Driving a Thiel

I've owned several models of Thiels and you're going to hear this repeatedly from others, but no, a receiver will not effectively drive these speakers. Even at low volumes, you'll never hear what these speakers are capable of without a good, solid state amp, such as a Levinson, Krell, BAT, etc. Thiels are great speakers, but are not very efficient and present a 2-4 ohm load, which requires something better than a receiver.

I agree with Dave43 that your receiver will not properly drive the 2.3 [I also have used a pair of 2 2 from Thiel ] . I have no experience with the 2 other models so my comments are limited to the larger Model .

I do want to point out that a well built [ can handle the lower Load ] Tube amp of 120 Watts or more , can sound very nice with these Speakers . Most VTL , Audio Reaserch , Conrad Johnson , etc. of 120 Watts+ will be fine .

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.

Dave43 is right, so I will go ahead and be the fourth to tell you that your receiver is a poor match for these fine loudspeakers.

Not to say you shouldn't follow Cmalak's advice and get the Thiels of your choice and then move to better amplification as your budget allows. Just make sure that your Marantz receiver is capable of driving <4ohm loads, otherwise you will soon be listening to the wonderful sound of silence.

Better yet, why don't you pick up a pair of used Thiel 2 2's for about $800 (IMO these sound better than any of the models you mention) and use the extra funds to buy an amp that will do the job well.

Good luck.

You can get a bel Canto s500 or S1000 for amp needs for the Thiels. They sound very good together.