Thiel Owners

#jafant

Good to see you here again. If you are the kind of Audiophile whom enjoys rich texture within musical passages, the competition, will always result short. What gear is in your current system?

Hi jafant,

You may be sorry you asked!

I am still sorting things out as I feel feel my Theil setup lacks that "live presence". Got a pair of Tyler Acoustics speakers along with CJ LP66S tube amp. Pretty musical with the CJ 17LS2 preamp. Definitely different for me and a work in progress. 

Current main system: PS Audio PWT, Soekris DAC1421, CJ17LS2, DNA-500, Synergistic Research Alpha inconnects, and Thiel CS5i's with thicker than lamp cord for speaker wire. Analog is on hold until cabinet/space logistics are worked out.

The Soekris DAC has about 100 hours on it and may replace my Theta ProBasic III DAC. I believe (I think) the Soekris is providing more detail that helps with overall sound quality including more bite on the front end of bass notes, better ambience, better liquidity, and deeper soundstage. I am in the $3000 to $5000 budget range for a used DAC and the Soekris is meant to educate me about current discrete Ladder DACs. Sounds pretty good for 900 dollars and about 3 pounds. Will spending the extra thousands result in better sound or just in owning another thirty pound DAC?

I have a Don Sachs preamp on order with different output capacitors to manage the 10K ohm input impendance of the DNA-500. The experimentation with the tube amp convinced me to sell my Prima Luna Dialogue preamp and I wanted to try another preamp. The PL just came across as too analytical for my taste/setup. I have been told that the Don Sachs will be like lifting a veil from my speakers. We shall see. Might give me the liveliness for which I am searching. 

I am toying with making the plunge to try tube monos with the Thiels. Will not be a cheap endeavor and flies in the face of a lot of advice on this and other threads. I am thinking about Carver 350 monos as place to start as they are supposed to be stable into a one ohm load. Otherwise, things become much more expensive.

Feedback about any of this is desired and appreciated!.

Thanks for listening!

Dsper

Dspr - I’ll jump in and ask for any and all detail you might develop around this exploration. The ’come alive’ characteristic is something of considerable note in Thiel’s history. After "New Thiel" bought the company in 2013, long-time industry supporter Steve DeFuria came on as sales manager and acting general manager. He experimentally stripped down the XOs of some models (don’t know which) to lose the tight tolerance control that Jim applied to all his drivers. Those simplified crossovers had less stringent frequency response tolerances with less than half the parts count. The listening panel results included "more alive, especially at lower volumes".

In the case of the CS5(i), there are 32 elements in the time delay circuits for the lower and upper midrange drivers. I speculate that removal of those bucket-brigade lines would make the speaker more responsive, but at the cost of time focus. In the 1988 development of the CS5, I wanted to sculpturize the baffle to geometrically time align those drivers. Jim liked electronic solutions - that being his wheelhouse, and we got bucket brigade delay - with 32 extra coils, caps and resistors.

I recall the first Stereophile review by John Atkinson and Larry Archibald who made the 'not alive' complaint. I recall (vaguely-perhaps another product) that substitution of Goertz flat wire raised the veil, as did short cable runs. 

I will speculate that bi-wiring would help this problem. Those 3 woofers take tons of current to nearly 10Hz. The electromagnetic propagation effects of that current on the higher frequency time domain reactivity would be substantial. If you split the signal, I suggest ganging the 3 woofers separate from the other three drivers. Jim would disapprove only if you used disparate cables for the two runs. Of course the ultimate configuration is with 4 amps - two pairs of Benchmark AHB-2s would do nicely. We can always dream.

Your present experience points to a big disappointment in Jim’s career and a prime motivation to adopt reflex bass alignments in the upper end products. From the peanut gallery, I see serious merit in further development of his first approach - sealed bass with various means of augmentation. Perhaps a more refined equalizer? Please keep us informed of your experiments and comparisons with other gear.

I find my 3.7s very lively and satisfying at low volumes.  I've read that the superior drivers didn't need the very complex crossover that earlier models did.  I also run stereo amps bridged mono so the gain is high and I have found that to result in a livelier sound.  It might just be that I find the increased distortion pleasing but whatever it is I prefer it.  

Tom,

Thanks for the detailed response. Despite my "live presence" complaint, to my ears the CS5i's are wonderful speakers and I would hate to mess with them too much.

Having said that the bi-wiring idea seems like something that could work without too much triage. Is this the type of thing that can be done by a relative novice (I have replaced woofer surrounds and installed new capacitors in old Large Advents)? I suspect that it is more complicated than simply cutting a wire in each speaker and then rerouting through another set of speaker cable connectors.

When I first got the Thiels, the big concern was finding an amp that could manage them. That took a couple of years to figure out and included lugging around 150 pound amps on loan from my area dealer. The first problem was finding enough current to satisfy the bass drivers. I thought I had it solved with a Coda amp (300 wpc) but I discovered that it lost steam and sounded harsh and constrained at high volumes. The DNA-500 solved that and powers the CS5i's effortlessly at any volume. And it weighs only about 75 pounds.

The next issue was finding a DAC that did not sound bright or harsh with the tweeters. After a lot of in house auditions I found a Hegel HD25 that seemed to do the trick. However, I still was not completely happy.  I had been reading good things about the old Theta DACs. I found a ProBasic III for five or six hundred dollars that was definitely superior to the Hegel in my system because it was much smoother and organic.

The aha moment came next when I replaced an AudioSpace CD player with the PS Audio PWT. The added resolution was an ear opener. The additional detail helped the music sound more alive but not more analytical.

I think this taught me that the tweeters were only as a good as the signal they received. 

Fast forward to the new Soekris DAC and the same thing happened. I am hearing more detail and the CS5i's are inching closer to sounding like a "live presence" without being analytical. I want to stick with R2R ladder DACs as both the Theta and Soekris are R2R and have been positive moves for me. To my ears, the tweeters do not mate well with Delta Sigma chips. 

I think finding a front end with the most amount of detail would be a good thing for the tweeters, hence my continuing DAC quest. I am also wondering if updating the transport would help. Figuring out which one will be another whole story.

So lots more work to do before tackling the analog side of things! In the meantime, the classic vinyl rock collection will have to be happy with a Technics 1200SL table with KAB mods. 

Thank for listening,

Dsper
 

dsper

Thank You for the follow up. That is quite a collection of gear.
Conrad Johnson/McCormack will become a lively, sonic, match for the CS5i loudspeaker. Good to read that your employing Synergistic Research (SR) cabling. Are you using a full loom?
A Don Sachs pre-amp is highly regarded. I did not know that he was still in business?

Happy Listening!