Thiel 3.6, what will drive them best?


I'm looking for an amp that will drive the Thiel 3.6's to their ultimate potential. Unfortunately price matters, in that I derive pleasure thinking of myself as the ultimate connoiseur of the most for the least...

In other words I'm cheap! (nudge, nudge, wink, wink, and say thanks),

Ron
starsandseas
I have heard the 3.6s sound good with both of these amps.
Ayre V-5XE
Pass Labs X150
These would be the lower level of amps (power and quality)I would use with the 3.6s. I liked the Ayre better than the Pass. Both are a little above your range but in the long (and short) run you will be better off.
IMO nothing drives the Thiels like the big Krell amps.
I'm driving my 3.6's with a pair of Jeff Rowland 201 monoblocks, and I'm very happy with the combination.

Good luck!
I had 7BSTs for a time with a pair of CS7s. This sounded good for a couple of years. The key is not to crank it to loudly, I did one day and blew out the high end driver in the coaxial high/high mid unit (which Thiel replaced free of charge). The Brystons just didn't have the current delivery capacity to avoid going squarewave at high levels.

As long as you don't have unrealistic loudness expectations, the Brystons will do just fine.
You see...the last post (Stevecham) is the exact point a number of us have been making.
Even an amp as fine as the bryston 7bst is unable to deliver enough current for the Thiels.
A high current delivery amplifier is an absolute must.
That's a point I hadn't considered. Low impedance easily drives most amps into clipping, generating square waves who's harmonics filter up to the tweeter, blowing it.

This would generally lead me to believe that whatever amp I choose, it should have a stiff reserve cap in the power supply. This then leads me to believe that amps like the McCormak DNA-1, with 64000 microfarads of storage might be a bit weak. Perhaps the McCormak's have a soft clipping feature which would prevent this from happening. Am I on the right track here?

How about the Classe 15 or Classe 100? These both double their power into 4 ohms and the 100 model is right in my range.

Thank you
Ron