Thiel Owners

I jumped the gun and decided to contact AccurateSound.ca to do the DRC from my ROON based music (not my tuner or SACD player). My speakers have 2 brand new COAX drivers with less than 10 hours burn-in, I was told 200 is needed. So far, with these new drivers, my system has sounded the best. Which makes sense after fixing all the damaged driver, wring, and air leak issues. So I decided to jump the gun and see what Mitch Barnett could do with system in it’s current form.

I sent him the measurements that he needed and a few hours later he came back with the first of 6 Convolution filters. This is a computer zip file that gets loaded onto the ROON server to act as an software equalizer before my digital data hits the DAC. The goal is to create a sound curve that is optimized for my room and sitting position.

I have a big speaker in a small room and I sit slightly to the left side of the sweet spot. Mitch created a filter using the Audiolense software (he also works with Accurate, but not in my case).

The first filter he sent me was jaw dropingly great. I was floored how perfect the sound was. I am listening to a bunch of different music to come up with ideas for the other 5 filters, but really having a tough time figuring out what needs improvement. I suggested another filter with a bit more bass. He also suggested something that fits the Harman target curve. We will figure some new ones on Monday.

I am currently listening to Santana’s Woodstock recording. I listened to it at a dealer on Wednesday. It was on a $32K Paradigm Persona 9H speaker + Mark Levinson gear. The bass was way more powerful (and incredible) than what I have with the CS3.7. However, there is no contest on the COAX vs the Be drivers on the 9H. I think the 9H was not setup well in the room, because I have heard the 3F and 5F sound better than this 9H demo, but nevertheless I love what I am hearing today with the CS3.7.

This office system I have is now perfect.
https://systems.audiogon.com/systems/7605

prof - I've settled on VTL tube amps versus any solid state amp I've had on the 3.5's, for the very reasons you cite.  I had an ARC D90 when I first bought the 3.5's and liked it very much, except it's soundstaging was nowhere.  I tried CJ solid state, and liked it .... had some "rounding" similar to tubes, but sounded "hollow" compared to the tubes.  The only transistor amp I've had driving the Thiels that sounded good was the old Amber Series 70 amplifier.  I agree with you, ultimate detail does not win over ultimate musicality in my book.

yyzsantabarbara

Nice office and system. 

Happy Listening!

@tomthiel, Jim’s idea of costs coming down with production would seem to make sense. Amortization sets in at some point, no?
I only referenced the combinations that I did as a refence to what Jim was using. Other than for small receiver/ shelf mount little systems. Packaged setups weren’t the norm at the NYC dealers. Although Lyric used to demo Maggies with Audio Research often, and Levinson might be hooked up from time to time. But not so much at Innovative, where the set up was more often what ever the last customer requested. When one walked in you never knew what speakers were in what rooms or connected to what gear on any given day. Adcom was getting a lot of attention back then, so it wasn’t uncommon to see that set up. But Krell, Spectral, c-j, P.S. Audio, etc. would very often be hooked up too. I got to know the owner of Innovative in another environment/relationship and he claimed that the CS 3.5’s were amongst his all time favorite products. First and foremost because he sold a boatload of them, and secondly because they so easily demonstrated the virtues of moving up to better gear. More sales to a steady, returning clientele. Innovative were big Linn dealers, and Linn was all about the upgrade path. Of course this was all before personal PC’s, the internet, and HT was just emerging. People seemed to spend a lot more of their discretionary income on hi fi in those days.

jafant


The Premier 12s don’t have easily user accessible 2,4,8 Ohm taps, but they are available in the design so a local dealer can apparently switch them to whatever tap you want.


They come configured for 4 Ohm taps, which makes sense because, per JA’s measurements, they seem to be essentially designed for 4 Ohm output, generating most power/least distortion at 4 Ohm. That’s no doubt why they seem to have worked so well with all sorts of lower sensitivity/harder to drive speakers I’ve owned including the Thiels.  The CJs don't seem to "need" a high sensitivity or higher/even impedance load to work great.


Since my Joseph speakers are closer to 8 Ohms I did some research in to whether it made sense to have the CJs configured for 8 Ohm output.But research yielded information suggesting that it’s actually generally best to go with a 4 Ohm output if you can (and not just with the CJ tube amps). Even for tube amps that increase power output at 8 Ohms, or speakers that are 8 Ohms, apparently a 4 Ohm output will tend to yield the best accuracy and bass control. So for some amp/speaker pairings you may loose a tiny bit of power headroom, for slightly better sound out of 4 Ohm taps (and since it will likely be a mostly inconsequential amount, the overall better sound from the 4 Ohm can be the better choice). Again, since the CJ outputs the most power/accuracy at 4 Ohm, I leave it there and it works great with my Joseph speakers too.