Thiel Owners

beetle - good advice.
Regarding your 2.4SEs, the evidence suggests that the original boards made in Lexington were Masonite PtPoint. Perhaps after Jim's death (2009) Lexington changed to PCBs with the same traditional parts. (I don't know when that change happened, but ERSE had those PCBs for sourcing parts before China. Many folks say the PCB per se does not reduce sound quality. Your SEs came from after XOs were sourced from FST in China with CYC parts, including some downgrades from Propylene to Polyester (T). It seems that those parts were supposed to be clones of the extant parts, but sources say the verification is weak or missing. We are assuming the unverified Chinese parts are of lesser quality. Despite the unknown parts quality, including wire alloy, the coils are not tightly wound, which results in squirm losses.

Regarding sandcast resistors, you have heard and I support upgrading to Mills. However, I know that the Lex sandcasts were ERSE which we know to be best of form. But resistors are great bang for buck, so why not upgrade while you're in there. 

Excellent caps, resistors discussion- Beetle and Tom.
Thank You for so much information as it benefits us all.

Happy Listening!

tomthiel... 

I reside in Lake Grove,  N. Y.   Very close to Stony Brook University.  Again, free for pickup only. 

I haven’t looked at them in a while but I remember the serial numbers were sequential.  

I havo bought an LCR meter so it will be possible to check out the coil on the woofer board, now I only need to find the time to do it.

I have planed to change the PCB for bigger ones, so there will be room for the parts to breathe ;-)

31 - regarding your CS5 vs 7.2 query: my considerations would be more strategic than any one aspect of performance. That performance aspect is the type of bass alignment where the CS5 is sealed and therefore produces more coherent bass as it rolls off the bottom end. However, both products go deeper than most program material, plus the ear is least sensitive to time/phase in the bass, so I would attribute minor significance to that aspect. (Albeit, I personally like the CS5 bass, which isn't the point.) On to amplifiers: the deep bass of the CS5 drops well below 2 ohms and therefore requires significant and specialized amplification to drive it well. If I had a pair of 5s, I would split the bass from the upper frequencies for easier amplification.
Repairability: the CS5 lower drivers were Kevlar by ? (I may remember some day.) I don't know their availability or whether Rob at Coherent Source Service can rebuild them. Check on that. But, those were 1988 specialty drivers from a model that sold less than a thousand pair. So caution is advised. The tweeter is Thiel and also used in the 2.2 and 3.6, so it's available. Note that the 5 is a 5-way, so the integration of the drivers yields a very smooth frequency response and reduces excursions required of other Thiel products with fewer drivers.

The CS7.2 uses Thiel drivers and I believe Rob can repair those. He says there are virtually no problems with the 7.2.

As a general observation, Thiel approached product design as a process of incremental improvement. Each design stood on the shoulders of everything that proceeded it. I think of the 7.2 as a fully modern, realized design whereas the 5 as an evolutionary step. As I've mentioned before, I find significant flaws in the 5's use of bucket brigade delay for the 2 midrange drivers. That's a lot of circuitry for the signal to navigate.

FYI: I have heard the CS5s more than the 7.2 and have heard them both perform gloriously with the Krell FPB-600. Reviews suggest that any amp short of that or similar full-out muscle is likely to whimp-out under the CS5 demands.

All that aside, if you are inclined toward collecting icons, the CS5 is unique in Thiel's history. Its development was spurred by demand, especially from Japan, for Jim's ultimate statement. In fact I judge that he pulled some significant punches; it could have been more ultimate, even at that time, had he allowed a budget of $15 to $20K rather than the under $10K at the top of his psychic tolerance.

Now, a flight of fancy. In my dreams I would remake the CS5 to a higher standard. An easy fix is a cabinet resonance or two. Another fix is to break out the bass from the upper drivers for separate amplification. Now we're in no-problem performance land. Furthermore, let's upgrade passive parts for further significant improvement. Then the serious business - reshape the cast marble baffle for physically proper driver placement rather than electronic compensation. I remember the first 100 pairs were Brazilian Rosewood from my private stash - considered the finest cabinet wood in the world. I am unaware of any other fully 5-way coherent source transducer out there.

Such an undertaking would be a collector's edition re-imagined re-issue of the iconic and obscure CS5 from 30 years past. It would fly.