dan - no need for intimidation . . . I'm the "other Thiel". My brother Jim was the design engineer who was fluent in all matters technical. I was the manufacturing guy who built the product and production systems. Although I am conversant in the technicalities, I am not an audio engineer and am here to learn from you guys and develop a possible path for upgrade of classic products.
That upgrade project is behind schedule. It is likely that the first real product to emerge will be beetlemania's CS2.4s. I am cutting my teeth on PowerPoints and CS2 2s and have recently bought a pair of 3.6s. The 1.6, 6.1 and 7.2 are also on my radar. These each represent the terminal expression of their model form before the x.7 series, which could also benefit from upgraded caps, coils and resistors, but they are comparatively new and functionally current, and therefore last on the list.
Regarding your question about which big Thiel, I think either the 6.1 or 7.2 are strong. Both have upgrade potential via better caps, foil coils and Mills resistors. Both are extremely amplifier demanding with impedance around 3 ohms over most of the range. FYI, those were both officially replaced by the 3.7, but the back-story may shed some light. Jim was dying and Thiel needed to streamline its offerings, since all the pre x.7 were manufactured in-house. The obsoleted products still had performance viability, but the company chose to shift the x.7 XO and driver manufacturing to China for production viability. If anyone has sixes or sevens, we would have to reverse engineer the crossovers which I can do from photos and/or a loaner crossover. By the time we get to those models, we'll have clear ideas of what to replace with what.
That upgrade project is behind schedule. It is likely that the first real product to emerge will be beetlemania's CS2.4s. I am cutting my teeth on PowerPoints and CS2 2s and have recently bought a pair of 3.6s. The 1.6, 6.1 and 7.2 are also on my radar. These each represent the terminal expression of their model form before the x.7 series, which could also benefit from upgraded caps, coils and resistors, but they are comparatively new and functionally current, and therefore last on the list.
Regarding your question about which big Thiel, I think either the 6.1 or 7.2 are strong. Both have upgrade potential via better caps, foil coils and Mills resistors. Both are extremely amplifier demanding with impedance around 3 ohms over most of the range. FYI, those were both officially replaced by the 3.7, but the back-story may shed some light. Jim was dying and Thiel needed to streamline its offerings, since all the pre x.7 were manufactured in-house. The obsoleted products still had performance viability, but the company chose to shift the x.7 XO and driver manufacturing to China for production viability. If anyone has sixes or sevens, we would have to reverse engineer the crossovers which I can do from photos and/or a loaner crossover. By the time we get to those models, we'll have clear ideas of what to replace with what.