Thiel Owners

tomthiel

In your estimation, what years in production for the GFA 555 power amp ?

Did Jim have this model in his lab ?

Happy Listening!

Coda amps are also a good sonic match for Thiels. And I’m sure it’s no coincidence that this may have something to do with the fact that the folks behind Coda Technologies, Doug Dale and Eric Lauchi, worked with Nelson Pass when all three were together at Threshold. And very much like Pass designed amps, Coda amps do much of their heavy lifting in Class A along with the type of high current that make Thiel speakers sing.

jazzman7

Yes! CODA and Threshold are Sonic matches for Thiel Audio.

Happy Listening!

JAFANT - In my 20 years, we never had any Adcom in our factory. We were, however, familiar with it since many of our dealers carried it. Jim took the somewhat eccentric stance that it was other peoples' job to deliver 'proper' amplification. His job stopped at the input terminals. My assessment, at that time and continuing to the present, is that Thiel would have benefited from a more inclusive systems requirements approach. A $2000 pair of speakers is out of place, in my opinion, requiring a $10K amp to supply its peculiar needs. Jim felt that his highly resistive / non-reactive load characteristics made up for the very low impedances. But, the amp stable was severely reduced. In my opinion, many of the long-standing and ubiquitous criticisms of Thiel speakers as 'bright, in your face, aggressive', etc. are due to amplifier distress.

Anyhow, the first Adcom amp I personally heard / evaluated is the one I bought a couple of years ago with a pair of Thiel CS3.5s supplied from a member of this forum. I think the speaker needs 'better' to reach its potential, but it's better than most.

"In my opinion, many of the long-standing and ubiquitous criticisms of Thiel speakers as 'bright, in your face, aggressive', etc. are due to amplifier distress."

I couldn't agree more.  I've owned 2.3s, 7.2s and now 3.7s.  In addition, when a friend worked at a high end shop, for about a 6 year period, I did virtually every install and set-up with him, including Thiels (and other brands).  Thiel models included, 1.6s, 1.7s, 2.3s, 2.4s, 6s and 7.2s which I was involved with multiple times.

On my first trip to the store, I was temporarily renting (had relocated to the area) waiting for a house to be built and I ended up buying a Rega Planet CD player for my temporary set-up in the rented townhouse.  They had a pair of 3.6s in the showroom but I never got to hear them.  Between work, work travel and staying on top of the contstuction by the time I got back to the showroom the 3.6s were gone.  I didn't start going out on installs/set-ups until after I closed on the house several months later and got settled in.

I've heard good and bad set-ups with Thiels.  Mostly good as when people came in to buy a whole system, they generally played something appropriate for the speakers.  There were those who just bought speakers and sometimes what they had didn't sound very good to me.