Thiel Owners

My impression of the Thiel CS2.4

My first impression when I unpack them is that they seem a bit
bigger than I remember. The craftmanship is impecable. Something
like this today would probably cost $20K. And they are heavy!!!
My only disappointment visually is that the bass driver is advertised
as 8in but I think the drivers are more like large 7in. I have
a pair of ScanSpeak 8in driver they they look quite bigger than
the CS2.4 "8in." Anyway, I build my own speakers so I usually don't
buy commercial speakers, but I have to have these and I am glad
I did. These are probably one of the very few that can do a perfect
step response. John Atkinson said that may be less than 10 speakers
in the world that can do this. Owning the CS2.4 is like owning
a piece of history. I think they will be a future classic.

I remember the first time I listened to them at an audio shop
a long time ago just after the speakers were introduced to the market,
and the first thing I said to the owner was that "They don't
sound bright at all". Every single review I've read always
said something to the effect that they are a bit bright and so
on which is odd. In my set up, they sound natural and the
treble is very sweet and not harsh or bright at all. But I
think they are very transparent, so I suppose if your electronics
are bright, it's possible that they will sound bright.

I have two setups in my house. One is Arcam CD23, Conrad Johnson 17LS, and Simaudio Moon W3. In this system, they sound very natural and neutral but very good. My other setup is Ayre QB9 DSD, Pass Lab XP10, and Simaudio W7 amp and in this system they actually sound a bit
warm (I though I was listening to a pair of Sonus Faber :-))
So I guess I couldn't make them sound bright :-).

Anyway, I am not going to repeat all the accolades they received
from professional magazines. But instead I am going talk about first order
filter which is used in the CS2.4. Actually they are not only
first order, they are also time coherent. You can use first
order in your design, but it does not automatically mean time
coherent. I have built speakers using various filter order such
as 4th order (24db roll off), 2nd order (12db roll off), and
first order (6db roll off), and without any doubt any my mind,
first order has the most natural and musical sound. As you go
to higher order, the sound does sound a bit "clearer" but less
and less natural. But I think higher order tend to spot light the
instruments but I don't think it's natural. The Thiel sounds unmistakenly
as a first order. I design my speakers using first order so
I know how first order sounds like.

Interestingly, something that I didn't expect, the CS2.4 has
a very similar soundstage as mine I guess because mine speaker
also use first order filter. I would like to describe
what an first order sounds like. Everything is very coherent,
no instrument or aspect of the soundstage is being favored.
The sound is spacious, airy, open, liquid, continuos like real life.
The treble is very integrated into the entire sound. In some
speakers that use higher order filters, the treble sometimes
feels like a separate element, like a shin that overlays the
sound. If you think about it, treble is part of every sound
such as your speech sibilance, the drum hit, and not just from
high hat. With first order filter, the treble is just like
that as in real life that it is within the sound, over overlaying
the sound. I listen to the CS2.4 I feel very at ease,
it's like I just sit back and enjoy the sound. I don't recall
feeling like that listening to any other commercial speakers.
The treble, the bass, the soundstage, everything is just right.

The other thing I like to talk about is time coherent.
As, I mentioned above, being first order does not automatically
mean time coherent. The CS2.4 goes a step further and also
is time coherent. The claim is that time coherent makes
the sound more natural and has better soundstage. My speakers
are first order but not time coherent, and compare mine vs.
the CS2.4, I guess the advantage of time coherent is subtle
because it's hard for me to tell. Mine and the CS2.4 use
completely different drivers so there are just too many variables.
But as I said above, even though the CS2.4 and mine use different
drives and designed by different persons, there is something
about the sound that is very similar that is very characteristic
of first order filter.

Anyway, if you are looking for a pair of speakers, I highly
recommend CS2.4 unfortunately they won't be easy to find.
I feel like if Thiel would make these as is today, a lot of
people will buy them.  I know Tom Thiel participates in this thread so may be we can convince him.  I think Thiel products are somewhat different from the past.  First order and time coherent are no longer part of their designs.  Besides Vandersteen, I don't know of anyone making first order time coherent speakers.  I can tell you from experience that it's not easy so maybe that's why no many people do it.

Good post andy!

I don't feel competent to assess the exact contributions of phase/time coherence to what I hear with the Thiels.  And speaker designers (and experts on acoustics from what I can tell) still seem to disagree.

I can only note that my Thiels (first CS6, then CS3.7 and 2.7) share a quality of precision in imaging, a solidity and density of imaging, and a very believable natural tone for voices and instruments.

Also, the 3.7s/2.7s are the most coherent dynamic speakers I've heard.  The 3.7s in particular all the way through the bass region.  But both designs distinguish themselves in coherence in the mids and highs.  There is simply no sense of a "tweeter" in the sound from the mids.  Zero.  Sounds that traverse the tricky crossover points of the tweeter/mid driver sound perfectly whole and coherent.  

What gets interesting to me, as a nut about instrumental/vocal timbre, are how different approaches can still seem to do well.  I remember the very well regarded speaker designer, Paul Hales, saying that one reason he chose higher order crossovers instead of chasing time/phase coherence is that he felt the benefits of higher order made it easier to achieve timbral precision.  And to my ears Hales speakers, the Transcendence line in particular, excelled in exactly that aspect. 
I remember going to a CES way back and after having been in most rooms over two days I heard what sounded startlingly like a live band coming from one room.  It was the Hales room and I'll be darned if the timbre of the horns, saxes and other instruments coming through those speakers wasn't astonishingly rich, accurate and believable.  When I ended up with Hales transcendence speakers, this was their prime virtue (though I found ultimately they suffered a bit from a lack of dynamics/palpability, which the Thiels really give me).

My current favourite speaker for accurate-sounding timbral quality are the Joseph speakers.   I played a great many recordings on those speakers that I've played for years on my Thiel speakers.  I love, love, love the sound of the Thiels, but when I played for instance certain piano recordings on the Josephs, there was a hair-raising shock, the sensation of hearing a piano's timbral quality *exactly* as I'm used to when I play one, reproduced right in front of me.   

So these encounters with auditioning and owning various speakers that at the very least seem to give the Thiels a run for the money in the timbral-accuracy department, make me hesitate to conclude the only way to get such things "right" is time and phase coherence, as intuitive as the case for time/phase coherence may be.   

(Please don't throw tomatoes at me my Thiel brethren, I'm still one of you!)

One of the biggest challenges to making 1st order crossover-appropriate speakers is that the drivers need to have a considerably wider bandwidth than those typically used in higher order designs. Not any old driver will do. These are much more expensive to design, manufacture and test, and Jim worked tirelessly on improving them. Tom can comment here but from interviews I’ve read with Jim, and some of the classic Thiel product literature I still have, much effort went into those Thiel drivers, and some were originally outsourced. The CS6 was the first model that contained drivers all made in house by Thiel.

My first pair were CS7s and, stupidly, I sold them for a pair of Dynaudio Contour 2.0, thinking I was going to "downsize;" they too used 1st order crossovers but were not time/phase coherent. After less than a year, I so missed the Thiels that I traded the Dynaudios for a pair of CS6s, and later bought a pair of CS2.4s for a second system. I’m trying to find a home for the CS6s now that my space is smaller and the CS2.4s are my main speakers.

Andy: congrats on your new Thiels. Enjoy them and let me know if you have any questions about set up, placement, etc. When the imaging is locked in you will know it.

Steve

andy2

Welcome! Good to see you here- an excellent post all around. Very sweet owning (2) systems. Also good to read that your CS 2.4 speakers arrived safe and sound to your locale. Interesting that you are a speaker builder, those DIY skills are going to come in handy as beetlemania and tomthiel are working in concert on a cross-over project in conjunction with Mr. Rob Gillum due later this Fall.  Stay Tuned.

Happy Listening!

stevecham

Good to see you here and glad that you are still enjoying your CS 2.4 loudspeakers.  The CS6 does look sweet indeed. Hopefully, they will find the next home soon.  Happy Listening!