Thiel Owners


Guys-

I just scored a sweet pair of CS 2.4SE loudspeakers. Anyone else currently or previously owned this model?
Owners of the CS 2.4 or CS 2.7 are free to chime in as well. Thiel are excellent w/ both tubed or solid-state gear!

Keep me posted & Happy Listening!
128x128jafant
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I've had the CS.5's for about two weeks now and they just continue to fascinate me. I can't help shaking my head and smile whenever I hear these lilliputians on steroid do their thing.

The sound comes out so smooth and balanced that I could listen to them for hours and not feel fatigued afterwards.

They may be the bottom of the CS line but I feel very fortunate to have these gems in the house. They were designed by Jim Thiel himself and that's what counts.

Now if I can only source a set of cheap spikes that will fit them. Their 8"x11" footprint is not exactly carpet-friendly.
TomThiel, tried to pm you but had difficulties. Will try again some other time.

jazzman7 - if those CS.5's were mine, they'll be singing not silenced in storage, lol! I love to keep my speakers busy on rotation.

And last but not least, a big elbow bump to jafant! I'm not much of a writer but hopefully my occasional musings will add a little more life to your Thiel thread. I haven't really gone through the other posts but I'm sure I'll have fun reading them. Thanks for the warm welcome!

Funny, I almost backed off from the deal when I saw how tiny the Thiels were. I knew they stood all of 8"Wx11"Dx31"H but they looked even smaller in person. But when I heard the opening notes of SD's Black Cow, I was in total disbelief. To be totally forthcoming, I read all the positive reviews so I was there ready to hear good sound but not THAT good! The.5's totally exceeded my expectations.

For perspective, I have a few pairs that are not bad-Dahlquist DQ-10's & 30i's, Vandee 2CE Sigs, Carver ALS-lll+, Snell Type A-ll , ESS AMT Tower 1's, and a few other pairs. I guess I could say I know what sounds good to my ears.

Keep listening!
Hey Fellow Thiel Gonners! Wanted to concur with Prof and Tomthiel about just leaving the 3.6s spikeless on hardwood floors. I experimented with spikes for a while and all the warmth got zapped. I've just left them alone on my hardwood ever since and the interaction with the wood is quite appealing . Sure would've been fun hearing them in the farmhouse though.

Been a while since my last 3.6 XO update for you so thought I'd fill you in. As a professional musician (violinist)/instructor by trade, I probably spend anywhere between 6 to 10 hours a day in critical listening mode. Whether it be in my own personal practice, engulfed in preparation with a chamber or orchestral ensemble, or with my many students, I find great joy in hearing musical progress along the journey towards the finished product. This has also been my mindset with regard to my ever changing audio systems and especially this most recent project. Kind of reminds my of when I was much younger and digging around in the trunk of my Olds Delta 88 installing Precision Power amps and JL subs actively crossed with KLH 24 db sloped XOs. What fun!

Now on to the nuts and bolts of my most recent iteration. I Finished the transfer from the stock ERSE bypass caps, updated with ClarityCaps CSAs, and Thiel resistors updated with Mills MRA-12s. The only stock parts remaining now are the Acousta-Coil inductors and the Versa-Tronics shunt caps. One of the really fun things I ended up doing was running the XOs outboard, via longer twisted pair 18AWG harness extension leads from Rob, for easier swapping. What I wasn't prepared for was how much the sound changed going outboard The sound-stage and presence are just breathtaking! I even ran a preliminary A/B comparison to hear the difference just covering one XO with towels and a plastic washtub and leaving the other al fresco. The results were very much in favor of the uncovered and assume that the added heat contributed to a slightly restrained sound with less air, especially in the center mid-band. That said, the air movement from the woofer inside the cabinet should provide sufficient dissipation to keep the heat at bay else we'd certainly know if there were alarming issues. Incidentally, I did remove a pair of the original Sorens caps to find some minor scorching from the on-side Thiel resistors so at some point heat was a problem, though my 3.6s are early production. I was also made aware that an updated XO layout was later released with spacings between these culprits. Glad to know the team was still vigilant after first run productions. With this in mind I'm sure you can imagine that I've indeed setup adequate spacings with my updates. When all is said and done, I'll perform a more thorough A/B test, with XOs inside/outside the cabinet, in a few weeks to verify sonic differences.

Probably preaching to the choir here but, at this juncture, I can't say enough how rewarding this entire regiment of updates, though challenging and laborious at times, has been. The improvements are well beyond my expectations and far beyond any source update or tweak offered me to date. Over the past few months I find the Mills resistors give the sound more girth and presence adding to the dynamics, transients, and timing. The ClarityCaps give the sound more detail and refinement adding to the clarity (for lack of another word), sound-stage and extension. For instance: in Diana Kralls "Start all over again", being able to more fully discern all the pitches in the muted trumpet/piano intro and more of the subtle nuances in Diana's sultry voice, albeit heavily processed I'm to understand. Or in Steely Dan's "Black Cow" hearing Walter's pick etching the D'Marzio by the bridge on his Strat eliciting an almost teardrop decay in the beginning lead. Also first noticing the fade to right, - just ABOVE Donald's almost southern dialected voice - of the backup vocals mid-stream in the first verse. Quite inspiring and uplifting, in the Telarc Robert Shaw/ASO Stravinsky Firebird, is to hear more of the rosin dissipation from the bow's horsehair giving way to the elegance of the melody in the solo strings. The same for the breathy transients toward a seamless unending line, being much more engaging in the winds. All this enhancing the dialogue exchange in the "Round Dance". Of course the impact from the bass drum in the "Infernal Dance" is just plain SCARRY now! Alas, I wax rhapsodic... As I progressed, I fully expected diminishing returns the further down the rabbit hole I went however, my A/B summed mono comparison tests continued to reveal quite noticeable improvements every step along the way. For now, I'll probably let things settle for a few weeks to assimilate the new sound and resume with doubling/combining the Mills resistors, at stock values, in mid October just to see what else is possible. Continued appreciation for all the help and support along the way!