Thiel Owners

audio 1326 - I can comment on some of your possibilities.

I have used the CS2.2s since 1990 in all kinds of applications; I know them better than anything else. They are a target for my upgrade activities, so significantly improved performance will be gotten from them in the future.

At Thiel we had an original Bryston 3B (as well as its successors). I find it somewhat brittle despite its big bottom end. The STs are an improvement, and the 'cubed' series is first-rate.

The Denon is current-limited by definition - it does not double its output into half the load impedance. But as JA mentioned, Japanese made Denons have good bones. And theCS2.2 only drops below 4 ohms for limited time and has a very flat impedance curve, much gentler than later designs. So, it will work.

I like your Adcom GFA555 much better.  The earlier Japanese boards use a higher quality transistor shared with the GFA535. Nelson Pass's designs have simple circuitry dependent on high parts quality. I have two of these amps and the earlier (Japanese) has a distinctly cleaner sound. The GFA555 (straight, series I) can be upgraded by Jim Williams of Audio Upgrades in Carlsbad CA at two levels-the higher using film resistors. The upgraded units punch way beyond their price class. I use a pair in bridged mono configuration as part of my listening and test setup. 

tomthiel

Thank you as always for addressing audio 1326 query. There will be many fans and owners on The Panel waiting for 2.2 upgrades.

Happy Listening!

Progress is being made. The ClarityCaps came this week and are being distributed to the various collaborators here.

tomthiel

Excellent! Are you working with Dave Garettson from Clarity Caps? He is the resident Expert here on the GoN.  I am looking forward in reading about your initiative.

Happy Listening!

jafant - Yes, I have been working with Dave since I began this venture in 2018. We have had 3 orders in total to compare critical elements using CSA, CMR (plain and encapsulated) and now Purity - all in the range of voltages. I've also compared other brands and borrowed from Dave some exotic flat stack and series caps. I'm quite confident regarding where the path has led. This present delivery took a year due in part to fallout from Covid, in part from start-up rigors of the Purity line and, in part due to two ownership changes at ClarityCap. Things now seem to be on solid footing.

A couple of developments: one is the Purity line which multiplies the advantages of the CSA copper end caps which are 1mm thick, and outperform every other end cap I've studied or heard. Purity increases those caps to 10mm thick which allows some 3D geometric utilization. Purity were projected to add 30% to the CSA cost at the same voltage, but in fact have approximately tripled the price of the CSA. The Van den Hull pure silver wire is now only available in Purity line whereas it had also been an option (very worthwhile) in CSA.

Dave had also guided me to testing Reliable's RTX (best) ultra-bypass caps which use a multiple parallel x series configuration for astonishingly good performance at a very affordable price. Wilson bought Reliable and has tripled the prices, which may still be worthwhile. Meanwhile Duelund has some magical stacked foil caps that are oh so good at considerably higher cost.

My challenge is choosing combinations of caps that retain Thiel's traditional value orientation, albeit on a higher plateau. Thiel is not Wilson or Magico. We won't be incorporating $1K caps.

Dave has been an enormous help, and generous with sharing his extensive knowledge. Again, thanks for the introduction.