Does a Class D amp match well with Thiel Speakers?

Just a clarification to a note posted above. ARC's class D amps were the 150.2 and 300.2, both using Triamp modules, which went into production in 2004 and were discontinued when Triamp went out of business in 2007 (the 300.2 is not the same as the D300, an older class A/B SS model from the mid-90s). Their current class D amps are the brand-new DS225 and DS450. The SD135 (produced after the 150.2 & 300.2, and before the new DS series) was a class A/B amp.

Sam, you're welcome. Hope I didn't come across as some kind of "ARC know-it-all", merely that since I use a 150.2 with my Maggies, I have a vested interested in ARC's "Class D" amps! I'm also consistent with many of the other posters in this thread in that I too use a tube pre amp (in my case an ARC SP-8) in front of the SS amp, so while I don't have experience with the Thiel speakers, my general experience and choices seem in-line with the others.

Just wanted to say how much I appreciated (and agree with) Dob's extended explanation of what he is looking for in music and in audio technology. I'm off to listen to Itzhak Perlman this evening, and I certainly hope I don't find myself analyzing the sound stage or the detail I'm hearing, both because he is a wonderful musician, and because it will be live, so what I hear is what there is.

I'm reminded of a chamber concert I went to a couple of months back at a local church. My wife and I were sitting about 5th row, the quartet was up on the "stage." I remember at one point thinking that I couldn't locate the instruments with pin-point accuracy, there wasn't a lot of depth to the soundstage and ... I remembered this was a live performance, not me sitting at a dealer evaluating equipment. Whatever I was hearing was what the musicians were doing, even if it didn't fit the vocabulary that is typically used when reviewing audio equipment. So of course I said "stop this, enjoy the music" and I did. Reminds me of a separate thread somewhere which made the point that when we listen to audio at home, we're listening to microphone placement and equalization and equipment, lots of stuff which isn't really the music or performance itself, so we develop a vocabulary to fit, which again isn't the vocabulary that would be appropriate for the performance itself. Which I believe is exactly what Dob said very well in his post.

Mapman, Tommy: I was not trying to create an opposition between listening to live music and listening to audio. Nor was I arguing against detail, "air," sound staging, or any of the other terms we use when evaluating an audio system. But what I was trying to say is that what I value most about my system, i.e. the moments which I wish would occur more often, are those when I'm listening at home, and rather than being conscious of the detail, etc., I suddenly sit up a little straighter because for a moment (usually with solo voices) it sounds like the singer is actually in my room, and I go "wow, that's amazing." So in fact I'm agreeing 100% with Mapman when he says that detail and the rest, done well, achieve a bit of that benchmark of the live performance; I'm just happier when they are working their magic at a sort of subconscious level. And I haven't forgotten where this thread began, with a question about class-D amps and Thiels. As I said in my first posting, my combination of class D ARC amp and tube ARC pre, with Maggies (since I have no experience with Thiels) does, on occasion, provide that little bit of that magic; it is very possible that other combinations may provide that magic even more consistently.