Thiel Owners

Sounds like a fried tweeter to me. I think what causes it is when the leads break, the strands tend to be touching at low volume but at high excursions they lose contact and then regain it, causing a crackling sound. I recently had this problem with a Thiel Viewpoint I got off of ebay. It was damaged in shipping and I glued the woofer together and got it working. The tweeter was crackling though, I took it apart and saw that strands of the wire leading to the voice coil were broken. I ordered a new tweeter and it had the same problem almost immediately. I took it apart again and the leads were broken just like the other one. I measured the crossover output for the tweeter at 60hz and it was the same as the output for the woofer. The crossover was damaged in such a way that it was frying tweeters.

@ctsooner That is what my hunt has been for. Any speaker can produce sound. A carefully matched system can reproduce music and that is what I’m after as well. Currently my most involving setup is this:

Intel NUC running wtfplay (Synergistic Active USB) or Cal Audio Labs CL-10 (Synergistic X coaxial) --> MSB Analog DAC --> AudioQuest G Snake --> Krell FBI Integrated --> AQ 4 (I think) speaker cables --> Thiel CD2.7

Big wide deep dynamic with what I hear as accurate timbre of instruments.

When I need bass that the 2.7 cannot reproduce I hookup a Definitive SuperCube II to the preamp outs on the Krell.

@jon_5912 Were you able to repair the crossover?

@solobone22 @tomthiel
It’s very hard to compare the PS Audio to the Krell for several reasons. I suspect the Krell has needed service for quite a while, so I’m sure I haven’t heard it at its best for a decade. Other changes I’ve made at the same time: I’m running two matching subs on the left and right corners and I’ve set the crossover at 60 hz instead of 80, which I always used before.

It still worked okay through 3 channels with balanced cables but when I replaced the Onkyo Pre/Pro with a new Denon receiver and had to try RCA inputs, the Krell hummed badly. I looked into getting it serviced, but I can hardly tell if the company still exists. I left a message at a number I found online (that sounded like some dude’s cell phone) and never heard back.
I didn’t have time to do a lot of research, but found the @whitecamaross thread and saw the positive blurb at the top about the BHK 300 and saw the TAS buyer’s guide positively comparing the 250 to the 300. When I saw that PS Audio was made here in Colorado and gave a generous discount for old broken trade-ins, it was a no-brainer for me.
The main thing I can say in comparison is that with the Krell I always felt the treble was too harsh. I may be over sensitive to treble anyway, but I was never 100% able to listen to violins or trumpets until I heard about Audyssey. It was less about room correction and more about rolling off highs, but Audyssey was a game changing technology for me.
With the PS Audio, the 2.3s are still forward if not bright, but although I keep thinking I’m going to get that ringing in my ears I never quite get it. I didn’t need to be in a hurry to run Audyssey at all.  Now that I have run it, I’m running it "Flat".

I listen between 70-75 db on average. Louder than that is still a little too much "in my face". But at that level it really does sound better than ever. Like I said before I no longer need to mess with surround modes to get 3D sound.

@solobone22  that speaker is still taken apart in the corner of the garage.  Maybe I'll get to it and maybe I won't.  I've already done 2 repairs and bought a replacement part.  Knowing that I need at least two more parts to get them working has me considering just keeping the one that works and ditching the other.  I bought a single PowerPlane 1.2 off ebay for $135.  I'll probably just troll for bargains rather than sink more time and money into this mess.