah, this site has totally ruined my life.) They ain't Thiel by any stretch of one's imagination, but they are my preferred manufacturer when it comes to monitors and/or medium sized floorstanders.
I am using Transparent bi-wire cables with the Rainmakers which does improve the sonics somewhat over using the jumper setup. These are rather diminutive in size so garden-hose sized cables can be problematic with keeping them stable on the stands. (I know from experience having almost suffered losing my first pair with a Tara Labs garden hose.) Tippy little things with thick cables...
While I await a prospective buyer for the 2.4's I just want to add that I've been toying around with Tidal and Qobuz through the 2.4's. I don't know if its my imagination or what, but the 2.4's clearly preferred Qobuz. I like both services but I lean toward Qobuz for streaming because I was able to hear a difference between it and Tidal on my COMPUTER - an iMac 27" which ain't exactly built for high fidelity anything. That observation remained intact when I played it through my stereo. Qobuz has a more limited inventory of artists, and experiences more frequent bandwidth constrictions than Tidal, but I did detect a preferable difference. I like Tidal as well and I am signed up for the highest rez subscription. I am still on the trial phase with Qoboz. Tidal is $19.99 montly, Qobuz would be $14.99. Decisions, decisions...Apple's Music just plain outright sucks. (And I'm a lifelong Apple freak)
I'm a bit off-topic here, and not for the first time either, but when I compare the online streaming thingies my observation that some have greater or lesser artist inventories ought to taken with a grain of salt. I OWN more music than I could complete listening to before I leave this earthly plain, so the differences between a bazillion artists on one service and a billion on another is pretty much inconsequential, Any streaming service ought to be considered as a complement to everything we already possess, not a replacement. I was able to find a number of releases by Bill Frisell on Tidal that Apple Music did not have, and a few on Qobuz that neither had. It can pay to bounce around a bit. And since decent commercial FM stations are pretty much obsolete, streamers are a good way to discover new stuff.
Rock on Thielistas!
