Thiel Owners

Unsound and Tom. As you know the 3.5 individual drivers are all above the 5 ohm across the whole range and combined stay above 4 ohms. Makes it very suitable for tri amping or bi amping. I would guess that bi amping the bass and mid-tweeter with one amp would be better then using the amp in serial configuration for all drivers. Is that consistent with your experience? 

Happy Friday! All

Thielrules - it all depends. A very big deal is running out of power. The Adcom and Benchmark have overload LEDs. Listening at 95dB peaks at listening position, the Benchmark overloads consistently in stereo with one amp channel driving the woofer and the other the mid-tweeter. The bass amp can be bridged and its input sensitivity reduced to match the stereo upper amp. The upper stereo amp then becomes the overload limit, so it also must be used in bridged mono. Clipping is unacceptable. The Adcom at twice the power is better, but marginal on the mid-tweeter. It has no input sensitivity selector and therefore in stereo it cannot be easily gain-matched to the bridged woofer. So no go for tri-amping. Classe DR9 has similar power to AHB, so I assume it clips even though it doesn’t give LED proof. If you had 4 amps and could dedicate one to each woofer and one each to the two mid-tweeters, that is theoretically better than a single bridged amp to all three drivers, at twice the amp/cable expense. I am personally at peace with a Bridged Benchmark driving each channel with 3 separate cable runs or two runs: one to the woofer and another to the mid-tweeter.

To your question of best configuration - Because low impedance loads cause higher distortion in normal (non AHB) class A/B amps, I would prefer a stereo amp with one channel for the woofer and the other for the mid-tweeter. Those amps would need to be a few hundred watts minimum per channel into 4 ohms in order to stay clean. My amps in my space don’t deliver the goods satisfactorily in stereo mode.

Let’s do some history. As you know, the CS3 was set-up for bi-amping / bi-wiring. It separated the tweeter from the rest of the signal because the equalizer boosted the bass which included contribution from both the midrange and woofer, so they couldn’t be segregated to different amps. Audible improvement was gained by separating the tweeter. But the preponderance of users chose small SET or tube amps for the tweeter with no consistent way to gain-match the low frequency amp. Solving those variables would have required a different kind of dealer. Jim assessed that we didn’t have that expertise in the field to his satisfaction and removed the bi-amp /bi-wire option.

The scene is different today in that remaining Thiel users are likely to commit to getting it right or staying on the sidelines. It is tricky business, especially in the absence of clipping lights and with uncompressed and/or otherwise very dynamic music. Underpowering makes distortion and distortion fries drivers. Be careful.

tomthiel

Thank You for the history lesson. Keep up the excellent work via hot rod garage and studio. I can tell that you have made great strides while having fun.

Happy Listening!

JA - what a trip indeed. Circumstances have prevented progress in ways that many here assumed or wished for. I’m not yet discouraged; and I’m stirring the pot every day. My personal interest drives me to decipher some of the mysteries of Thiel and the idiosyncracies of its product performance. As you know, I have speculated that phase coherence allows the audio-brain to scrutinize sound differently than non phase coherent sound - as I formerly have written here. I beleve that, but many elements don’t neatly fit into that narrative, including the opinions of knowledgeable practitioners to the contrary. My search and questoning have taken unexpected turns.
An early assumption of low-hanging fruit was crossover component upgrade. Indeed good results were gotten there; similarly hookup wire and softening the wave launch surfaces on the baffle. But a derail occurred serendipitiously on a flight of fancy when I fantasized with an audio friend about some aha moments during early product development experiences in the 1970s. We identified the let-down when the ’hanging sculpture’ of the free-air crossover-in-development was nailed down and put in the cabinet. Magic went missing. Long story shortened, we re-created a bird’s nest crossover hanging in space. And, guess what - magic.

I have developed and tested some hypotheses and solutions and identified some obscure aspects of performance that migrate the musical experience from somewhat canned to substantially transparent. A relevant result is how ancillary equipment interacts with my speakers under test. Thiel fans have spent enormous time, effort and funds finding source equipment that works. And when it works, it works well. Shortened story: the outboard crossover has opened doors not only to better music, but to finding solutions to some pretty subtle problems, including broadening the range of acceptable drive components while increasing the level of detail, transparency and 'rightness'.

Anyhow, in moments of nostalgia for a company history that never was, I wonder about what we might have built if we had asked these questions and found these solutions in parallel with Jim’s relentless progress in the areas of his interest and expertise - where his innate comprehension of physics met his unique engineering ability to convert his best ideas into uniquely satisfying products. But, there is always more potential, isn’t there. What a trip finding some buried gems hiding in plain view within the platform he created.