Thiel Owners

Alternate timeline fantasy . . . What if Kathy Gornik had hired a tweaking engineer ca. 2010. Keep the drivers and cabinets pretty much the same but tweak the crossovers, wiring, and binding posts to the nth degree. Here's @lrsky  in another thread

Back in the day, I used to ask Jim Thiel why he didn't use better caps and air core inductors, resisters, etc, in his crossovers. He would coyly say, 'Because they measure as they do with the components I'm using.'

That was all well and good--but then the next day, I'd be talking to Bill Conrad of cj, and he'd be waxing poetically about the caps they were having made to their specs and how they spent hours deciding which cap goes where and so on. I was confused and frustrated with Jim, one of my icons.

Many years later, I realized that the 'pragmatic' business side of Jim was simply winning the battle for saving the world from bad audio, and keeping THIEL Audio in business. Every, we'll call it 'additional' penny(s) a manufacturer spends on internal parts, is a penny that doesn't come back as profits. So, if a $.58 piece of stuff works, why spend $4.35?

It wasn't until the twilight of Jim's life that he publically changed that position by making the CS2.4SE. As you may know, it offered upgraded parts in the crossovers. When interviewed, Jim said, 'Well, there are some things that can't be measured, but exist in audio.' I'm paraphrasing, but that's the intent of the comments.

I'll venture to guess that a tricked-out CS2.4 would retail for $10-15K but compete sonically with other designs up to $40K. A tricked-out CS3.7 might retail in low $20Ks but be considered as among the best speakers available.

But back to reality . . . best wishes to Rob Gillium!

I'm very glad that Jim Thiel took the path he did in terms of value for money.  I always appreciated the fact that Thiel never went into that ridiculous-price territory we see in many other manufacturers.  A top of the line Thiel competes very well with much more expensive speakers from other companies.

(As for Jim's "change of heart" about measurements, I'm not so quick to interpret it that way. The signature strikes me as perhaps a concession by Thiel that audiophiles really go for boutique parts upgrades, capacitors and the like, so this is a concession to that.  Similar to how some manufacturers continued to include bi-amping posts on their speakers because they knew audiophiles wanted them, even if the manufacturer doesn't share the same belief).

@prof Do you think Jim Thiel was insincere when he told Jeff Fritz:

The improved resolution is not the kind of thing that shows up well in measurements; the magnitude of the difference between the CS2.4 and the CS2.4SE is more easily heard than discerned from graphs. The new capacitors allow more nuance, air, detail, and decay to be reproduced by the coaxial drive unit. This was especially evident to us when listening to recordings that contained realistic reverberation, as well as recordings where the instruments were not processed heavily.  

?

Thanks! for sharing- prof and beetlemania

I tend to agree with Jim Thiel and Bill Conrad, respectively.
There is an improvement between the CS 2.4 / CS 2.4SE, believe me, I spent many hours of listening to ensure that nothing was remissed.

Regarding Conrad Johnson, if one is considering a model of pre or power amp, and there is a "SE" upgraded model available, go for the "SE".
Totally worth those sweet teflon caps and vishay resistors.
Happy Listening!

beetlemania,

No that doesn't sound insincere.  I think Jim was a pretty straight-shooter, so that suggests he believes he heard the difference.  Though I would have been interested in a longer conversation with Jim, to draw him out on the subject and see how he may nuance things.