Thiel Owners

I am not expert on what manufacturing moved to China and when; I have not been involved with the company since the mid 1990s. At that time the only off-shore components were some European electronic components. My general impression is that the hi-fi music products were always assembled in Lexington, although some parts, including drivers, were made partly or wholly in China. Home theater products were made at increasing levels in China, more so after Jim's death in 2009. Testing and QC remained in Lexington throughout. These are my opinions developed from various conversations, but are subject to correction.

I know from other involvements that it has become increasingly difficult to impossible to source many sophisticated components from North America / Europe due to changing market conditions.

Great news to hear!

Tom,
You wrote "Regarding outboard crossovers, tread lightly. The crossover network works in an environment of the woofer magnetic field and the close proximity between various crossover inductors as well as vibration."

In my conversations with Rob on this, he said that size was indeed an issue for internal placement (this was re the 3.7), and that if one really wanted the best caps this would have be be an outboard mounting. Are you saying to forget about an outboard mod?

Beetlemania,

I looked at this link http://www.humblehomemadehifi.com/Cap.html too. Right -- how does this guy have the time, etc to review all these!? But it was interesting to read the various descriptions. I was a little wary of the "warm" sound described for the Clarity ESA and others. I don't want or like added warmth. I'm a classical musician, around live acoustic all the time in vastly differing venues. What I love about the Thiels is the clarity and ability to accurately reproduce timbre and transients. I don't want any of that rolled off. I realize that some (many) people actually like a warmer sound. Not me.

@tmsrdg I can't even find the name of the person who compared all of those. What is their experience? What is their system? What are their biases and preferences? IOW, how credible are they and how do we translate those words in ways that help us know which caps should be on our short list?

We get to "know" the hi-fi reviewers by reading their words and comparing that to what we experience when listening to the same product. Not much help for that in the case of these caps. One piece of credible info is that Jim Thiel and his team chose the Clarity SA for the CS2.4SE. Too bad we don't know what they compared it to. Also, Tom Thiel is steering us towards Clarity and Mundorf. One other brand that piques my interest is Cornell Dubilier but not sure if they make caps with the correct values for this purpose.

In the end, I might just go with what Rob Gillum recommends. I'm hoping he'll have a kit with all the parts, schematic, and DIY instructions.