Driving a Thiel

To confirm what Tubeo just said, I drive my Thiel 2.4s with Audio Research's Ref 110 power amp (110 wpc) but it has high quality transformers and overengineered power supply (with 520 Joules of energy storage), providing plenty of headroom for peak energy demand. They sound great together but the amp is roughly 2X the cost of the speakers! If you cannot hear the combo together, I would err on the side of caution and look for speakers that are more sensitive with benign impedance curves.

Not to go on a tangent but I would actually work your problem in reverse (funds allowing ofcourse), which is to say, I would start with a speaker that you like and work your way back to find the proper amplification that will drive the speakers suitably. But that may be more than you want to chew on right now. Good luck.

Curio...I have had powerful SS amps behind my Thiel 2.4s...I had the Musical Fidelity A5 (250/500/1000 wpc into 8/4/2 ohms) and I had Musical Fidelity KW500s (500/1000/2000 wpc into 8/4/2 ohms). And I upgraded to the Ref 110 with a big smile on my face. So thank you for your recommendation but I tried all three and know what sounded best (to me). If you read my post I told the OP to be cautious and choose speakers that are more sensitive and have a more benign impedance curve because it is unlikely that has integrated receiver will be able to drive any of the Thiels.

Hevac 1...I am not sure where you get that the Thiel CS2.4 goes down to 1ohm...in the attached link, you will see that the speaker stays between 3 and 4 ohms from 100Hz to 50KHz and drops to 2.7ohms (min dip at 600 Hz). So a high quality 4ohm rated amp with 100wpc+ will drive the Thiel 2.4 very nicely. Here is the Impedance vs Phase vs Frequency plot from Stereophile: http://www.stereophile.com/images/archivesart/theC24FIG1.jpg

Hevac1...my point is the Thiels don't dip down to 1ohm. The Stereophile measurements on the Thiel 2.4 show the min dip of 2.7ohms at 600Hz and for most of the frequency spectrum the Thiels stayed in between 3 and 4 ohms. In any case, i agree with you that the Thiels do need high quality power and a lot of it and the OPs receiver will not drive them properly. By the way, every time i check out your system, I am impressed. Nicely done.

because they want to sell the speakers to testosterone imbued customers like yourself :-)

that was a joke Curio :-) I was just teasing you.