Thiel Owners

@tomthiel *Super* helpful. I owe you a beer or three. Next step is to pull a radiator and see how much room I have to work with. The solution with SA/CSA/Mundorf Supreme is the least expensive (of the options I'm considering) and with the smallest profile. I’d like to go with CSA/CMR on the coax, however, if space allows.

Something of a crap shoot in terms of ending up with similar tolerances/values for replacement parts, vs sticking with the originals that were part of the original design.

A bit of a puzzle to get the correct cap combos that match the original values but not too onerous. I suppose it’s not without risk but I’d be REALLY surprised if I end up with worse sound. Hedging against that possibility is one reason to stick with Clarity on the coax feeds. If it does end up making things worse, Rob Gillum has extras of the SAs that were the in the CS2.4SE. Having Tom Thiel guide me gives me a lot of confidence.

This kind of wrangling of details normally occurs behind the design curtain and the buyer gets what he gets with myriad value judgements / assumptions bundled in the mix. It is not for the faint of heart; the process will lead to critical listening / comparison and then value engineering assessment to assure that the gains are solid / uncompromised and the costs are no more than necessary. Eventually I hope to have upgrade paths for various legacy Thiel products that Rob can supply. We're doing this first trial in view of this supportive group. Thank you, beetle, for jumping in.

Eventually I hope to have upgrade paths for various legacy Thiel products that Rob can supply.

Haha, I can see it now. I'll get my pair dialed-in then you and Rob will come out with a kit for the 2.4s. There is no end to audiophile nervosa!

the buyer gets what he gets with myriad value judgements / assumptions bundled in the mix. It is not for the faint of heart; the process will lead to critical listening / comparison and then value engineering assessment to assure that the gains are solid / uncompromised and the costs are no more than necessary

Just picking the caps for the SE version probably took Jim Thiel and his team many days and weeks, never mind the initial design. Choose worthwhile candidate caps (this is what I'm doing), burn them in for a week or two, conduct careful listening tests/comparisons, probably measurements, too. Being a buyer, not a manufacturer, I don't have the time and money to try multiple combinations. Moreover, manufacturers are *highly* motivated to get the very best sound possible, albeit balanced by cost (except for Wilson and the like for which crazy prices are built into brand expectation).

In my case, my SEs sound superb but I also know there probably are gains to be had with tricked-out XOs. I paid ~$3K for my used pair and I think they sound as good as anything new up to ~15K. What if there is a relatively inexpensive way to make them sound as good as anything new up to $30K?

As I wrote elsewhere in this thread, I think Thiel made some of the best drivers in the business. IMO, the main thing that separated Thiel SQ from that of the very best was attention to the passive parts. Tom Thiel wrote that it wasn't that Jim Thiel was unaware or disbelieving of ultra caps and the like, just that he wanted to balance SQ against cost so that more people could afford his creations. And I am grateful because I am one who can afford Thiels. Not much if they were tweaked like this:
http://jeffsplace.me/wordpress/?p=5464

I suspect a CS7.2 or CS3.7 with a cost-no-object XO would sound pretty much as good as anything I've heard. But something like that Dueland-capped XO would probably add $20K retail, more than a pair of CS7.2 or CS3.7!

Tom Thiel has been very generous with his knowledge and sdecker shared his successful experience of re-capping his CS2.4s. This is a project I'm confident I can complete and with good results. I will certainly report back on this thread in hopes of helping other DIYers.

This thread is a great example of why brands like Thiel that stay on top of the cost/performance tradeoff are likely to have better products than the cost no object "luxury" brands like Wilson or magico at any price points where they compete.  A lifetime of value judgements and performance oriented engineering vs primarily just putting the most expensive parts in a box made of something exotic is bound to result in much better performance for the money.  

brands like Thiel that stay on top of the cost/performance tradeoff are likely to have better products than the cost no object "luxury" brands

I agree but still wish that Thiel had a full-out assault on SOTA speaker. Not that I could ever hope to afford such a product but it probably would have informed new, cost-effective ways to coax (pun intended) even more performance from the 1s, 2s, and 3s. Maybe Jim Thiel had this in mind (cs7.3?) but left this Earth far too early.

At Parts Connexion, retail pricing for a Clarity SA 15 uF is ~$20 and 33uF is ~$46. *Every* CS2.4 could have had SA caps for, maybe, an extra $200 retail (tbf, I don't know that the SAs were available when the 2.4 was developed). No doubt Jim Thiel had very good reasons for his design decisions and I shouldn't second guess those decisions. But, IMO, an extra $500-2000 retail in better passive parts for the 2s and 3s could have elevated their performance to the next tiers. I'm going to test that speculation!